Clinical scenario - mastitis Flashcards
How would you improve butterfat percentage? What should you use?
Increase forage in die (but this may decrease total milk yield - perhaps total fat production stays same but appears to increase because of the milk volume change). There are fats such as palm oils you can feed such as calcium salts which bypass the rumen, are absorbed in gut, typically 60% ends up in milk. But this seems a bit inefficient - one theory suggests it is perhaps better to add fat directly to the milk once it is out of the cow. UFAs (e.g. linseed oil, also fresh spring grass) would decrease the milk fat content.
What does a high Bactoscan indicate? What should you do in this instance?
o This is a high Bactoscan and may be due to different issues such as poor milking hygiene, poor milk refrigeration (milk temperature needs to decrease quickly), poorly maintained milking parlour and a poor cleaning process.
ACTIONS: In instances with high Bactoscan, actions to take include: observe milker, take swaps of milk machine and culture?, culture to identify the types of bacteria - are they mainly environmental bugs? if so, perhaps the temperature of your cleaning isn’t high enough.
Do the number of mastitis cases relate to the severity of mastitis cases?
Yes because typically if you have a lot of subclinical cases, your clinical cases will be less severe (and vice versa). This is because bulk milk SCC increases (because of subclinical mastitis) meaning you have a better immune response to an infection (more leukocytes to deal with infection) so you have less cases of clinical mastitis.
What is FOL?
Follow up sample (used to monitor a change or to monitor an effective change. Doesn’t contribute to milk tank data, just for the farmer’s use, therefore won’t necessarily result in a financial penalisation).
What is FPD?
Freezing Point Depression.
What is FPD used for?
Relates to the level of solutes in the liquid that affect the freezing point. Tested in milk as it can indicate milk adulteration (e.g. farmer deliberately adding water to milk to increase its volume).
What is the range for FPD?
Range (e.g. 512 to 550 or >540) depends on technique used to determine this.
When would you fail an FPD test?
Failure on the FPD may be because of residual water in the bulk tank and some fresh water destined for slurry pits accidentally ends up in tank. Mostly failure is because of error (and often chemicals are found in this). Therefore if an error is detected, milk is tested for chemicals. If chemicals are found, milk will be discarded. If FPD is <512 but no chemicals are detected then farmer is still likely to be paid for it.
What does urea level in milk reflect?
reflects balance between protein intake and fermentable energy (it too much compared to rumen degradable protein, the urea will go down - and vice versa).
Where is high milk urea commonly found?
typically found on grass systems where there is typically more protein than energy. 100-140 is common reference range (maize based systems). Higher urea range if grass based system.
What does low milk urea suggest?
there may not be enough protein in the ration so need to increase this (check level of fermentable energy too)
When you calculate mastitis incidence, what should you always remember to do?
state whether or not you are including repeat offenders. Also remember the sensitivity of the farmer in detecting mastits
What cause of mastitis is indicated on a farm with many subclinical cases (i.e. high SCC)?
environmental
Is environmental or contagious mastitis generally more severe?
environmental
What is one way to prevent environmental mastitis?
PRE-milking teat dipping because environmental infections occur in the parlour
