The Moos Room™

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Joe: Welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. We are without Dr. Bradley J. Heins today. It's a sad day.
Emily: Cue the sad music.
Joe: I know. He has other obligations today, helping with some shows, doing fun things, probably more fun than hanging out with us, but I don't know, they're pretty fun.
Emily: Being a good dad to his kids and stuff, I guess.
Joe: Pretty important stuff, I guess. Otherwise, it's just Emily and I today, you're stuck with us. We're going to talk today about the basics of mastitis. Not going to get super in depth because we don't have time to cover it all, there's so much to talk about. We want to set the stage for future episodes where we have guests on and other experts as we talk about all that has to do with milk quality, and mastitis, and prevention, control, treatment, all those things. We're going to get into the basics today. Emily loves mastitis. It's one of her things.
Emily: I do. I've always been a big, milk quality person, and I love talking about mastitis, and writing articles about mastitis, and recording podcasts about mastitis.
Joe: It's very important topic. It's a big deal. Got to have good, high-quality milk. The thing that always is linked right away with mastitis is somatic cell count. Clearly, they're related. One doesn't necessarily mean the other, but they are definitely correlated very heavily. We talk about somatic cell count all the time, and that would be abbreviated as SCC. If you see that out there, that's what we're talking about, somatic cell count.
It's an indication of inflammation and/or infection, and cleanliness, general cleanliness. We care about it because it affects the shelf life of milk. The lower we can get that somatic cell count, the higher quality that milk is, and the longer it lasts on the shelf. It is very important. The days of premiums are gone, but they're still out there in some cases.
Emily: Finally, I know that more co-ops have been switching to instead of premiums, they do penalties. They will knock off from your milk check if your somatic cell count is too high because, like you said, that impacts the shelf life. It impacts just the value of the milk in general for them, and what they can do with it. I think that there is still an economic component to it. Also, cows that are mastitic or even cows that are just chronically high cell count, they don't make as much money, they're losing your money.
All of these things. We could always tie it to economics, which I know everybody including me loves so much, but there is something to be said for that in any situation. We always talk about the dairy as a system. You think about how each piece fits together. What's happening with mastitis management, with cow cleanliness, with somatic cell count, what's happening in the parlor, or during milking if you're in tie stalls. All that matters and it all fits in.
Joe: It's a big production issue. Mastitis affects your production. That's probably why we need to care about it the most, but the somatic cell count thing, it becomes a-- Times have not been great for dairy farmers. It's just one more thing that gives you some power when you're working with the creamery to say, "Now, you really do want my milk because it's low somatic cell count." They care about that a lot. Think of it as a reputation, almost job security kind of thing. That's how I think about it in some ways. I know that's maybe a leach.
Emily: I don't think it is at all because I think of even DHIA, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, every year they do their recognition of the low somatic cell count herds and the reason they're recognizing them. You're right, part of it is reputation and just credibility. When you see people with somatic cell counts that yearly average is in the double digits, not the triple digits, to me that's phenomenal. To me that goes, "That is a really good farmer. That's really great management on that farm, whatever they're doing." For people that say they don't care about that, I don't know that they're lying and maybe they just don't care, but they should. [chuckles]
Joe: I agree. I think it is something that you do need to care about. Like I said, because it is linked to production, you should care about it because if you can lower that somatic cell, you're most likely lowering mastitis, and you're increasing production. It is all money that's available there, marginal milk that you can pick up. There's all sorts of different bugs that cause mastitis, mastitis being an in infection of the udder, inflammation in the udder. We're not going to get into depth about all the different ones today, that's a huge topic.
There's some big categories that you can think about. There's, of course, bacteria being broken down into gram-positive or gram-negative. There's things that are like bacteria, but not bacteria that would be your mycobacteria. There's even things like Prototheca, which is a protozoa agent which is infectious too, and causes mastitis as well. There's all sorts of different things that cause mastitis, but those are the--
Emily: If you get Prototheca, it is bad news.
Joe: Bad news. It is tough to get rid of, tough to control, very difficult to deal with. It becomes basically just we don't have a great way to get rid of it, to be honest. There's a lot of testing.
Emily: I don't think it's something you ever fully get rid of.
Joe: There's a lot of testing and surveillance to figure that out.
