Control Of Mastitis Flashcards
What is the difference between individual and bulk milk SCCs?
Individual - milk from individual
- CMT
Bulk - done automatically by dairy on ALL milk received from farm
What is meant by the term: contagious mastitis?
What type of mastitis does it tend to cause?
Organisms prefer to live IN UDDER and teat skin
Most spread is from cow to cow and quarter to quarter at milking
Often cause subclinical infection
What type of mastitis does strep uberis cause?
Contagious AND environmental - can be associated with straw bedding
Why is staph aureus a tricky cause of mastitis?
Resistant to many antibiotics
Can be intracellular
How could minor pathogens be beneficial?
Low level infections may stop others invading
How does Environmental mastitis occur?
How does it present?
Bacteria live in the environment and sporadically gain entry to the udder.
Either rapidly eliminated or cause VERY SERIOUS mastitis
How long is the dry period?
Around 56 days
What does mastitis in the first 100 days of lactation imply?
Picked up in the dry period
How can environmental pathogens cause mastitis?
Contact with dirty environment
Milking
What environmental organisms may cause mastitis?
E Coli
Strep uberis
Klebsiella
Coliforms
(Bacillus cereus, fungi and yeast)
When might you suspect that Bacillus cereus is causing mastitis?
Cows fed brewers grains
When might you expect fungi and yeast to cause mastitis?
Usually after prolonged antibiotics
What cells are normally found in milk?
Somatic cells
— inflammatory cells
— Epithelial cells
When are epithelial cells high in milk?
Towards the end of lactation
Immediately after calving
ALWAYS PRESENT
When do inflammatory cells in milk increase?
BACTERIAL INFECTION
What cell counts indicate clinical and subclinical infection?
Clinical - millions per ml
Subclinical- more than 200 000 per ml
Describe the spread of subclinical mastitis.
Subclinical infection tends to go undetected and survive in a quarter for long periods
Causes prolonged mildly elevated SCC in that quarter
Spreads at milking time to other quarters/cows
MANY QUARTERS INFECTED
What does a high bulk tank SCC indicate?
High number of subclinical infections
High proportion of quarters infected
HIGH PREVALENCE of mastitis
What is the target bulk milk somatic cell count ?
less than 100,000 per ml
At what bulk milk SCC would you want to intervene?
More than 150 000 per ml
How can you control contagious causes of mastitis?
Control spread at milking Eliminate reservoirs of infection — dry cow therapy — culling — identify subclinically infected cows using individual cell counts
FIVE POINT PLAN
What is the five point plan?
Prompt detection and treatment of clinical cases
Post milking teat dip
Dry cow therapy
Cull persistent offenders
Regular servicing and maintenance of milking machine
How can you carry out ‘prompt detection and treat emend of clinical cases’?
Detection in parlour:
— stripping milk before, looking for clots and watery/serous milk
- also flushes out bacteria and aids milk let down
— strip milk into strip cup so doesn’t splash back and spread infection
— GOOD PARLOUR HYGIENE
- individual paper towels, one per cow
- wear gloves and CHANGE them
Why is it important to keep cows standing after milking?
How can this be achieved?
After milking, teat orifice remains open for 30-40 mins — want to wait for them to close.
Feeding after milking
