#32-2022

NMC
4 min read ,

NMC Annual Meeting holds first-ever hybrid meeting

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.

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Research Phd Theses
3 min read ,

Selective antimicrobial treatment at dry off in dairy cows

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.

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Preface | Free access
1 min read ,

Bovine mastitis, a challenge to dairy cattle farming in Cuba

Mastitis is one of the oldest diseases that currently affects cattle worldwide. In Cuba, in spite of the existence of a program for the control and eradication of this multifactorial disease, it continues to cause enormous economic losses and has serious implications for animal and human health as well as for the production of dairy products.

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Researcher@work
10 min read ,

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

Hock injuries are a common injury in dairy cows that are housed indoors for the greater part of the year. Oftentimes, the lesions indicate inadequate stall or cubicle design in dairy barns. The presence and severity of hock lesions are associated with lameness and other disorders of the limb, which is why most welfare evaluations target hock lesion reductions to improve cow welfare. It is thought that hock lesions may also be associated with mastitis and reduced milk yield. In order to better understand the association between hock lesions and the development of Staphylococcus aureus mastitis, an undergraduate student from the University of Vermont (UVM), US headed-up a case study within the student-run herd as a senior thesis project with the help of her advisor Dr. John Barlow and his graduate students. Veterinarian and UVM PhD student Caitlin Jeffrey presented the findings at the National Mastitis Council Annual Meeting, held in February of this year.

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Administration of dry cow antibiotic
Focus
36 min read ,

An update on evidence-based selective dry cow therapy protocols

Dry cow antibiotic therapy (DCT) is the administration of long acting intramammary antibiotics at the time of dry-off. This practice gained widespread implementation in the 1960s as part of the ‘five point plan’ in the UK and numerous clinical trials have demonstrated its efficacy in promoting udder health through the control of intramammary infections (IMI) during the dry period (Halasa et al., 2009a; Halasa et al., 2009b).

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Management
27 min read ,

What we have learned about mastitis therapy in lactation over the last few years

History of overtreatment – In a large German study from 2019 – conducted before resistance testing became mandatory before the use of critical antibiotic agents in veterinary medicine in Germany – mastitis therapy in Germany was described based on the responses of 499 surveyed farmers/milkers/herd managers.

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