In spite of considerable improvements in milk quality, mastitis continues to be the most frequent and costly disease of dairy cows. The use of on farm culturing to direct treatment of clinical mastitis gives farmers the opportunity to make better treatment decisions and reduce costs associated with milk discard and treatment of microbiologically negative cases.
UW-Extension Milk Quality Specialist Pam Ruegg has developed a new video series to guide individuals Using On Farm Culturing to Improve Mastitis Treatment. Episode 1, Treatment Decisions for Clinical Mastitis, is a two-part episode on making the decision to start a culturing program. In Part 1, Will Antibiotics Help the Cow?, learn which mastitis-causing bacteria responds to antibiotics and which do not. The difficulty is finding these cases in your herd. On farm culturing is one method used to select the cases that would benefit from treatment. Part 2, Using Culture to Make Selective Treatment Decisions, learn the basics of selective treatment for mastitis. Included with Treatment Decisions for Clinical Mastitis is a mastitis treatment decision tree to aid in the on farm culturing and selective treatment program.
UW-Milk Quality promotes an integrated, team-based approach to best manage udder health and milk quality. Producing high quality milk is not a one-person job. It takes farmers and their local dairy advisors to be able to evaluate, manage and improve milk quality. At UW-Milk Quality, we develop tools and resources to help dairy producers meet their milk quality goals and increase farm profitability.