Mastitis

A decision tree to mastitis prevention

adrianne.trennepohl@genusplc.com — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 00:00:00 -0500

To effectively manage milk quality and boost production, it is essential to ensure that cows are comfortable in their environment. Therefore, paying attention to proper udder care is crucial; neglecting it could jeopardize your operation’s bottom line.

An apple a day keeps mastitis away: Monitoring mastitis in automated milking systems

john@cow-corner.co — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Routines to maintain udder health change with the transition to automated milking. In a parlor, most of the monitoring of the cow, the equipment, and to some extent the environment, is part of the milking routine. It is completed by the workers in the parlor as they prep, strip and attach milkers. In automated milking, it is important to develop daily routines to monitor those milk quality control points in other ways.

Klebsiella mastitis: Stop it before it starts

pdv3@cornell.edu — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Klebsiella is a gram-negative bacteria that can cause severe clinical mastitis in dairy cows. If they survive the illness, cows are often culled due to low milk production. This article describes some common ways Klebsiella is transmitted from the environment to teats and strategies on how to prevent Klebsiella mastitis cases on your farm.

What’s the new normal for clinical mastitis therapy?

theudderdoctor@gmail.com — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 -0500

The treatment of clinical mastitis has dramatically changed in the approximately 50 years of my veterinary career. The major focus has been on the proper and judicious use of antibiotics in dairy cattle and assuring the public there are no antibiotic residues in the milk supply.

Get mastitis treatment right the first time: The power of bacteriological cure

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Clinical mastitis cure versus bacteriological cure … is there a difference between the two? Does it really matter? In a word, yes. In a few more words, it matters because the difference between achieving one and not both can be the two things that make or break a dairy’s bottom line: lost productivity and increased costs.

Differentiating mastitis from teat sealant residue at freshening

audrey@agproud.com — Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Correctly differentiating mastitis from teat sealant residue is important to minimize unnecessary interventions and to make sure we’re using antibiotics judiciously on farms.

Controlling bedding pathogens can reduce environmental mastitis

benjamin.saylor@churchdwight.com — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Controlling pathogen outgrowth in recycled manure bedding is possible. When a bacillus-based bedding additive was tested on-farm, a significant reduction in bulk tank SCC and mastitis cases was noticed.

Back to the basics: Gram-negative vs. gram-positive mastitis

dtnolan@illinois.edu — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Determining the infecting bacteria type allows for a more guided treatment decision. Not all producers can work with a veterinarian to culture milk samples, and results from on-farm culturing can be difficult to interpret. However, being able to at least categorize the infecting pathogen can provide valuable information.

2023’s hottest new technologies earn Nexus Innovation Awards

walt.cooley@agproud.com — Sun, 07 May 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Progressive Dairy hosted these technologies along with PDPW on the Nexus Innovation stage – a live-format presentation that is a cross between a TED Talk and a Shark Tank pitch.

Mastitis 101

fuenzalidava@uwalumni.com — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Everyone in the dairy farming world knows how mastitis can negatively affect operations.

Consider the cost: Treating against mastitis caused by pasteurella

cholcomb@endovacanimalhealth.com — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Pasteurella, also known as shipping fever, affects the respiratory tracts of cattle and can cause pneumonia, permanent damage and eventually death in some animals.

Should we manage dry-off differently when using robotic milking facilities?

evf5337@psu.edu — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 21:55:28 -0400

Advancing technology allows producers to make management decisions to improve dairy welfare, as well as the economic status of the farm.

Wisconsin dairy uses dry cow checklist to identify mastitis problem

audrey@agproud.com — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 21:46:56 -0400

Change is hard for anybody, and when things have been done a certain way for so long, they tend to continue to be done that way.

Do you know the cost of one case of clinical mastitis for your herd?

fcferreira@ucdavis.edu — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 15:45:39 -0400

Clinical mastitis is one of the most common diseases in dairy herds, and unfortunately, one that may cause huge financial losses. However, the cost of one case of clinical mastitis varies from farm to farm.

Know the unknowns for successful mastitis treatment

lowell.midla@merck.com — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 03:01:34 -0400

“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.”

Use DNA markers as part of milk quality protocols

rls30@cornell.edu — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 21:14:39 -0400

Over the past dozen years, dairy producers have become accustomed to using DNA technology to speed genetic advancement and manage herd inventories. Now, DNA technology can help with quickly identifying mastitis pathogens.

