Dairy Event 2010: Mastitis costs farmers £200m a year
Mastitis is costing the dairy industry £200m a year with the use of antibiotics also increasing year on year, according to National Milk Laboratories’s Hannah Pearse.
Speaking at the Dairy Event and Livestock Show, Ms Pearse explained how the increasing use of antibiotics was not resulting in the desired effects of reduced somatic cell counts. “This is an issue, particularly due to consumer concerns over animal health and welfare.”
But equally concerning was the individual cost a dairy farmer could be bearing just from a slight increase in cell counts, explained Ms Pearse. “An increase in cell counts from 240,000 to 310,000 at a penalty of 1.8p/litre would cost £21,000 a year, and this doesn’t take in to account the cost of treatment, waste milk, reduced milk yield and forced cull,” she said.
But when farmers paid attention to detail there was no need to see these sorts of levels, she said. “When the number of chronic cows in the herd is kept at less than 10%, then the overall SCC will almost certainly be below 200,000ml. However, the average number of chronic cows is 14%. So when we can reduce chronic cows we can reduce SCC.”
And to tackle clinical cases of mastitis there were several steps farmers needed to take. “Farmers first need to identify the bacteria causing infection which can be done using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology. Once the type of bacteria have been identified then a pathogen specific treatment plan must be created so treatment is targeted according to the pathogens. The source of infection must then be identified and methods then implemented going forward.”
And since chronic cows are the result of new mastitis infection, it is important to understand the whole system in which milk is produced to reduce these chronic cows, added Ms Pearse.