Because We Care

Mastitis

The average cost of a case of mastitis is around £125, but on top of that are the on-going losses of high cell counts. Most dairy farmers have a huge amount of information about high cell count cows at their fingertips, but how should this be used?

In reality, cell counts are one of the most under-used records in dairy farming, and the practice offers a service involving detailed analysis of mastitis and cell count records. This can be combined with a comparison of the effectiveness of different dry cow therapies on your farm, and with cure rates for different milking cow treatments. For example, we can show a ten per cent difference on some farms in the number of mastitis cases occurring in the first three months after calving depending upon the dry cow therapy used. That represents a saving of between five hundred and one thousand pounds per year for a 100 cow herd – all for the same price of dry-cow tube.

Mr Earl  has a special interest in the subject of bovine mastitis and is a regular attendee of the British Mastitis Conference.

Individual cell count and mastitis histories of thousands of cows have been collected and studied by Mr Earl since 1998, and used to offer advice to farmers about mastitis control. The records have given us a huge amount of experience in analysing cell count problems, and we offer this service both to our own clients and as a second opinion service to other vets.