60,000 or more dairy producers and industry persons subscribe to Hoard’s Dairyman.
- 5% of subscribers are dairymen
- Only 1.7% are veterinarians
- Nearly 80% own more than 50 cows
- More than 55% of subscribers are younger than 55 years old
- 30% of subscribers are younger than 44 years old
As VFD oversight begins, veterinarians must pay careful attention to what producers read and learn. This drives their questions and practices. Concise, one-page articles like this help establish management practices critical to herd health and economic survival of dairy producers. Salespersons and DVMs will find the information valuable as a refresher or to proactively communicate with clients.
“Producers and veterinarians are trained to look for physical evidence when it comes to identifying diseases in cows. After all, we can’t treat what doesn’t exist. But evidence of subclinical mastitis isn’t completely untraceable,” says Mark Kirkpatrick, DVM, managing veterinarian with Zoetis’ dairy technical services team.
Source: Hoard’s Dairyman, December 2015, page 765. (direct link available to subscribers)
Are dairy producers losing money due to subclinical mastitis? Most dairymen respond to this question with a puzzled look. Unless they see physical mastitis symptoms, any other type of mastitis is a non-event. Subclinical mastitis is different. Often called hidden mastitis, it can widely affect a herd without presenting signs of a problem. For every case of clinical mastitis, there may be 15 to 40 subclinical mastitis cases in the herd. Could this be the case on your dairy?
Dr. Kirkpatrick prioritizes the following in the article:
- Examine the percentage of cows with a first test greater than 200,000 cells/mL.
- Create hot sheets.
- Share these hot sheets with your veterinarian. Work with the DVM to establish monitoring and culturing protocols, along with on-label treatment practices, based on your dairy’s common pathogens.
- Develop a pathogen map.
- Treat subclinical infections.
- Dry cow programs are critical.