In 10 Spring check-in: How to stay ahead of mastitis

In this episode of Talking Dairy In 10, you’ll hear how a few timely checks can help you stay ahead of mastitis as cows calve, settle into milking, and move through spring. 

DairyNZ’s Dr Jane Lacy-Hulbert shares practical guidance on what to watch for, when to involve your vet, and how better information can support clearer decisions on farm. You’ll also hear how refreshed mastitis management resources can help you find the right advice faster, whether you’re focused on prevention, teat health, early detection or treatment options. 

For more information, visit: 

• Managing teat health 
• Detecting mastitis 
• Treating mastitis 
• Ask DAiSY 

Have feedback or ideas for future episodes? Email us at talkingdairy@dairynz.co.nz

Connect with DairyNZ

Stay up to date with advice, latest research, tools and resources. Read, browse, scroll, listen, or be there in person. Visit dairynz.co.nz/get-connected 

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Kiora and welcome to Talking Dairy in 10. I'm your host Jack McGowan from DairyNZ. It's great to have you with us. Spring can be a demanding time on farm. There's a lot happening at once, and mastitis is one of those issues that can add pressure quickly if it starts to build. In this episode, we'll talk through what to keep an eye on, what can help you make quicker decisions in the shed, and how the refreshed mastitis management resources can help you and your vet this spring. To talk us through it, I'm joined by Jane Lacey Holbert. Let's get into it. Ki ora Jane, welcome to the podcast. Hello. Let's start with a quick introduction to who you are.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

I'm a senior scientist at Darian Zed. I've been here for a number of years working on mastitis management practices that work on New Zealand farms and help control mastitis in this country. How long have you been working for us, Jane?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Over 30 years now, so a bit of time. A lot of experience under your belt. All right.

Why Early Lactation Raises Risk

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Spring can put a lot of pressure on cows, people, and routines. Where does mastitis tend to start adding pressure and what early signs are worth keeping an eye on?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Mastitis is there from day one when the cows first carve. They are a little bit more prone to mastitis in those first one to three weeks after carving. Why is that? Their immune system is not as onto it when they first carve. There's a lot of hormones going on and changes and so on. And so we definitely see a bit of a change there in those first two to three weeks. As they get through that, then they do get better at resisting mastitis. So it really is valuable to really take the extra effort when cows are in the colostrum mob, to take the effort to sort of clean them up, get them ready for the milking process. And so, you know, cleaning up the teats, trimming up the tails, and really looking hard for the clinical cases, the clinical signs of mastitis. We would encourage people to at least strip each day, ideally each milking, but at least do it once a day to look for those signs of mastitis. In the whole herd or if you just focus on the colostrum mob, then it's just that small mob. And yeah, it keeps changing each day. But if you can get onto it soon there, whilst they're in that colostrum mob, it's a lot easier than trying to find a cow with a new case of mastitis when she's out in the milking herd. Some

Colostrum Mob Checks That Matter

SPEAKER_00 2:25

farmers will also make use of the rapid mastitis test, the RMT test, and that gives them a chance to find high somatic cell count cows that haven't quite come down after calving, and it gives them a chance to really look for those. And they'll use that at the last milking before they enter into the milking herd.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Okay, Jane. Talk us through what else is useful during the colostrum period in terms of monitoring or intervention.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

So the rapid mastritis test can be used at the last milking before cows leave the colostrum mob. Just helps find those cows with a high somatic cell count that may need a bit more closer attention, closer focus on whether they've got clinical signs. And we can always keep them out one more day, if need be, just to give them a chance to recover from the calving process. The other one that some people do is, particularly now, there's more and more of these test kits available, is they'll collect samples from the cows that have been treated for mastitis or before they get treated, and they'll use that to try and find out the bacteria. And that is a good way of gathering in information on the herd as to what sort of pathogens are you're dealing with in a herd. And it gives a vet a great deal of insights as to what's going on. So a fair few people are going down that route, but they need to collect samples that are collected in an aseptic fashion to make sense of them. What

Aseptic Sampling And Smart Treating

SPEAKER_00 3:43

does aseptic mean, Jane? Using sterile technique. So you know, making sure we've cleaned the teats really thoroughly with um sort of 70% alcohol or meth prior to actually collecting the sample and making sure we don't drop any of the bugs in there when we're actually collecting it. So we use uh Healthy Udder has a good way of giving the step-by-step instructions for how to collect an aseptic sample. And it's a reminder at this time of the year to really focus on just treating those cows that have got clinical signs. So looking for those signs that we can see visibly with their eye, clots, discoloration, pain, and those sort of things. We try to avoid treating cows that have only got an indication of a high somitic cell count. It's just not worthwhile.

Teat Condition And Milking Routine

SPEAKER_01 4:22

As cows settle into milking and the milking herd, what are the teeth health or milking routine checks that can make the biggest difference?

