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Perceived mastitis costs and milk quality management practices among Southeastern United States dairy producers
Researchers from four universities in the southeastern United States completed 175-question surveys on 282 farms in TN (n = 83), KY (n = 96), VA (n = 96), and MS (n = 7) from June 22, 2014 to June 21, 2015 as a part of the Southeast Quality Milk Initiative project. The objective of this study was to analyze questions focusing on the costs associated with milk quality management and to quantify dairy producer estimates of mastitis costs. The MEANS procedure in SAS 9.3 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC) was used to summarize costs of pre- and post-milking teat disinfectants, intramammary antibiotics for mastitis treatment, vaccinations, and producer estimates of subclinical and clinical mastitis costs. The average costs associated with specific management practices and producer estimates of mastitis costs are presented in Table 1. One hundred twenty-four and 126 producers provided enough information to allow the researchers to calculate the costs of pre- and post-milking teat disinfectants per cow per day, respectively. Two hundred seventeen producers provided the researchers enough information to determine the cost of intramammary antibiotics per mastitis case. Only 52 and 3 producers provided enough information to calculate the costs of environmental and contagious mastitis vaccines per cow, respectively. When estimating the cost of clinical and subclinical mastitis 241 and 208 producers provided a numerical estimate, respectively. Remaining producers either did not know or did not provide an estimate. These results provide new insight into producer perception of mastitis and milk quality economics.
Keywords: Costs, Mastitis, Milk quality, SQMI