Relationship between certain aspects of farm management and mastitis on dairy farms

Mastitis is one of the most frequent and expensive disease of dairy cows which has significant impact on animal welfare and farm profitability. The purpose of udder health management is to create the conditions of animal health to produce good quality milk and to reduce the use of antibiotics. While mastitis is a multifactorial disease, there are many farm management factors that can influence the udder health and consequently the milk quality on the commercial dairy farms. In order to prevent mastitis, farm managers should consistently put effort in optimizing nutrition, housing conditions, milking equipment, milking technique, and hygiene. Milking practices (number of milking, use of gloves, fore-strip, quality of pre-milking routine, use of post-milking disinfectants, milking and treatment of cows with mastitis), dry period and other mastitis prevention measurements (vaccination, removing tail and udder hair, regular monitoring of individual SCC) are of major importance. The use of SCC as a diagnostic tool for the early diagnosis of mastitis can