We cannot think of culling on one criteria in isolation – there are many factors that may contribute to a farm’s culling decisions.

The best result will come from making informed decisions based on an understanding of the issues and the extent of potential benefits, and this will be informed by the information available at the time of making the decision.

Countdown Downunder Farm Guideline No. 15, “Cull persistently infected cows”, defines persistently infected cows as those which have had three or more clinical cases of mastitis in the current lactation, or which have maintained a high cell count (over 250,000) into a new lactation despite having been treated with antibiotic dry cow therapy.

Contents

1. Culling - Not always an easy decision
   

2. When should you consider culling cows due to repeated clinical cases of mastitis?
   

3. Persistently infected cow should be considered for culling
   

4. Culling is the only way to eliminate some mastitis infections

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