Monitoring Udder Health on Routinely Collected Census Data: Evaluating the Effects of Changing Antimicrobial Policy

摘要

Antibiotic resistance is becoming increasingly important and given its potential association with antimicrobial use (AMU), continuous actions are taken to reduce AMU in the livestock industry. One of the most important measures to avert preventive antibiotic usage was implementation of selective instead of blanket dry cow therapy in 2013. In the Netherlands, both AMU and udder health parameters are monitored in the Dutch cattle health surveillance system (CHSS) based on routinely collected census data (17,000 dairy herds). The aim of our study was to determine whether we could monitor the effect of changing AMU on udder health in Dutch dairy farms.