577
The Cost of Clinical Mastitis in the First 30 Days of Lactation: an Economic Assessment Tool
Mastitis results in considerable economic losses for dairy producers and is most commonly diagnosed in early lactation. The objective of this study was to create a tool to estimate the predicted economic impact of clinical mastitis occurring during the first thirty days of lactation for a representative North American dairy. A deterministic partial budget model was created in spreadsheet software to estimate the projected direct and indirect costs per case of clinical mastitis occurring during the first 30 days of lactation in a typical dairy. The cost calculator was built by adapting published estimates from recent peer reviewed literature covering mastitis incidence, pathogen prevalence, recurrence risk, culling effects, reproductive effects, and milk production effects to estimate the value of projected future production, culling, death, and reproductive losses. Herd specific data including milk price, reproductive performance, lactational culling risk, diagnostic costs, treatment protocol costs, replacement costs, market cow prices, feed costs, labor costs, and veterinary costs are input to allow full customization of the projection model. The average case of clinical mastitis resulted in a net economic loss of $458, including $135 in direct costs and $323 in indirect costs. Direct costs included diagnostics ($3), therapeutics ($42), discarded milk ($20), veterinary service ($15), labor ($30), and death loss ($26). Indirect costs included future milk production loss ($135), future culling and replacement loss ($162), future reproductive loss ($21), and on-going monitoring costs ($5). Accurate decision making regarding mastitis control relies on understanding all of the economic impacts of clinical mastitis, especially the longer term indirect costs that represent 71% of the total costs per case of mastitis. Future milk production loss represents 29% of total costs, and future culling and replacement loss represents 35% of the total costs of a case of clinical mastitis. In contrast to older estimates, these values represent the current dairy economic climate, including milk price ($0.48/kg), feed price ($0.286 /kg DM), replacement costs ($2000), and use the latest estimates on the production and culling effects of clinical mastitis. This economic model is designed to be customizable for specific dairy producers and their herd characteristics to better aid them in developing mastitis control strategies.
Keywords:
Mastitis, Economics, Transition