How Best Practice & Boviseal At Dry Off Can Protect Profit Lines

As we look ahead to dry off 2016, it’s fair to say that the first full lactation of the post quota era has been tougher than hoped for financially. While the end of the quota provided many farmers with good opportunities for expansion, the volatile milk price in 2016 has made this year particularly challenging.

Although global economic patterns and commodity prices are out of our control, there are actions dairy farmers can take to optimise profitability.  An understandable reaction when faced with a low milk price is to look to cut costs; however this is a short-termist view which often results in increased expenses. Disease, and particularly mastitis, is among the biggest threats to farmers and their profits, and therefore efforts to protect profit margins should be centred on disease prevention, rather than risky cost-cutting. This means ensuring cows reach their potential in terms of the quality and volume of milk, with a low SCC count.

Preventing Mastitis And Protecting Profits

What is mastitis? The dictionary definition tells us that ‘mastitis is the inflammation of the udder, typically due to bacterial infection via the teat’. But for dairy farmers around Ireland, mastitis is much more than a dictionary definition. It is time, it is money, it is labour costs, it is vets’ bills, it is co-op penalties, it is stress and ultimately it is a reduced profit margin on your farm.

It stands to reason then, that in order to prevent costs and maximise profitability, a key priority for farmers at this time of year has to be mastitis prevention. It also stands to reason that if you reduce or remove your mastitis prevention protocols, mastitis rates will increase and profits will suffer.

Mastitis- Prevention Is Cheaper Than Cure

We are all familiar with the saying ‘prevention is better than cure’ and when it comes to mastitis, prevention is both better and cheaper than cure.

A straight forward clinical mastitis case costs around €150 to €200 (Cellcheck cost calculator). This does not take into account the loss of milk for the rest of lactation due to reduced yield. Nor does it take into account the potential to lose cow to mastitis.

A bad case of mastitis can cost the farmer as much as €2000 in terms of treatment, loss of milk yield and replacement costs. Any farmer looking at these figures will immediately understand that the cost of maintaining healthy, productive animals through simple but vital mastitis prevention protocols is significantly less than the costs associated with mastitis.

Preventing Environmental Mastitis

Environmental mastitis is caused when bacteria from the cow’s surroundings enter the udder via the teat canal and cause infection. This is the only way that environmental bacteria can enter the udder and it therefore stands to reason that the only way to prevent environmental mastitis is to prevent bacteria from entering the teat canal. How do we do this? With Boviseal internal teat sealant.

Sealing teats provides the only means of preventing bacteria from entering the udder and it is therefore vital that farmers continue to seal. As this x-ray shows, teats infused with Boviseal are completely sealed and it is physically impossible for bacteria to enter.

Boviseal teat sealant seals over 70% of Irish dairy cows annually and has a unique, patented formulation. It is proven to reduce mastitis in the dry period, in the first 100 days post calving and in the following lactation and it has been shown to give a 300% return on investment in an Irish-farm study.

Many farmers do not realise is that, carried out correctly, the use of Boviseal will help prevent mastitis cases in the first 100 days post-calving. Trial work has shown that over 50% of E Coli mastitis cases in the first 100 days of lactation entered the udder during the dry cow period when teat seals were not used. Some of these will be the acute cases around calving which can result in death if not treated promptly by vets with intravenous and oral medication.

Furthermore, the use of Boviseal also allows the gland the opportunity to deal with existing infections to ensure reduced SCCs and fewer chances of clinical mastitis the next lactation.

Subclinical Mastitis & The Cost of Poor Quality Milk

While prevention is always better than cure, inevitably treatment for some cows will be required.

These cows still need to receive both Boviseal teat sealant and an appropriate antibiotic dry cow therapy at dry off.

Subclinical mastitis causes high somatic cell count (SCC) in cows. High SCC cows produce both less milk, and lower quality milk than their low cell count cohorts and profitability is impacted as the farmer is penalised for high cell counts.