Controlling somatic cell counts (SCC) on farms has come under increased focus, with changes to antibiotic regulation removing the use of blanket dry cow therapy.
Speaking on the Teagasc ‘Let’s Talk Dairy’ webinar, Don Crowley offered some advice around controlling cell counts on farms during the spring period.
Controlling cell counts on dairy farms is vital to achieve the best milk price possible, and to reduce the number of clinical cases of mastitis.
Speaking on the target that farmer should be looking to achieve in spring-calving herds for March and April, Crowley said: “It’s a tricky one, we would have said under 200,000 cells/ml in a good barometer.
“But we really need to be hitting that 100,000 cells/ml mark to give us that leeway going forward.”
Crowley said that the 100,000 cells/ml mark is really the new 200,000 cells/ml mark.
Commenting on what he is currently seeing on farms, he said: “There has been an improvement in clinical cases of mastitis on farms, with the weather in February being so good.”
He noted that a lot of the clinical cases that are seen on farms in the spring are environmental mastitis cases.
Although clinical cases have improved, he said that there has been a disimprovement in co-ops, within his area of west Cork and Kerry.
Crowley said that there are four main reasons for this:
- Incorrect use of selective dry cow therapy;
- Once-a-day (OAD) milking inappropriately and for too long;
- Milking parlours not being serviced and liners not being changed;
- Cows with chronic cases that should have been culled.
Issues
Speaking on a number of these issues that he is seeing on farms, Crowley said for most herds, a week to ten days is the maximum amount of time they should be OAD milking.
He said that until you deliver milk to the co-op you don’t know where you stand in terms of cell counts. He also advised that all cows have a California Mastitis Test (CMT) performed before they are milked.
Crowley also said that farmers should be starting the milk production year with new liners and the parlour having been serviced.
Liners are the only piece of the parlour coming in contact with the cows and even if they have been washed they can harbour mastitis-causing bacteria.
On culling, Crowley said that cows that were in trouble last year and are in trouble again this year need to be removed from the herd.
This is as well as cows that have repeated cases of mastitis and cows that have fluctuating counts – high last year, but low at the start of this year, then increasing six weeks in – he said.
SCC control
According to Crowley, the first thing farmers should be doing to control cell counts in herds is organise a milk recording, to establish where they are at.
He also advised that farmers perform a CMT on all cows that calve from now on.
He then advised dairy farmers to take samples of every clinical case of mastitis to ensure they have options – even if they don’t end up sending them to the lab.
He said that farmers should be making it a policy to take a sample of every clinical case before treating cows.
To help stop the spread, Crowley advised separating cows and milking problem cows last.
Finally, he advised farmer that haven’t changed their liners to do so and get the parlour serviced.