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Dry cow environment management and mastitis control in dairy herds
Abstract
Advice regarding the management and importance of the dry cow environment can be difficult to offer in many dairy herds for several reasons. These may include a perception that dry cow therapy (both internal teat sealant and antibiotic) is extremely effective at preventing infection, a lack of milk recording and/or mastitis data to enable analysis of mastitis epidemiology, suboptimal housing, a fundamental lack of focus on the dry period in favour of continued focus on milking hygiene and lactating cow management, or a combination of several of these reasons. However, for many herds that struggle to control mastitis, improving the dry cow environment will pay huge dividends in terms of reducing dry period new infection and improving apparent dry period cure rate. This article sets out those areas of dry cow environment management which appear particularly important for herds and their veterinary advisors to consider, and gives examples of improved control of mastitis following dry cow interventions for a spring calving, autumn calving and all year round calving herd.
In the last 20 years, studies in UK dairy herds have shown the importance of intramammary infections acquired during the dry period and the subsequent impact of these infections on mastitis control in the next lactation (Bradley and Green, 2000, 2001). The veterinary surgeon asked to review clinical mastitis control must have knowledge of the current pattern of new (first) cases to allow preventive measures to be put in place and to avoid the need to treat in future. Research has shown that clinical mastitis events reported in the first 30 days after calving are likely to be caused by infection acquired during the dry period (Bradley and Green, 2006; Green et al, 2002, 2007b). In addition, individual cow somatic cell counts >200 000 cells/ml at the first milk recording post-calving are also likely to reflect dry period infection rather than a true ‘failure’ to cure pre-existing infection (Bradley and Green, 2004).
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