Udder Health Flashcards

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1
Q

Can bacteria spread through the udder quarters?

A
  • NO
  • Bacteria must enter through the streak canal of each quarter
    • Exception - Mycoplasma organisms
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2
Q

What is required for mastitis to occur?

A
  • Bacteria
  • Either Animal susceptibility or Environmental/management issues
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3
Q

What are the common pathogens that cause mastitis?

A
  • Contagious
    • Staph aureus
    • Mycoplasma bovis
    • Strep agalactiae - very rare in the US
  • Environmental
    • Coliforms (E. coli, Klebsiella, Enterobacter sp. )
      • Up to 40% of cases, and 25% of cows in well-managed herds are dx with coliform mastitis anually
    • Environmental streps: Strep uberis, Strep dysgalactiae
    • Other gram negative - Serratia, Proteus, Raoultella
      • clinical mastitis due to gram- is inbersly related to bulk tank somatic cell count
        • BTSCC⇣ = G-⇡
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4
Q

Why are cases of mastitis moving from contagious to environmental causes?

A
  • Due to industry’s adoption of mastitis control program
    • Post milk teat disinfection
    • Universal dry-cow therapy
    • Treatment SOP for clinical cases
    • Routine/regular milking machine maintenance
    • Culling chronic mastitis cows
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5
Q

How do infections occur with contagious vs environmental pathogens?

A
  • Contagious:
    • able to colonize and live within the udder
    • Infection occurs during the milking process
  • Environmental:
    • Are eliminated rapidly once inside the udder
    • Infection occurs between milking
      • can occur during with dirty udders / poor machine function
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6
Q

How is environmental mastitis managed?

A
  • Proper human milking procedures/training/monitoring
  • Bedding
  • Manure
  • Environmental moisture
  • Stall design
  • Animal density
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7
Q

What are the signs of clinical mastitis?

A
  • Abnormal milk (flakes, clots, etc)
  • Abnormal secretions
  • Quarter(s) that are:
    • red, swollen, or painful
  • Fever
  • Anorexia
  • Lethargy
  • Rumen stasis
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8
Q

How is clinical mastitis severity scored? why?

A
  • Used to monitor how quickly/slowly milkers are recognizing mastitis
  • If 20% or more of the mastitis cases =score 3, the observational intensity or case definitions need to be re-visited
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9
Q

How is a subclinical mastitis identified?

A
  • California mastitis test (CMT)
    • negative = 100,000
    • Trace = 300,000
    • 1 = 900,000
    • 2 = 2.7mil
    • 3 = 8.1mil
  • Electrolytic conductivity
    • in line or handheld (MasTek)
    • Resistance of milk to electric current
    • Mastitis: Lactose and K decrease, Na and Cl increase
  • Somatic Cell Count
    • Raw SCC >200,000/ml = infection
    • Linear score > 4.0-4.2 = infection
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10
Q

How is Bacterial load at milking reduced?

A
  • Pre-dip - control environmental mastitis
    • reduces bacteria load on the teat at time of milking
  • Post-dip - control of contagious mastitis
    • Removes milk film (lessens nutrients available for bacterial growth & reduces the number of bacteria that can colonize the teat skin between milking)
    • Doesn’t last long enough between milkings to assist with environmental mastitis
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11
Q

What teat dips are out there?

A
  • Good universal: 1% iodine with 10% emollients (glycerin, etc)
  • Chlorine
  • Acidified sodium chlorite
  • sodium hypochlorite
  • chlorhexidine
  • Hydrogen peroxide
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12
Q

What vaccines exist for mastitis?

A
  • Gram Negative core vaccines:
    • E. coli - J5, Mastiguard, JVac
    • Klebsiella - Klebvax, Vaccon
    • labeled for 2-3 doses per year
    • Anticipated Effectiveness:
      • reduces severity of gram negative infections
      • Likely does not reduce infection risk
  • Staph Aureus - Lysigin
    • current research - SA vax increases spontaneous cure rates
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13
Q

What are the challenges for Mastitis vaccines?