Emily: You get a handle on it. I know a larger dairy at the time, I think they were milking 6 to 800 cows somewhere in there, and they got Prototheca. This was a farm that I visited in college, but then still I work with today as a part of my extension work. I've been out of college for over seven years. It's not as bad as it was, but it's still there. It lingers.
Joe: Oh, it definitely does. It's something I ran into in practice a few times. It's tough to deal with. You can read the textbook, and it'll tell you that Prototheca is an issue with standing water. I've been to places that had Prototheca, there's no standing water anywhere. It's a tough one. There's all sorts of different things that you have to deal with. You just want to remember the big categories because there's definitely recommendations, and treatments, and options as you work towards based on what category your mastitis falls in.
The type of bug is one way to look at it. Chronicity is definitely a way to look at it. Do you have a chronic cow that continually becomes infected, or is this an acute infection that clears on its own, and that cow doesn't necessarily have further issues because of that? There's all sorts of different ways to look at it.
Emily: I also usually divide them up into thinking about, and maybe you were getting here Joe is, are they contagious or are they environmental?
Joe: That's a great way to look at it.
Emily: I'd know this because that's a really important thing to know and to understand. I am a huge proponent for culturing your milk. Some people just do a bulk tank culture, so they get a general feel for what they got going on in the herd. Culturing specific cows is also not a bad idea because your contagious ones will be things like Staph aureus, Strep Ag, Mycoplasma, there's another nasty one. Then environmental, that's just from things being dirty. We know we talk a lot about cleanliness on this podcast, and I feel like we'll get plenty of that conversation in today as well.
Joe: Oh, absolutely. I think there's contagious and environmental, two big things to think about. Contagious is a mess to deal with, especially when you're talking about Myco, like Emily mentioned. That is a rough bug as well and it's hard to culture, which makes it even worse. On-farm culture is a great option if you want to identify exactly what's going on. Even if something is an occasional bulk tank, culture to figure out what's all there. That's a really good way to identify issues before they get out of control, if you can. That's a huge deal.
I'm a big fan of culturing fresh cows. I like to culture at freshening if I can. On-farm culturing is not that hard. It really isn't. There's an expense to it, but there's so many different options now as far as how to read plates and do it in a really easy way. There's even color-coded stuff now. You just know if it turns a certain color, you know if it's gram-positive, or gram-negative, or something else. It's really easy to do. It's something that you should talk to your veterinarian about setting up.
Emily: I think that even with that initial cost in the long run, you probably end up saving money because I'm getting a little ahead here, but we'll go back to talking first about prevention. If you are in the treatment phase where you do have something, you culture the milk and you know what you have, you can make sure you're treating it with the right tube, or whatever type of treatment you may choose to use. You can save a lot of money because I've seen people that are just, they're using tubes that they don't treat the bugs that that cow has. You should just squirt the tube into the gutter. You'll have the same result either way.
Joe: I think there's that issue of cost saving. Then also judicious use of antibiotics is just something that comes up all the time now. If you are using an antibiotic unnecessarily, and there's a way to prevent that, it's always a good option if you can. You can justify it by saving money because like Em said, it doesn't always require a treatment, first of all, or the treatment that you're using should be as target as possible because a lot of times you're going to have, something will not actually grow.
There was no grosser because that cow is already cleared the infection, and is working on and herself. Gram-negatives, there's really no reason to treat those with a tube. We're not going to go down that route. There's too much to talk about. We'll stop there. That's all I can say.
Emily: I thought the rabbit hole was opening up. I'm like, burry it.
Joe: If you see them, shut it down. We're back to prevention. Prevention again, I swear we're talking about this every week. Prevention is better than treatment. So many ways to prevent mastitis and try to avoid it. Minimize it as much as you can on your farm. Emily already opened the door to the biggest one, especially when we're talking.
Emily: These are number one in preventing so many things.
Joe: So many things, especially our environmental mastitis. It's all about being clean.
Emily: Cleanliness is so vital on the dairy for many reasons we've mentioned. We've talked about it in context of calves, we talked about it in context of keeping feed clean to prevent different digestive issues, whatever it may be. Especially it is just paramount to effective mastitis management, effective milk quality management, being able to really nip some of those issues in the bud. Because like we already said, the bugs will fall into two major categories, contagious or environmental. Environmental, they come from a dirty environment.
