WHAT IS MASTITIS?

  Mastitis is the most common disease of dairy cattle it is estimated that a mastitis problem will very big loss in our dairy industry, understanding what causes mastitis will help you put strategies in place to control it on your farm mastitis is inflammation of the other tissue and is most commonly caused by bacteria entering the udder through open tea ends, 

once a quarter becomes infected milk production milk quality and the welfare of the cow all suffer the cow's udder is built to prevent bacteria from entering the teat canal is lined by a modified skin layer that opens during milking and folds up after milking closing the teat end if bacteria do get in the cow sends white blood cells into the udder to fight the infection the white blood cells are called somatic. 

cells and you can measure these on an individual care or herd level to get an idea of the presence and severity of mastitis the effectiveness of a cow's immune response depends on who being well feared and as free as possible from stressors such as other diseases in poor weather conditions to assist the cow's natural defenses it is important to keep Tins as clean and dry as possible it is also important that we use an efficient milking technique that doesn't cause damage to the teat duct or the teat opening so that it can close completely and quickly after milking the entire milking process right from when cows are bought in from the paddock should be as stress-free as possible to assist with this process when the cow's mastitis defenses break down the resulting infection is either clinical or subclinical clinical mastitis as when cows have actual visible signs these signs can include clots or flakes in the milk redness swelling pain or firmness of the quarter 

clinical mastitis is much more common in early lactation than later in the season and is often associated with very high individual care somatic cell counts it is usually caused by bacteria found in the cow's environment.

subclinical mastitis as when cows have high somatic cell counts but their milk and quarters look normal subclinical.

mastitis usually causes lower individual cows somatic cell counts than clinical mastitis but this can easily go undiagnosed and the numbers of infected cows can build up over time resulting in a significant milk quality problem. it is often caused by contagious bacteria such as staph aureus which get moved around from cow to care during milking for an individual care subclinical mastitis doesn't have a seasonal pattern like clinical mastitis but on a herd level, it is more of a concern late in the season as production drops and more cows become infected what you do to manage mastitis depends on what is happening with your cow.

carving mastitis control focuses on minimizing stress to the animals practicing good hygiene identifying and treating cases as early as possible and ensuring that cows entering the milking hood have a normal somatic cell count later in lactation milking technique becomes more important as we concentrate on preventing the spread of subclinical mastitis between cows at dry off and over the dry period you can cure existing infections to prepare cows for next season and provide protection to keep environmental bacteria, new infection through to carving you can also kill cows or quarters which are unlikely to cure over the dry period.