A
  • Milk dilution of immune cells
    • Antibody concentration in milk is much lower than serum
  • Fat and casein reduce effectiveness of immune cells
  • Milk is an excellent growth media for bacteria
  • SA microabscesses, fibrin deposition, intracellular life
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14
Q

When should mastitis vaccinations be used?

A

In herds that are performing the 5 step prevention program ad are concentrating on environmental management

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15
Q

What is a teat sealant?

A
  • Used to prevent bacteria from entering the streak canal
  • Applied when animals go dry to prevent dry cow/fresh cow mastitis
  • Types:
    • External - silicone/latex based, non-antibiotic
    • Internal - bismuth based, non-antibiotic
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16
Q

Should teat sealant and/or antibiotics be used at dry off?

A
  • internal teat sealants are economically worthwhile
    • can estimate advantage/disadvantage, cost of mastitis case (production loss, treatment, saleable milk loss, increase culling vs sealant cost)
  • Blanket Antibiotic treatment is economically worthwhile
    • also aids in curing infections existing at dryof
  • Select Antibiotic treatment:
    • cows with no count >200,000 in the last 3 months in low SCC herds do not require antibiotic treatments at dryoff
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17
Q

What are the economic costs of mastitis in dairy cattle?

A
  • Increased amount of non-saleable milk
  • Decreased milk production
    • decreases amount of saleable milk
  • Decreased milk quality
    • Producer doesn’t receive quality bonus
    • Reduced shelf-life and cheese yield
  • Increased treatments
  • Increased culling
18
Q

What types of milking systems are used in the US?

A
  • 78% of cows milked in parlors
    • Tandem parlor
    • Herringbone parlor
    • Parallel parlor
    • Parabone parlor
    • Rotary parlor
  • Robotic
    • $$$
19
Q

What is the Bulk Tank?

A
  • Where the milk is collected to be transported ot eh milk company
  • Where samples for milk cultures can be collected
  • Milk after the first 6 milkings after calving and not on antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, etc will be collected here
20
Q

How is surveillance for antimicrobial residues in milk done?

A
  • Each arriving truckload of milk at the plant must be tested for the presence of at least 4 of 6 speific Beta-lactam drugs
    • Penifillin
    • Ampicillin
    • Amoxicillin
    • Cloxacillin
    • Cephapirin
    • Ceftiofur
  • Random samples are also tested for other antibiotics, non-steroidal inflammatory drugs and antihistamines
21
Q

What happens to the producer when there are antimicrobials found in their milk?

A
  • Grade A permit suspension
  • Milk sales on hold until further notice
  • Milk must be disposed of in a manner that removes it from the human and animal food chain
  • Producer is liable for value of all milk on the contaminated load
22
Q

How does a producer get reinstated after having their milk test positive for antimicrobials?

A

Representative milk samples tested and not positive for drug residues

23
Q

What is the production cycle for a dairy cow?

A
24
Q

What is the Iceberg principle with mastitis

A

For every clinical mastitis case there are ~15-40 subclinical cases

25
Q

Why is oxytocin important in dairy cattle?

A
26
Q

Do beef cattle get mastitis?

A
  • Usually isolated events
  • Staph aureus common
    • fly transfer, pasture
  • Trueperella pyogenes - common secondary invader
  • Mycoplasma sp - rare
    • more associated with multiple animals affected
    • Common to see calf pneumonia/otitis/joint infections in conjunction
27
Q

How is beef cattle mastitis treated?

A
  • Intramammary treatment not effective
  • Injectable antibiotics not effective
  • Treatment = Teat amputation
    • bottom half of the teat
    • rapid clinical improvement
28
Q

What is Udder cleft dermatitis?

A
  • “necrotic dermatitis”
  • Malodorous
  • weeping wound
  • Udder attachment to body wall
  • Caused by mites in some cases
29
Q

How is Udder cleft dermatitis treated?