What do we know about bacteria? They like it warm and they like it wet. Where is it warm and wet? Near dirty cows, near manure, wet bedding, pick your poison basically.
Joe: Clean and dry is the biggest thing that you need to just keep reminding yourself. If you have an issue where you're picking up a lot of environmental mastitis, you just need to walk the barn and anything that's not clean and dry, that's a potential source of mastitis. Especially the closer you get to the parlor as far as puddles and things like that because that right after you come out of that parlor, that teat sphincter at the end of that teat is wide open. If they're splashing around and pushing droplets of dirty water up onto their utter, that's definitely an issue. Then like Emily said, bedding is a huge source. I think it's pretty hard to get away from sand now, but it's got to be dry, clean, and dry.
Emily: Clean and dry, and it's a great point that you mentioned there, Joe, with the teat sphincter. It's totally relaxed, and it's wide open because that's what cows need to do in milk let-down is they're relaxing that sphincter to let the milk out. That sphincter typically stays open or relaxed for, I think it's 30 minutes. It's not just, "Oh, the cows are milked, we're done." It's this constant vigilance thing where even when they're done, that's why we really encourage people to try to have fresh feed available or just push up feed if you're in a tie stall barn. I remember that was always my job.
Growing up we milked about 40 cows in a tie stall. During milking, I was pushing up the feed so that the cows would stay standing when they were done before they laid back down. Tie stalls, especially have a lot of challenges with the cleanliness thing because we typically aren't seeing sand bedding. It's usually straw or something else that's made of an organic material. That is, again, perfect breeding grounds for bacteria. Tie stall guys, we are not forgetting about you. I will never forget about you. They maybe have to work a little bit harder to keep that clean and dry, especially.
Joe: Clean and dry. I think the other thing is too when you're looking about this, one of the big things I look for is any time you can multitask. I love to, when I'm at herd check, I don't have to go to the parlor to see if cows are splashing around coming out. I have to look at the backs of the front legs. I can see if they're splashing happening by looking at the cows all the way out in the free stall, or wherever the cows are. I don't have to be in the parlor to see a lot of that. You can notice a lot of things that are happening without having to be right around the parlor and seeing all of that. Clean and dry, that's number one.
Emily: This is maybe where you were going. We're really on the same wavelength today, Joe.
Joe: Just today.
Emily: Keeping things clean and dry, and we were really talking specifically about the barn and the stalls, but also the parlor. If I had to pick an area that I think we take for granted a little bit, and the area that I love to write the most about, and teach about a lot and something that-- In my former life I interned one summer for a veterinary pharmaceutical company, and I sold mastitis tubes all summer. We were really working with people too on just general better management. A lot of that happens in the parlor. Whenever I'm on a dairy, I am the parlor police. I am watching what's happening.
Again, not just parlors, but even in step-ups, tie stalls, whatever, flat parlors, whatever you're doing. This is something that Dr. Jeff Ono Professor Emeritus used to say all the time. He was really my mentor when I was learning a lot about this topic. He was like, "The goal is the same and it's simple. You want to milk clean, dry, well-stimulated teats. How we make that happen is in the prep procedure." I'm the prep police too. I am very hard on the producers I work with about making sure that they are following some sort of a method that works for them and for what their labor is, but also really puts that goal as number one. You want clean, dry, well-stimulated teats.
Joe: There's not a whole lot more to say about that. There's all sorts of different ways to get there. There's some pretty much standard practices to follow when we talk about milk prep. That's really what you need. You need a clean, dry, well-stimulated teat. The biggest barrier I see to that is that it's just like calves. Some people just don't like working with calves, and some people just don't like milking calves. It makes it tough because there's a lot of ways to take shortcuts that you probably shouldn't.
It's really hard to be hard on employees in the parlor because we're always short on labor, and we're always worried that if I'm too hard on them, well then I'm going to be doing it because they're going to leave. Definitely, again, we paint a lot of things as black and white here. There's a gray area, but you got to try to work as hard as you can to get that.
Emily: We are toeing the line, and we know that.
Joe: We know that there's a gray area, there's some wiggle room, but clean, dry, well-stimulated teat, preferably going out with a post-dip on to make sure that we're protecting that teat end as much as we can.
