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Mastitis control in organic dairy

Geographical location
European Union
Keywords
Agricultural production system
dairy farming
organic farming
Animal husbandry and welfare
animal disease
Agricultural sectors
Dairy cattle
Main funding source
Other EU research funds
Project acronym
QUALITYLOWIMPUTFOOD
Project type
Research project
Starting date
2017
End date
2009
Project status
Completed
Title (in English): 
Mastitis control in organic dairy
Language: 
English
Objective of the project (native language): 

Mastitis is a disease of dairy cows with a serious economic impact in European dairy farms and it is currently mostly managed by treating affected cows with antibiotics. Mastitis can also be a factor affecting milk quality, especially somatic cell count and shelf life of milk. According to the International Federation for Animal Health the prevalence of clinical mastitis is between 47 and 71% on an annual cow basis. On average the prevalence of subclinical mastitis is 3–4% of the udder quarters on a farm. (see additional information field)

Objective of the project (in English): 

NA

Description of activities (native language): 

(see additional information field)

Contact e-mail: 
NA@NA.com
Project coordinator
Organization/Institution name (original language): 
University of Newcastle (UK)
Contact person: 
Carlo Leifert
Address: 
NA
E-mail: 
NA@NA.com
Partner category: 
Researcher
Further details
Additional information: 

Finding ways to avoid or drastically limit the use of antibiotics is becoming an important goal for all types of livestock production, but it is of crucial importance in organic dairy herd health management. Many candidate strategies to improve udder health are not widely implemented in organic dairy farms due to the lack of science based knowledge confirming the efficacy of non-antibiotic therapies.

The project Quality Low Input Food aimed to identify the main factors influencing udder health in organic dairy farms under different climatic and structural conditions. Results showed that improvement of housing and environmental conditions and farmers’ skills allows partial conversion to a treatment scheme based on teat sealant dry-off prophylaxis, which reduces the need to use antibiotics. Besides, two common medical dry-off practices in organic dairying, internal teat sealant and herd specific homeopathic remedies were compared with an untreated control. The results indicate that in herds with good udder health with few environmental infections, a treatment at drying off can be omitted. Only in case of increased environmental infection risk, a strategic teat sealant usage is recommended. http://www.qlif.org/