SPEAKER_00 4:30

What we're finding is that cows take a little while to get used to the milking process. Their teeth skin can take two to three weeks to adjust to the milking process. So it pays to keep an eye on what's going on with the teets, particularly for the cows in the milking herd. When we're actually the person milking the cows all the time, it can be difficult to see changes to stay objective. So we really encourage people to talk to your vet or encourage one of the other members of the milking team or your farm team to come in and look over your shoulder and just say, check how the teeth condition is going. Are teats still rough after two or three weeks of being in the milking herd, or are they starting to smooth out? And are the teat ends getting very rough and ridged? We want to avoid those sort of things. So these sort of things are really good early indicators of a problem. You carry on operating blindly to these things and you can cause problems down the track. Through increased kind of susceptibility or yeah, rough teeth skin is very good at harbouring bugs. If we don't have rough teeth skin, the bugs have nowhere to hide, and the teeth disinfectant works a lot better when it goes on teeth that are nice and smooth and clean.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Okay. And what kind of things cause issues with the teeth or teat condition?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

The environment. Wet, mud, sand, grit, all these things getting into the teat cups when the cups go on can all contribute to sort of damaging the teeth's skin. If there's not enough emollient in the teeth disinfectant, in the teet spray, for this time of the year, then that can be a problem as well. And also in the milking machine itself, if it's uh the vacuum set a bit high or the pulsation, something's gone wrong with the pulsators where they're not pulsating properly, then these can all contribute to teat damage. And we don't we don't always see it when we're actually seeing the cows every day and see the teats every day. So that's where we encourage that sort of objective assessment. Some vets can come in and do a teat condition check two or three times a year, and it really helps open your eyes to what's going on in your herd.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

And if farmers want to do it themselves or just have an idea what you're talking about, where can they go?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Look on the DairyNZ website. The daisy search feature really does help to bring together those different teat condition sort of resources. Healthy Udder has been there for a few years, it has some great pictures in it, and the other resources are beginning to give good information as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Okay. Thank you,

Using Vet Support And Herd Data

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Jane. If a farmer is seeing repeat cases or higher somatic cell count cows, how can they work with their vet to understand what's driving it?

SPEAKER_00 7:01

First off, talk to them, talk to the vet. Put up your hand and say, look, can you come give me a hand? I'm concerned about this. Number two is really look hard at whether there's a way to collect some samples that can give you an idea of the bacteria. And the bacteria can often be a key to working out where you focus a bit more prevention. So again, collecting samples from cows before you treat them with antibiotics or from cows that have got a high cell count in the first herd test. These are cows that you want to look more closely at and find out what's going on in them and whether there are some bugs that can be dealt with. That's sort of a key thing. And also looking at the cell count patterns as well, which cows are getting the high cell counts and what's going on there. Is it the young cows or the older cows? These are all indicators that it's one bug or another that's causing a problem.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

So it sounds like the starting point is to have some data, and if you haven't got it, to work with your vet to get it.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, that's right. It's such an invisible disease sometimes that collecting data does really help to unlock it. Okay.

Mastitis Resources

SPEAKER_01 8:04

DRNZ has recently refreshed its mastitis management resources. What's changed and how do they help farmers and their advisors to make mastitis decisions more easily?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

So we've taken apart the existing resources, the smart sound resources, and a lot of the information for farmers has been pulled together into new web pages and web page content. And the beauty of it is it's been able to pull in information from different parts of the DairyNZ ecosystem, if you like, and pull it together into single pages, which is great. And then we've also been refreshing and reviewing the technical material, the tech notes that are available for vets who use them as their sort of textbook, other advisors, but they're also available for farmers who want to dig a bit deeper and understand some of the research that goes on behind things to understand why we do what we do on farm. And how have you approached that review? I've been working with a number of people from the National Milk Quality Advisory Committee. This is a group of people who have have an interest in mastitis management on farm and have been focused on it for the last 10, 15 years. I've worked with them to try and update the research and update the readability of the resources that we have as well. And that's been quite a big piece of work over the last six months, and it's great to see it come to fruition now. We also went earlier in the piece, did some work to try and talk to vets and farmers about how they might use these resources and some of their insights as to how best to use them as well. That's come into that refresh process as well. What's your favorite thing about these improvements, Jane? I think it's just that we've bought all the information that we have, the good information on the Darian Zeb website, and pulled it all together in one place. We've checked that the information is still credible and valid, and have been working on making sure it's more readable and more usable for people. It provides a great foundation for the daisy AI to go and interrogate it and find the stuff we want.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Cool. Thank you very much, Jane.

Episode Summary

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Spring mastitis management doesn't have to mean adding a big job to the list. A few regular checks like spotting clinical cases early, keeping an eye on high somatic cell count cows, checking teeth condition and talking to your vet when something seems amiss can help you stay ahead of issues before they create more pressure. The refreshed mastitis management resources are there to support those decisions, whether you're looking at prevention, teet health, early detection, or treatment options. And you can find these linked in the show notes and on dairynz.co.nz. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time. Matewa. If you'd like to get connected with DariNZ's latest advice, research, tools, and resources, whether it's reading, scrolling, listening, or in person, you can visit dairynz.co.nz forward slash get-connected, and don't forget to hit follow to keep up to date with our latest episodes. As always, if you have any feedback on this podcast or have some ideas for future topics or guests, please email us at talkingdairy at dairynz.co.nz. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on Talking Dairy.