When spring-calving, environmental factors such as housing can increase the risk of mastitis, this is especially true a few weeks before cows calve.  This is the key time to concentrate on as this is the easiest time to treat and prevent an infection rather than when they are actively milking.  It is estimated that more than 90% of cases are predominantly environmental pathogen infections (*FWI).  

This makes it certainly worth the effort to concentrate on dry period management ahead of calving as well reviewing your practices to improvements can be made to reduce cases

1. When are infections happening?

Start by establishing when mastitis cases tend to appear in your herd.  Is it during lactation or the dry period?  To get a picture of this you will need cell count data from individual cows ideally every month, but at least every six weeks.  It is also ideal for all cows in-milk to be present when milk recording, even those under treatment or with clinical mastitis.  Knowing when it happens allows you to best address any possible environmental causses

2. What pathogens are the cause of your mastitis outbreaks?

There are two types of pathogens:

• Environmental (for example, Streptococcus uberis and E coli)
• Contagious (for example, Staphylococcus aureus).

Always sample clinical cases – this tells you the pathogen profile cows are exposed to.

3. Keep a record of clinical cases

Make sure you keep and accurate record of any cows with clots/bits in their milk, regardless of planned treatment. A good idea is to score cows according to the following:

• Grade 1: Clots/bits in her milk
• Grade 2: Hot and hard quarter
• Grade 3: Sick cow with severe clinical signs (raised temperature and loss of appetite).