A team approach is necessary to deal with clinical mastitis at calving with minimal stress and maximum result.

There are three essential elements to having a successful on-farm team.

The first is for everyone to be consistent in how they deal with problems on the farm.

For example, does everyone know which cows to treat for mastitis? Do they detect clinical cases the same way – by looking at the udder for swelling, by checking for heat or pain, or by foremilk stripping all fresh cows for the first 8 milkings? Does everyone know what level of detail to keep on the clinical cases?

The Countdown Downunder Farm Guidelines for Mastitis Control recommends ways of achieving a consistent and reliable approach to recognising and managing clinical cases.

The second element is to ensure all staff  share the same ‘big picture’ about why mastitis has developed in the herd. Otherwise, farm resources will be channelled into treating individual cows instead of pinpointing and correcting the cause of the problem.

Seeing the big picture means being able to detect when mastitis cases in the herd are starting to creep up - and knowing what action to take at different stages of the outbreak. It also means you know what tasks to undertake to provide the information you need to solve mastitis problems at calving,  for example, how to collect good quality milk samples and record detailed information about which cows were clinical.

Last but not least, the on-farm team needs to have good communication, so that key tasks are not duplicated or omitted.

Can everyone (including casual milkers) recognise which cows to treat? Is there a system in place to know when their treatment starts and finishes? Is someone responsible for writing the required level of detail about the clinical cases in a book? Who pulls it together and checks that everything is on track? How regularly do they pass this information back to the rest of the on-farm team?

Having consistent records, triggers that are recognised by everyone, and good communication among team members will provide an early warning for emerging clinical case problems at calving. Early problem recognition and action means less stress and healthier cows.

Image and caption

“Does everyone on your farm use the same method to detect and treat clinical mastitis cases?” (click image for higher quality copy)

Countdown Downunder Farm Guideline or Technote
Farm Guideline 4.1, 4.2, 4.8, 4.9, 13.1, Fact Sheet E

Keywords
Calving, clinical cases, consistency, communication, team approach

Word length
385