Mastitis awareness training for service providers is a key element of Animal Health Ireland‘s CellCheck programme in 2014.

According to Finola McCoy, programme manager of CellCheck, this year’s aim is to upskill service providers to investigate and address farm-specific mastitis problems such as intractably high bulk tank SCC.

“Progamme delivery on-farm was a key focus in 2013, including stage two service provider training and farmer workshops,” she outlined in AHI’s latest newsletter. “There are now almost 300 service providers, including vets, milking machine technicians, Teagasc and other farm and milk quality advisors under stage two.”

According to AHI, seven regional co-ordinators, along with teams of trained service providers delivered 95 farmer workshops last year, where approximately 1,200 farmers took part.

Meanwhile, the SCC data analysis project is continuing, in conjunction with CellCheck, the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, the Department of Agriculture and milk processors.

“This work involved the collation of bulk tank SCC throughout the country by the Department and the ICBF, and subsequent analysis to establish baseline figures for Ireland’s true SCC performance,” McCoy outlined.