Clinical mastitis cases cost money. 10 clinical cases costing about $1500, money can be quickly diverted from other projects such as upgrading equipment, relief labour and holidays!

Act now

If you calve in Spring the last calving season seems comfortably in the past and the next season seems far away, but now is actually the perfect time to plan for changes for the next season. To reduce the number of clinical cases in next season’s calving, you need to act soon to select your Dry Cow Treatment strategy. Dry Cow Treatment cures existing mastitis infections in your herd and protects cows against new infections as they are dried off.

So review just how many cows were treated last year and take advantage of the quiet time to develop a management plan.

Triggers to take action

Although the number of clinical cases that you can manage and afford is up to you, the Countdown Downunder rule of thumb is to seek professional advice if there are:

• More than 5 clinical cases per 100 cows in the first month of lactation; or

• More than 2 clinical cases per 100 cows in subsequent months of lactation.

What to do

The key is to pull together information collected last year. The most effective Dry Cow strategies and calving management plans are developed when you and your vet have access to:

• Records of all the clinical cases that you treated;

• Results of milk samples to the laboratory (to confirm the cause of mastitis in the herd);

• Individual Cow Cell Counts from your milk recording data.

Your vet can help you combine this information to get a good picture of the effectiveness of your current dry cow and calving management, and to identify opportunities for improvement.

As you develop your plan to reduce clinical mastitis, make sure that everyone  working with cows on your farm shares in the ownership of the plan. There is no magic formula for this, but tips from those with a lot of experience include:

• Setting aside a specific time to discuss mastitis control

• Listening to every member of your milking team – so often they are your ears, eyes and  source of ideas.

Image and caption
Farm Guidelines Toon page 52
“Keep permanent records of all clinical cases that you treat”

Countdown Downunder Farm Guideline or Technote
Farm Guideline 13, 23, 24

Keywords
Dry Cow Treatment, review, professional advice, clinical cases, milk recording

Word length
369