Case study: hock lesions as a potential source of Staphylococcus aureus mastitis

National Mastitis Council (NMC) plowed new ground in early February by offering an in-person and virtual option for NMC members to attend the 61st NMC Annual Meeting. Members on their computers, tablets and mobile phones joined the more than 200 in-person attendees who gathered in San Diego, California, USA. Combining the in-person option with the virtual option yielded a hybrid event that attracted more than 350 NMC members from 31 U.S. states, five Canadian provinces and 26 countries. NMC Annual Meeting presentations ranged from consumer engagement to small ruminant milkability to gut microbial health to genetics to mitigating mastitis when using recycled manure solids.

The 33rd British Mastitis Conference was held on 10 November 2021, returning to its usual venue in Worcester following the virtual conference in 2020 due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The workshop on mastitis data management and control with emphasis on machine milking was presented by James Breen and Ian Ohnstad, on the previous day.

Selective dry cow therapy (SDCT), in which only infected quarters/cows are treated with antimicrobials, constitutes an alternative to blanket dry cow therapy (BDCT) where all quarters of all cows at dry off receive antimicrobials, regardless of their infection status, for a more judicious use of antimicrobials. The objective of this thesis was to shed more light on targeted antimicrobial treatment decisions of infected quarters of cows at dry-off.