Bedding material for dairy cows: effect on udder health and milk quality

In the face of an increase in new mastitis infections, it is important to identify any environmental or management changes that have recently occurred. Part of this investigation may include assessment of bedding, particularly where analysis of first clinical mastitis event data and/or new high cell count data highlight increases in new infections during periods of housing. This article summarises the literature on bedding materials for dairy cows, with a focus on udder health.

Before exploring bedding materials, it is important to understand how bedding is used. Dairy cow lying areas can be designed in two ways:

Loose housing, shallow-bedded and deep-bedded cubicles provide different levels of cow comfort, and this can impact cow behaviour and lameness. For more information on cow comfort, readers are directed towards an article by Cook and Nordlund (2009). The present article focusses on the impact of bedding materials on udder health.

The most commonly used bedding materials are straw, sand, sawdust and recycled manure solids (see Figure 1). Other bedding types include recycled paper, rape straw, bracken, pea straw and miscanthus (Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, 2018). A survey of UK producers in 2011 found that straw was the most commonly used bedding material, followed by sawdust/shavings then sand (Shipton et al, 2011). This survey was carried out prior to the introduction of recycled manure solids bedding to the UK.