Associations of Selected Bedding Types with Incidence Rate of Subclinical and Clinical Mastitis in Primiparous Holstein Dairy Cows

摘要

Reducing exposure of teats to potential pathogens is a fundamental aspect of controlling environmental mastitis. Teats of dairy cattle may be in direct contact with bedding materials for 40 to 60% of the day (Tucker and Weary, 2004; Cook et al., 2005;Hogan and Smith, 2012), making bedding materials an important potential source of exposure to mastitis pathogens. As dairy production has become increasingly concentrated on fewer, larger farms, materials used in stall of lactating cows have changed. Bedding used on larger Wisconsin dairy farms included fresh (58%) or recycled (10%) sand, organic materials (primarily wood products on top of mattresses; 22%) and manure products (10%; Rowbotham and Ruegg, 2015). The objective of this study was to determine the association of exposure to 4 selected bedding types with incidence of subclinical and clinical mastitis in primiparous Holstein dairy cows housed in identical pens at a single facility.