Mastitis in dairy cows

Mastitis causes a cow’s udder tissue to become inflamed and painful. Reducing its occurrence helps produce more high-quality milk and increases your herd’s saleable milk yield.

Mastitis treatment and control is one of the largest costs to the GB dairy industry and is a significant factor in dairy cow welfare.

The best way to control mastitis is to protect cows from getting new infections, which can come from the environment or from other infected cows.

Working out when cows get infected and the source of infections is the first step. You can then focus on preventing new cases of mastitis in your herd.

Our entry level programme to help you identify patterns of mastitis and provides resources with appropriate options to control mastitis on your farm.

A next level, proven, structured, evidence-based approach to prevent and control mastitis in dairy cattle.

By far the most common type of mastitis in the UK herd with most new infections coming from the environment, and the majority of new cases originating during lactation, rather than the dry period.

Heifer mastitis before or after calving, or during the first lactation, significantly affects udder health and lifetime milk yield.

Disease-causing bacteria (pathogens) can infect cows both during the dry period and in lactation so it's important to have an understanding to aid prevention and treatment.

Clinical mastitis presents a range of symptoms, which can range from mild to moderate to severe and depends on a variety of factors.

Collecting samples of the milk produced by cows suffering from the symptoms of mastitis enables you to identify which pathogen(s) are responsible to target effective treatment and any control measures that can be implemented.

Drying off cows is vital because it allows time for the udder to recover before the next lactation period.

Somatic Cell Count (SCC) is a main indicator of milk quality and an increase in somatic cells can be an immune response to a mastitis-causing pathogen.