The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Getting mastitis under control successfully
EXPERT speakers will address all areas of mastitis management and control at an open day on the Ballyroe, Milltown, Co Kerry, farm of Donie Ryan taking place on Thursday, July 13, next from 12noon to 4.30pm.
The event – run in conjunction with Kelliher’s Feed and Agri Supplies, Cidlines and Dairymaster and along with other partners in the farming industry will hear from Robin Franzon of Cidlines on pre-treatment routine and udder hygiene; Dr David Gleeson of Teagasc Moorpark on all that is coming down the pipeline with demands in the processing industry; Adam Heffernan of Kelliher’s Feeds and Agri on the Routine or The Kell M programme; John Upton of Dairymaster on liner development work and it implications on teat health and Mastitis; and Finola Mc Coy of Animal Health Ireland on the topic of ‘What’s happening behind your bulk tank SCC?’
Kelliher’s are, meanwhile, outlining the operations and benefits of the Kell M Control
Plan programme and a little more of what the experts will reveal, ahead of the big event:
Kell M Control Plan
Obtaining farm-specific information, such as milk records, clinical records and on-farm questionnaires, to identify the main factors contributing to mastitis on farm. All of this information is brought together to produce a farm-specific set of practical recommendations.
How the Kell M Control Plan works
Step 1: Looking at farm data
Milk recording data and clinical mastitis data for at least the last year will be reviewed.
Analysis of the data will look for patterns of seasonality to diagnose whether the majority of infections in your herd stem from the dry period or the lactating period and whether infections are predominantly from the environment or spread from other infected cows.
The Kell M dairy advisor may also want to do some bacteriology in order to make a diagnosis. Step 2: Farm visit
An on-farm questionnaire and survey will then be undertaken by the Kell M advisor. All areas of the farm will be looked at and management practices observed to include at least one milking. The areas that will be most closely examined are:
Cow housing, including dry cows and heifers Milking parlour function and milking routine Management of the dry period Treatment of mastitis Biosecurity and young stock management Step 3: Kell M Action plan
The collected data and information from the questionnaire will then be evaluated and a list of specific action points will be generated.
Action points will be prioritised into ‘must’, ‘should’ and ‘could’ categories depending on their significance in tackling the current mastitis and somatic cell counts issues.
The Kell M dairy advisor will then use their clinical judgement to decide which action points will have the biggest impact, and should be addressed as a priority.
Discussions between the Kell M dairy advisor and farmer will take place to go through the action points and discuss how best they can be implemented. A plan of action will be decided together and a date for review will be agreed, usually three months from the first visit.
Adam Heffernan will discuss the role of the milking machine and milking routine in minimising the risk of intra-mammary infection. Milkers will be reminded of the function of components of the milking machine and risks that poor maintenance poses to udder health. The aspects of environmental management to ensure cows are presented to the parlour with excellent hygiene scores.
Milking routine and approaches to problem-solving will be discussed and will be followed by a working demonstration in the new 30 unit parlour
The importance of implementing a selective approach to antibiotic dry cow therapy, as well as looking at implementing a reduction in antimicrobial use in line with current guidelines.
Mastitis management made easy worldwide
Fueled by this belief, M-team UGent (University of Ghent) and CID LINES created Keno™-M. Keno™-M is a exciting concept providing an intensive high-end training on mastitis management, continuous coaching and a virtual assistant software service all-in-one for an evidence-based, farmer-tailored and herd-specific udder health monitoring.
The mission of Keno™-M is to help pro-active dairy advisors to be the best udder health expert they can be.
For further monitoring and treatment of udder health on a specific dairy farm the veterinary advisor will be able to use a simple and user-friendly software application developed using the expertise of the M-team UGhent.
The software application will give the vet advisor immediately insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the udder health management on a dairy farm, give possible solutions and can automatically generate a report for its customer-dairy farmer with key findings and recommendations.
Finola Mc Coy will meanwhile speak on the understanding the impact changes in bulk tank SCC can have on your farm profitability; Why bulk tank SCCs start to slowly rise from now on and what can be done to prevent this increase.