The period around calving (from two weeks before calving until two weeks after calving) is often the highest risk period for mastitis infections to occur. Therefore this period can be critical in determining the infection status of both the individual cow and the herd for the rest of the lactation.

Milk quality for the whole season (or lactation) may depend on the success of mastitis control at calving.

Thus there are huge potential gains for farmers by preventing new infections in the calving period. Many of these infections can be prevented by implementing some relatively simple management changes.

These management changes have proven to be very effective on many farms – and the real positive is that many of the changes cost very little or nothing at all!  What is commonly required is a little thought about how best to achieve the desired outcome. 

Evidence from around the country is showing that Strep uberis is rapidly becoming one of the most common, if not the most common, mastitis infection, and it is almost certainly the most common infection around calving, so this month’s theme and the grabs have particular relevance to herds wanting to control Strep uberis mastitis.

Contents

The grabs are also available in an MS Word file - without the images

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