A New Mastitis Threat

摘要

Watch out for mycoplasma mastitis infections in your expansion herd. After you've spent thousands of dollars building a free-stall barn the size of a football field and a parlor larger than a trailer house, a microorganism you can't even see with thenaked eye can wreck your expansion project. That bug, Mycoplasma bovis, is not classified as a virus nor a bacterium, but rather a free-living organism. If you've operated a closed herd for years, you may never have heard of mycoplasma — and probably never will. But newly-purchased animals carry a greater risk of bringing diseases, such as mycoplasma, into your herd, Animals can carry mycoplasma without showing any signs, and the stress of traveling to your farm can cause it to surface.