Gram negatives: Are they all the same?

jim.mattox@cowsultants.org — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 14:00:01 -0500

Rapid, pathogen-specific treatment is quickly becoming one of the major competitive advantages in milk quality management. Leading dairy farms are implementing on-farm culture systems to quickly diagnose and treat clinical mastitis.

From dairy lab to veterinary lab: The do’s and don’ts of mastitis diagnostics

justine@udderhealth.com — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 18:07:47 -0400

The use of a laboratory to identify and diagnose mastitis has been in practice for decades by veterinary practitioners focused on animal health in dairy production animals. As such, it remains one of the most powerful tools to this day in achieving excellent udder health.

What’s the real cost of treating clinical mastitis?

tiago.tomazi@merck.com — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 17:25:18 -0400

Each case of mastitis in the first 30 days of lactation can be extremely costly to the dairy. Direct economic losses include diagnostics and treatment, veterinary fees, milk withhold and death loss.

How to set up an on-farm culturing program

jennifer_3.roberts@boehringer-ingelheim.com — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 15:29:14 -0400

Finding abnormal milk when stripping a cow is like a person experiencing a sore throat: It could mean something more serious, like an infection that requires antibiotics, or it could be something that will resolve on its own.

Klebsiella mastitis – More than just another gram-negative

pdv3@cornell.edu — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 22:22:09 -0400

Klebsiella is becoming a more commonly isolated mastitis-causing organism on dairy farms across the Northeast.

Looking beyond somatic cell count to manage mastitis

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 13:00:07 -0400

Since I graduated from veterinary school almost 30 years ago, there have been big shifts in the types of mastitis found on farms.

Biofilm breakdown: How to fight mastitis in a different way

brose@ahvint.com — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 13:00:01 -0400

Many dairy farmers have experienced at one time or another a challenge with high bacterial cell counts in the milk tank. And, if you have, you know the struggle to reverse it. It seems no matter what you do, the bacteria keep coming back.

Reducing dry period mastitis to improve reproductive efficiency

brian.miller5@merck.com — Fri, 07 May 2021 18:40:45 -0400

Reproductive performance is an important driver of dairy farm profitability and can be impacted by several diseases that occur during the dry period, including mastitis. Mastitis is associated with lost milk production, added treatment costs, inferior milk quality, decreases in reproductive efficiency, early herd removal and/or death.

Mastitis pathogen updates from the field: Perspectives and data from a milk quality lab

justine@udderhealth.com — Fri, 07 May 2021 13:00:01 -0400

Mastitis is an inflammatory disease of the mammary gland that impacts all food production animals reared for milk harvest, but is well documented as the most widespread and costly animal health problem in dairy cows.

Eight ways to satisfy ‘the mastitis triangle’

Fri, 07 May 2021 13:00:01 -0400

In a consumer-driven market like the dairy industry, the demand for high-quality milk is sought after more than ever. Consumers want to be confident in the dairy products they are purchasing, and producers are cognizant of that.

The 3 B’s of udder health

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 19:47:51 -0500

Bedding. Bacteria. Better management.

Culturing on-farm can help control mastitis costs

gdc3@psu.edu — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 17:32:04 -0400

On-farm culturing is a useful tool for mastitis management. It allows for faster response to infections, saves money and helps to identify causes to help with prevention, according to Dr. Ginger Fenton, dairy extension educator at Penn State University.

Extended therapy for mastitis: When should you?

michelle.arnold@uky.edu — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 07:00:00 -0400

Every case of mastitis is costly to the dairy producer. It may be in terms of decreased milk production, treatment expense, lower milk quality premiums and possible culling or death of the affected animal. Indirectly, it takes extra time during milking to properly identify a treated cow and discard her milk, and there is always the risk of antibiotic residues if a treated cow is accidently milked into the tank.

New research program takes aim at Johne’s disease, mastitis

karen@agproud.com — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 06:00:01 -0400

Johne’s disease and mastitis are two of the most economically important diseases affecting the Canadian dairy industry.

To improve the control of these infectious diseases and reduce the limiting effects they have on the productivity of the industry, Dr. Herman Barkema from the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine was appointed as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Industrial Research Chair in Infectious Diseases of Dairy Cattle.