On a lot of farms at the moment, cows are being dried off, or at least farmers are considering drying off. This can be a critical time in any mastitis control plan by selecting a long-acting antibiotic preparation that goes into the quarter to kill and reduce the bugs in that quarter. This type of antibiotic dry cow therapy is commonplace on most Irish farms.
Blanket treatment
This process of blanket treatment is changing and over the last three years, a number of our farmers are choosing or selecting cows to treat and apply teat sealant to those that haven’t received an antibiotic. This was done on my advice, because I feel that this sort of blanket treatment is unnecessary on a lot of our farms. There is now increasing pressure at European level to reduce treatment of all dry cows with antibiotic and move towards selective treatment.
The worries are over antibiotic resistance issues and more sustainable use of antibiotics in food-producing animals. It makes sense to me that a clinically healthy cow with consistently low SCC does not receive intramammary antibiotics at drying off. Provided she is healthy and other factors such as nutrition, housing, hygiene and teat sealants are used, her own immune system should heal and remodel the mammary gland.
Selective dry cow therapy will only work if we do it properly. It should only be done when you have a number of things in place:
Bulk tank SCC results.Individual cow SCCs for at least two previous recordings – ideally four to six. Clinical mastitis recorded (you know the cows that have been treated in the last six months).Bacteriology – this is cultures of bulk and five or six problem cows at drying off. This will let you know what are the active bugs in quarters and also sensitivity testing these can lead to more effective antibiotic selection. With this information, along with looking at teat scoring, I will then decide which cows need to be treated. For example, one of our farms only did 15% of his dry cows last year. I will use a cut-off SCC for a herd based on risk assessment of dry cow management practises and I will insist all cows get an internal teat sealant. Any cow that has had clinical mastitis in the last three or four months will receive a treatment. If using CMT testing to isolate affected cows, remember they will only show up if SCC is greater than 400,000, so there is a small margin for error here if using this alone.
Time
The important factor is that we spend time doing and planning it. It can save money, but importantly it is preparing farms for a future without blanket dry cow therapy. Judging by what’s happening elsewhere, my own opinion will be that this will be a forced practise anyway over the coming years.
It is worth noting that if strep agalactiae is isolated before drying off, we will use blanket treatment on all cows.
The more information you garner and time spent planning makes this process much more straightforward. It must be done also with an overview of herd mastitis control. So sit down with your vet and proactively plan for the future.
On a lot of farms at the moment, cows are being dried off, or at least farmers are considering drying off. This can be a critical time in any mastitis control plan by selecting a long-acting antibiotic preparation that goes into the quarter to kill and reduce the bugs in that quarter. This type of antibiotic dry cow therapy is commonplace on most Irish farms.
Blanket treatment
This process of blanket treatment is changing and over the last three years, a number of our farmers are choosing or selecting cows to treat and apply teat sealant to those that haven’t received an antibiotic. This was done on my advice, because I feel that this sort of blanket treatment is unnecessary on a lot of our farms. There is now increasing pressure at European level to reduce treatment of all dry cows with antibiotic and move towards selective treatment.
The worries are over antibiotic resistance issues and more sustainable use of antibiotics in food-producing animals. It makes sense to me that a clinically healthy cow with consistently low SCC does not receive intramammary antibiotics at drying off. Provided she is healthy and other factors such as nutrition, housing, hygiene and teat sealants are used, her own immune system should heal and remodel the mammary gland.
Selective dry cow therapy will only work if we do it properly. It should only be done when you have a number of things in place:
Bulk tank SCC results.Individual cow SCCs for at least two previous recordings – ideally four to six. Clinical mastitis recorded (you know the cows that have been treated in the last six months).Bacteriology – this is cultures of bulk and five or six problem cows at drying off. This will let you know what are the active bugs in quarters and also sensitivity testing these can lead to more effective antibiotic selection. With this information, along with looking at teat scoring, I will then decide which cows need to be treated. For example, one of our farms only did 15% of his dry cows last year. I will use a cut-off SCC for a herd based on risk assessment of dry cow management practises and I will insist all cows get an internal teat sealant. Any cow that has had clinical mastitis in the last three or four months will receive a treatment. If using CMT testing to isolate affected cows, remember they will only show up if SCC is greater than 400,000, so there is a small margin for error here if using this alone.
Time
The important factor is that we spend time doing and planning it. It can save money, but importantly it is preparing farms for a future without blanket dry cow therapy. Judging by what’s happening elsewhere, my own opinion will be that this will be a forced practise anyway over the coming years.
It is worth noting that if strep agalactiae is isolated before drying off, we will use blanket treatment on all cows.
The more information you garner and time spent planning makes this process much more straightforward. It must be done also with an overview of herd mastitis control. So sit down with your vet and proactively plan for the future.
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