Control of Mastitis Flashcards
What are the two major categories of mastitis?
Contagious
Environmental
Describe contagious mastitis…
Organisms prefer to live in the udder and teat skin
Often subclinical
Mostly spread from cow to cow at milking
Outline the major pathogens associated with contagious mastitis…
Strep agalactiae
Strep dysgalactiae
Staph aureus
Strep uberis
Which mastitis-causing pathogen is associated with damp straw?
Strep uberis
Which mastitis-causing pathogen is associated with wood shavings?
Klebsiella
Describe environmental mastitis…
Linked with a dirty environment
Environmental pathogens sporadically gain access to udder
Usually either rapidly eliminated or cause very serious mastitis
If quarter is infected during dry period can persist and cause problems in early lactation
List some important husbandry aspects associated with minimising environmental mastitis…
Hosuing design Cubicle design Yard management Scraping of dung Dry cow housing
Outline the major pathogens associated with environmental mastitis..
E coli Strep uberis Klebsiella Coliforms Bacillus cereus Fungi Yeasts
Which somatic cell types are always found in milk?
Inflammatory
Epithelial
When are milk levels of epithelial cells usually high?
End of lactation
Immediately after calving
Bacterial infection
Give a somatic cell count for milk from a cow with clinical mastitis…
millions cells/ml
Give a somatic cell count for milk from a cow with subclinical mastitis…
> 200,000 cells/ml
What is a target bulk milk somatic cell count?
> 100,000 cells/ml
What is an intervention level bulk SCC?
150,000 cells/ml
At that bulk milk SCC is financial penalty incurred?
200,000 cells/ml
Outline the 5 point plan for control of contagious mastitis….
- Prompt detection and treatment of clinical cases
- Post milking teat dip
- Dry cow therapy
- Cull persistent offenders
- Regular servicing and maintenance of milking machine
At what level does a cow become a persistent offender of mastitis?
3 or more cases of clinical mastitis per lactation
Persistently high individual SCC that does not respond to treatment
Suggest 4 agents used for post-milking teat dips…
Iodophores
Chlorein-based agents
Chlorhexidine
Quarternery ammonium compounds
Suggest 3 methods for postmilking teat dipping…
Dip cup
Spray
Automatic exit systems
What are the 2 main methods of dry cow therapy?
Long-acting antibiotics
Teat sealant
Outline the use of long-acting antibiotics in dry cow therapy…
Aims to remove existing subclinical infections during the dry period
All quarters infused with antibiotics at last milking
Greatly improved efficacy over lactation therapy
Prevents infection establishing during dry period
What is the only part of the milking machine that regularly comes into contact with the udder?
Liner
What is liner slip?
Air leaking into top of liner (makes distinct sound)
