Pathogen-specific effects on milk yield in repeated clinical mastitis episodes in Holstein dairy cows

Abstract

The objective of this study was to estimate the effects of clinical mastitis (CM) cases due to different pathogens on milk yield in Holstein cows. The first 3 CM cases in a cow's lactation were modeled. Eight categories of pathogens were included: Streptococcus spp.; Staphylococcus aureus; coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS); Escherichia coli; Klebsiella spp.; cases with CM signs but no bacterial growth (above the level detectable by our microbiological procedures) observed in the culture sample, and cases with contamination (≥ 3 pathogens in the sample); other pathogens that may be treated with antibiotics (included Citrobacter, Corynebacterium bovis, Enterobacter, Enterococcus, Pasteurella, Pseudomonas; "other treatable"); and other pathogens not successfully treated with antibiotics (Trueperella pyogenes, Mycoplasma, Prototheca, yeasts; "other not treatable"). Data from 38,276 lactations in cows from 5 New York State dairy herds, collected from 2003-2004 until 2011, were analyzed. Mixed models with an autoregressive correlation structure (to account for correlation among the repeated measures of milk yield within a lactation) were estimated. Primiparous (lactation 1) and multiparous (lactations 2 and 3) cows were analyzed separately, as the shapes of their lactation curves differed. Primiparas were followed for up to 48 wk of lactation and multiparas for up to 44 wk. Fixed effects included parity, calving season, week of lactation, CM (type, case number, and timing of CM in relation to milk production cycle), and other diseases (milk fever, retained placenta, metritis, ketosis, displaced abomasum). Herd was modeled as a random effect. Clinical mastitis was more common in multiparas than in primiparas. In primiparas, Streptococcus spp. occurred most frequently as the first case. In multiparas, E. coli was most common as the first case. In subsequent cases, CM cases with no specific growth or contamination were most common in both parity groups. The hazard of CM increased with case number. Mastitic cows were generally higher producers before the CM episode than their nonmastitic herdmates. Milk loss varied with pathogen and case number. In primiparas, the greatest losses were associated with E. coli and "other not treatable" organisms. In multiparas, the greatest losses were associated with Klebsiella spp. and "other not treatable" organisms. Milk loss was not associated with occurrence of CNS. The findings may help farmers to make optimal management decisions for their cows.

On-Line Monitoring of Milk Electrical Conductivity by Fuzzy Logic Technology to Characterise Health Status in Dairy Goats

“…However, in dairy cows the decrease of MY is generally more significant in cows with mastitis. This is particularly true when clinical mastitis occurs (Hertl et al, 2014;Schukken et al, 2009), as in some of the above studies, where good detection performance was reached. In our study, no clinical cases were reported.…”

Factors associated with intramammary infection in dairy cows caused by coagulase-negative staphylococci, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus uberis, Streptococcus dysgalactiae, Corynebacterium bovis, or Escherichia coli

“…An IMI caused by CNS, in particular, has been associated with high milk production; some researchers have even suggested that CNS IMI could positively affect milk production (Piepers et al, 2010(Piepers et al, , 2013. However, decreases in milk production due to mastitis is an established phenomenon (Seegers et al, 2003;Hertl et al, 2014;Detilleux et al, 2015). Thus, we may conclude that milk production of cows with IMI would have been even higher in the absence of IMI.…”

Associations between CXCR1 polymorphisms and pathogen-specific incidence rate of clinical mastitis, test-day somatic cell count, and test-day milk yield

“…In Belgium and other countries, CM data are not available on a larger scale. Yet, conducting our study on the same herds as a study estimating the IRCM in Flanders (Verbeke et al, 2014) Keane et al, 2013;Oliveira et al, 2013) associated with considerable milk losses worldwide (Hertl et al, 2014), more research on this topic is warranted and justified. Besides (pathogen-specific) IRCM, we also studied SCC at test day.…”