Milk Quality Consults

Previously farmers and vets were used to more casual chats about which dry cow treatment to use on their herd. Older vets will have memories of talking over the bonnet of a ute and the limited choices they were able to make. As times have changed the importance of appropriate use of antibiotics has become at the forefront of our minds.

Antibiotic resistance and residues have become very important issues in the dairy farming community and the world. This means veterinarians need to know (and be able to prove we know) the udder health situation on farm. We are not meant to be “using antibiotics routinely for prophylactic purposes in place of good clinical or animal husbandry practices”.

What does this mean?

To prove we know what the situation on farm is, we need to record true data around:

Clinical mastitis rates and cure rates
Somatic cell counts
Cows culled for mastitis rates
Bacterial culture results

Once we have this data we can add value to your farm system by benchmarking and suggesting actions to take to improve areas where it can be seen that a farm is not meeting normal targets. This helps to change the whole conversation from a casual chat to a valuable advice meeting with a veterinarian who knows your property and goals.

I believe that to get the most out of this exercise we need to conduct milk quality reviews separate from our food safety and other consults. Correct data needs to be entered and compared to both district and national KPIs. Ideally, all the data is entered into our recording system before the consult so time is not spent just collecting the data.

We view these consults as more than just a request to purchase dry cow antibiotics and teat sealant. Done well they can financially benefit farms and positively affect both animals and staff.

Please fill out the data for your milk quality review before the consult especially the clinical mastitis case rate if you do not use MINDA clinical mastitis recording.

Dr Kris Brownlee – Farm Vet & Regional Manager, Taupiri