A
  • Clean
  • Topical antiseptic
  • Miticide
  • Eprinex
30
Q

What is Herpes mammilitis?

A
  • Cause: Bovine Herpesvirus II
  • Vesicles form and rapidly rupture
    • may be a few to the entire teat
  • Almost always 1st lactation animals
  • Histo and virus isolation to dx
31
Q

How is Herpes mammillitis treated?

A
  • Milk last
  • teat dips with emollients
32
Q

What is Mycoplasma wenyonii and how does it affect dairy cattle?

A
  • RBC parasite
  • Symptoms:
    • Bilateral rear limb edema +/-
    • Teat and udder edema
  • Not associated with calving
  • Usually resoles in 6-8 days
    • injectable oxytet - speeds recovery
33
Q

How is the severity of mastitis graded?

A
  • Score 1 - abnormal milk only
  • Score 2 - abnormal milk & red/swollen quarter
  • Score 3 - Abnormal milk, red/swollen quarter, & systemic signs (fever, rumen stasis, lethargy, severe production loss)
34
Q

What are the treatment options for mastitis?

A
  • Not culture based
    • clinical signs ⇢ IMM treatment
  • Culture based
    • clinical signs ⇢ IMM treatment ⇢ Culture ⇢ reassess treatment
    • clinical signs ⇢ culture ⇢ maybe IMM treatment
35
Q

What are the considerations when choosing an IMM treatment?

A
  • Target organism
  • Number of treatment
  • Milk withhold
  • slaughter withhold
  • Cost usually NOT a consideration
36
Q

What are the benefits of using a non-culture based approach to treating mastitis?

A
  • Increases probability of bacterial cure
  • Decreases probability of chronicity
  • Rapid return to saleable milk
37
Q

Why would one not use the culture based approach to treating mastitis?

A
  • Large percentage of gram negative infections will self-cure regardless of treatment
  • Concentration on reducing antimicrobial use
38
Q

How does the culture based therapy work? when do you use antimicrobials?

A
  • Immediate antimicrobial treatment:
    • Intramammary antibiotics while waiting for culture results
  • Delayed antimicrobial treatment - wait for results
  • Results:
    • No growth - stop treatment/ no treatment
    • Gram Neg - stop treatment/no treatment or change to IMM with gram neg spectrum
    • Gram Pos CNS/Streps - continue IMM, narrow spectrum antibiotics for 1-3 days as per label.
    • Staff aureus - consider history
      • treat - early lactation
      • do not treat - mid lactation
      • Dry early - late lactation
      • Cull - chronic cows
39
Q

What is the treatment for severe mastitis?

A
  • Fluids (if IV practical) 5-10 gallons PO 2-3x / day
    • Fluid option - 1L hypertonic saline IV followed by PO water
  • Anti-inflammatory - flunixin / Dexamethasone
  • Systemic antibiotics:
    • no labeled antibiotic for systemic mastitis
    • Excenel at labeled dose, route frequency (ELDU)
  • IMM antibiotics - collect sterile sample first!
    • More likely gram negative
    • Spectramast or Polymast
40
Q

How can a vet tell if the cause of mastitis is environmentally based?

A
  • Many time see an increase in BTSCC 7-10 days later
  • Once resolved, BTSCC will decrease within a day or two
41
Q

How can a vet tell if the cause of mastitis is contagious?

A
  • Slow increase in BTSCC over weeks to months
    • especially staph aureus
  • Sudden increase in BTSCC or clinical mastitis due to contagious pathogens is rare
42
Q

How is a sterile milk sample collected?

A
  • Use a new set of gloves for each cow
  • remove the first 2-3 squirts from each teat onto the ground
  • Pre-dip each teat, leave for 30sec
  • Dry teats with individual paper towel
  • Scrub each teat end with an alcohol soaked cotton ball
    • furthest teat first, closer last
  • alcohol swab should show no signs of dirt
  • Sample closest teat first, farthest last
    • 2-4 squirts
    • do NOT hold the vial directly under the udder. Hold it horizontally and direct the milk flow into the vial