Maintaining Optimal Mammary Gland Health and Prevention of Mastitis

Abstract

In dairy industry, quality of produced milk must be more important than quantity without a high somatic cells count (SCC) or pathogens causing mastitis of dairy cows and consumer diseases. Preserving the good health of dairy cows is a daily challenge for all involved in primary milk production. Despite the increasing level of technological support and veterinary measures, inflammation of the mammary gland-mastitis, is still one of the main health problems and reasons for economic losses faced by cow farmers. The mammary gland of high-yielding dairy cows requires making the right decisions and enforcing the proper measures aimed at minimizing external and internal factors that increase the risk of intramammary infection. Due to the polyfactorial nature of mastitis related to its reduction, the effectiveness of commonly used antimastitis methods tends to be limited and therefore it is necessary to find the areas of risk in udder health programs and monitoring systems. Only by implementing of complete udder health programs should be accompanied by research efforts to further development these complete udder health control. The present review analyses the current knowledge dealing with damping and prevention of mastitis include SCC control, proper nutrition, housing and management, milking and drying as practiced in dairy farming conditions. This information may help to improve the health of the mammary gland and the welfare of the dairy cows as well as the production of safe milk for consumers.

Keywords: bedding; dairy cows; dry period; mastitis; nutrition; somatic cells count; treatment.

Figure 1

Factors influencing the development of mastitis in dairy cows. Soure: Adapted from Abebe et al. (17).

Figure 2

Process of udder infection. (A) – Organisms invade the udder through teat canal, (B,C) - Migrate up the teat canal and colonize all parts where the milk gets and finally setup the infection in mammary gland, (D) - alveoli and secretory mammary epithelial cells. After getting bacterial infection, cellular defense mechanism become active and phagocytic cells (from blood) effort to engulf and kill the bacteria, phagocytosis by products and release of bacterial toxins damage to the secretory mammary epithelial cells (E). Soure: Adapted from Sharma and Jeong (21).

Figure 3

Factors and management practices affecting the release of milk SCC. Source: Adapted from Alhussien and Dang (49).

Figure 4

Determination of severity and treatment of mastitis according to clinical symptoms. Source: Adapted from Bargren (56).

Figure 5

Factors affecting hazards and risks associated with bedding materials in dairy cow housing. Source: Adapted from Bradley et al. (82).

Figure 6

Incorrect and correct udder washing. Note: Direct spraying with a strong stream of water on the udder is unacceptable. Slightly flowing hot water is possible to use only on contaminated teats of the udder. Source: Tančin (64).

Figure 7

Prevalence of IMI in control (antibiotic only) and treated (seal plus antibiotic) quarters at dry off, 1–3 days in milking (DIM), 6–8 DIM and 60 DIM. Note: ^a,b% of all quarters with IMI between columns are significantly different (P < 0.05). Source: Adapted from Godden et al. (95).