Implementing pedagogic strategies between vets and farmers to create synergies in udder health management: Project Mammipack®

Udder health is usually considered as a health and economic problem for farmers. We now consider that mastitis is the result of many factors related to the environment, the pathogen and the host. What may have been forgotten in the process is the fact that nowadays, the main interface with mastitis is the farmer, and their knowledge about mastitis is very heterogeneous. This reflexion has led to the creation of a technical and pedagogical pack called “Mammipack” which contains different tools, from all actors of the dairy chain. We included small charts explaining the most important risk factors identified through epidemiology, good dairy practices and its effect on milk flow, milking machine check-up, how-to for mastitis milk sample, a how-to for performance records use for udder health management, a resume on genetic selection of sires and mastitis, charts upon nutrition factors and their main effect on udder physiology during lactation and dry-off, resume on veterinary drugs good management in the farm. Small laminated sheets upon milk sampling for bacteriology and teats evaluation were also joined in order to be use in parlors, sterile sampling tubes were also given in the pack. A mastitis record pad was designed to record the main clinical forms and the treatment chosen. Eventually, the book Udder Health® was added to have a complete modern look on that problem in dairy farms. 25 farmers were selected on a voluntary base by 12 veterinarians, and they answered to questionnaires about their main practices regarding herd structure, mastitis treatment, and southern Belgium main 19 risk factors. They had to answer basic questions concerning udder health on 15 points. They agreed to keep a record of all next mastitis cases in their farms and take milk samples for bacteriology each time at day 0 and day 21 during 3 months. The main objective is to show to a group of dairy farmers that mastitis could take several different forms from one farm to another, in term of incidence, pathogens and clinical forms. One other purpose is to show the difficulty to have bacteriological cure, even when physical cure has happened. After all, one collateral objective was to create the Mammipack®, designed for farmers and vets to increase their ability to collaborate on mastitis management through most dairy chain actors’ expertise.Mammipac

Mastitis risk indicators assessed through a germ specific epidemiological model in southern Belgium

Bovine mastitis is the most prevalent pathology in dairy production; in order to identify herd related risk indicators, our study focused on germ-specific approach to refine known risk indicators between environmental or contagious epidemiologic models. We gathered clinical mastitis during 3 months in 21 walloon dairy farms representing 1630 Holstein cows (mean: 67; SD: 18). Farmers were interrogated by a questionnaire about their main practices and basic mastitis knowledge questions. Quarters and severity were recorded, sampled for bacteriology at day 0 and day 21 during 3 months. Individual cell counts were also recorded. Risk analysis included Odds ratio calculation (OR) and multivariate regression. The average prevalence of mastitis on the study was 3.25% (min 0.3%, max : 11.2%, SD : 2.8%) which is coherent with previous epidemiological studies in Wallonia. 124 quarters were sampled and non-negative bacteriology shown 45% of strictly environmental pathogens, 22% of strictly contagious pathogens and 33% of mix epidemiological model pathogens. Overall risk assessment revealed that cubicles free-stall herds shown mastitis lower incidence (OR = 0.49; IC95 [0.34-0.72]). Surprisingly, post-dipping appeared as an overall positive risk indicator for mastitis prevalence (OR =2.13; IC95 [2,13-3,39]). The germ specific approach revealed that Post-dipping was present in low incidence herds with contagious models (OR=0.29; IC95 [0.12-0.71]) and that the type of pathogen model is an interaction in post-dipping risk analysis (Breslow-Day test p<0.0001), whereas housing had no interaction with the model (p=0.33). In this way of categorizing variables, one is able to identify overall risk indicators or germ-specific model. This can lead to more accurate advices in farm consulting.Mammipac