Adding Value to Milk Quality Consults - Webinar summary
30 March 2022
Milk Quality Consults are a great chance to review and discuss opportunities with farmers to improve mastitis management. AgriHealth ran a webinar on the 28th March to discuss how the tips and tools below can help you run an engaging milk quality consult.
Tip #1
Know what is happening on the farm and benchmark A great way to start a milk quality consult is to find out what their goals are, look at what is happening on the farm, benchmark performance against regional or national data and identify opportunities for improvements on the farm. Tools: - Fonterra Farm Insights Report (ask your farmer to download this for you) - Mastatest Summary Report (download from your clinic's Mastatest account)
Tip #2
A better way to manage clinical mastitis Treat every case with KetoMax to reduce pain and inflammation, take a milk sample and test, wait 24 hours for the result and treat, based on the result.
Key insights from 22,000 mastitis milk samples over the current dairy season indicate:
1. Strep. uberis is the most common bacteria year-round. 2. 10% of samples have no bacterial growth and 12% of samples are coliform/Gram negative, both do not require antibiotics, saving money for farmers. The use of 3 days KetoMax and stripping twice daily when cows are not sick is the most appropriate treatment for coliform/Gram negative. 3. Antibiotic recommendations can vary, even when the same bacteria might be found time after time, indicating that testing every clinical case gives the best return on investment.
Tip #3
A better way to manage high somatic cell count cows Knowledge of the type of bacteria in high SCC cows following a herd test or RMT positive cows and using this data as well as the cow's mastitis history, will help aid implementing an effective management plan, such as dry-off or culling decisions.
NEW - On-farm Mastitis Management Poster Developed to help you talk through the critical things around mastitis management with your farmers. It's broken into three sections - Minimise, Monitor and Manage mastitis.
New - Milk Quality Review tool A discovery tool for vets to use with farmers to evaluate current mastitis management practices and create an action plan to produce more milk and of higher quality. It pulls together the Mastatest Summary Report data with data that your farmers are already collecting.
Please talk to your AgriHealth representative to access these resources.