Emily: Something that I always like to talk to producers about, and also for several years I have taught the milk quality and mastitis management session for the Minnesota 4-H dairy project members. They take a quiz when they've done all this. The big thing we talk about a lot is the times. The times you need to remember during milking, pretty easy, 10 to 20 seconds of stimulation to help with milk let-down, 30 seconds of contact time. You should be using some sort of dip to kill bacteria on the teat surface. That needs to be under 30 seconds. If you are dipping and then immediately wiping it off, again, you're just wasting your money.
Then lastly, one to two minutes, that's prep leg time. That's how long it should take from the time you first touch the cow or touch her udder to getting the milking machine attached. Those are things that we just like to keep in mind, and because they are prevention. Also, because the thing that we can see, a big one is if you don't do enough to stimulate proper milk let-down because what's going to happen is the vacuum pump on that machine is going to have to work a whole lot harder. It is going to be putting pressure on a teat that is just not letting milk out yet.
That's where we get to see really rough-looking teat ends. You get the little keratin rings around the teat end, which you don't want to see. If you are seeing that, you might want to look into, are you doing enough to stimulate milk let-down in your cows? It's possible to have your milking equipment maintenance person come out because your vacuum pump may just be up too high, and you just need to have a little less pressure on it too. That's something that I always like to throw in there because that's like, "Oh yes, that's right."
Joe: That is super important because, and on the way I always think about it is that cow needs to be stimulated for that time, regardless of whether or not you do it. If you don't, the vacuum pump is going to have to do it. That is not comfortable for the cow and it causes issues like Emily just talked about. There's all sorts of things in the parlor. I think you can get a lot done in the parlor, and make sure things are running really, really well with just a couple of really, really important things. A stopwatch, which pretty much everyone has on their phone now, and then a few pieces.
Emily: I am that person.
Joe: I am too. I've done it.
Emily: I'm in parlors, I have my phone out, and I'm just watching employees.
Joe: It's really important. A stopwatch is a huge deal, and it'll get you a long ways. There's also apps out there that allow you to count certain things, and it'll count some of that for you, but all you need is a stopwatch. I think either a really clean white paper towel or a piece of gauze.
Emily: The old white towel test.
Joe: The old white towel test. I can check teat dip coverage, I can check teat end cleanliness to see if everyone's pinching those ends to make sure there's nothing in the crevices there. Then if I have my stopwatch, I know the times are right. If I have just those two things, I can do a lot in the parlor. To be honest, there's a lot you can see in the parlor, even without cows there. We're going to have to take a break because Emily just froze. I don't know what's going on with their internet, but we'll take a break. We're back.
Emily: She's back.
Joe: [laughs] I have no idea where we were, or what we were talking about. Oh, there's a lot you can learn from just looking at the parlor, even with no cows in it. I like looking at to see if employees have been wearing gloves, and asking if employees wear gloves because that's a big risk factor. Then I love to look at all the buttons in the parlor, or back to being really clean. I can tell if employees have manure all over their hands when they're milking cows because those buttons are covered in manure.
Emily: Genius. I have never thought of that. My mind is blown. That is such a simple thing.
Joe: I can't take credit for it. It's something that I learned from Dr. Erin Royster, who runs the Udder Health Lab here at the University of Minnesota. It is such a simple thing. I can tell so much by walking in the parlor when no one's in there, and just looking at the buttons. If they're clean and it's pristine, I'm like, "All right. Odds are, at least they have clean hands when they're milking." It seems so simple, but it's nice to see.
Emily just froze again, we'll be back yet again. It's been a while and she's still not back, we're just going to continue. Might even just wrap up this episode. [laughs] That's how it's going today. Her internet's been all over the place. [chuckles] It's just-- Oh, and she's back. Look at that.
Emily: She's back and she is pissed.
Joe: Just angry at the world because internet is not doing well for her today. I have a pet peeve. I got a pet peeve. I hate saying that.
Emily: Ooh, let's hear it.
Joe: Pet peeve of mine. Actually, it's something that's real. The reason it's a pet peeve is because it's hard to deal with, and it's a tough conversation to have with an employee because the reason that they're doing it is because they want to be clean, which is the right attitude. No one should be spraying anything down in the parlor while there's cows milking or being prepped. I understand that you want to get that manure out of there. I understand, obviously, it's going to happen where like, "Okay, she just dropped manure all over the claw."
You have to wash it off before you put it on the cow, but you should not be spraying the floor out by the cows while they're being prepped, or being milked. It's such a simple thing. It's a hard conversation to have because it comes from a good place. They want to be clean, but that should be happening in between cows because you don't want any of that aerosolized, and getting anywhere while you're trying to prep or milk. That's my pet peeve.
Emily: That's another thing too that then the cows can start dancing around a little bit, and that could impact milk let-down also. That is such a great point, and now that is also one of my pet peeves.
Joe: I'm missing one. I don't know how we missed it, but low stress is another thing that's been a theme on this show, and it applies to milking yet again. Low stress handling, being calm around the cows, having calm cows coming to the parlor will make everyone's lives better, I promise. Even if you want to rush, and you're trying to push things quickly to get those cows in, it needs to be done in a way that doesn't ramp up their stress because that affects milk let-down, like Em said, and then you run into the same problems you had with lack of stimulation. The vacuum pump is working on a teat that has no milk yet.
Emily: That is probably my milking parlor pet peeve. Parlors that are extremely loud, or employees that are yelling at the cows, or one I see often, they'll have canes or some sticks and they usually aren't using them on the cows, but they're banging on some piece of equipment, banging on the gate, or whatever it might be. That just drives me absolutely bonkers because you are not creating a good environment for that cow to come into. You are highly impacting milk let-down because basically, you're scaring the cows. They're releasing adrenaline, and adrenaline is going to block their oxytocin. You have to be thinking about that. Another thing is, and I go back and forth on it, music in the parlor.
I grew up, we always had an old radio in the barn. The cows always listened to music. I'm not opposed to it per se, but there are times I have gone in parlors where it is so loud and it's dangerous for the cows, it's dangerous for people. Hearing damage, that sounds a little dorky and mom-ish of me, but it's bad for their hearing. Two, if something is happening from a safety standpoint, if somebody slips or there's some accident and you can't hear them, your back is to them, just thinking about, how do you make your parlor or wherever you milk an inviting and welcoming space for all?
Joe: For all being the keyword because your employees got to work there too. It can't be brutally hot or brutally cold. I like music for employees at a reasonable volume because it makes it a better work environment. I think there's a trade-off there. Like Emily said, it can't be massively loud. That's crazy. We're going to have to take a break because Emily just froze. You won't know it, but we will be right back. She's back yet again.
Emily: I swear to God.
Joe: We better wrap this pretty quick so that we don't do this all day. I have one other thing that I like talking about when it comes to low stress handling, it's called a crowd gate. Crowd gate, it's not a push gate. That's important to know. You're not using it to physically push cows, it's to get in their space, and cause them to move up. It should not be touching cows and if it does, it should stop immediately.
There should be safety things on there. You should be checking those to make sure they work because I've been around some really bad situations where that crowd gate was used incorrectly, or safety mechanisms had been disabled on purpose to help push cows with the crowd gate, and it's not for that. Make sure that's--
Emily: That's a really good way to injure cows too.
Joe: Absolutely. That's why I'm there. I'm there because the cows hurt. That's not a situation that I want to see because it's 100% preventable. I think that's got to be the last pet peeve for today because we're running out of time. I think we've given you--
Emily: I like this. We need to do more of pet peeve episodes.
Joe: I think we need to, like just what's your thing that just makes you irritated. Thank you for listening everybody. Hopefully, we've given you some basics, some things to think about. We will be back on this topic again with guests. There's so much to talk about when it comes to milk quality and mastitis. If you have questions, comments, ideas, scathing rebuttals, send them to themoosroom@umn.edu.
Emily: That is, T-H-E M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu.
Joe: Send those things there, and then you can catch us on the website at extension.umn.edu. Check us out on Facebook @UMNBeef and @UMNDairy. Again, thank you for listening. Bradley will be back next week, don't worry.
Emily: We miss you, Brad. Bye.
Joe: We miss you. Bye. Fat Pac-Man.
Emily: Thick Pac-Man.
Joe: Thick Pac-Man.
Emily: With two teats.
Joe: Big old Pac-Man.
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[00:29:22] [END OF AUDIO]

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