The Financial Impact of Decreased Milk Production Due to Subclinical Mastitis in German Dairy Herds

Abstract

The mastitis has beenidentified as the most costly disease in dairy industry. The aim of this studywas performed to provide adequate information on the financial loss due tosubclinical mastitis in German dairy farms. The data were collected from 12dairy farms (a total of 7,648 Holstein-Friesian dairy cows) in the Elbe-Elsterregion, Germany. Their milk composition data were gathered individually once ina month from June 2011 to June 2012. Herde® (Agrosoft GmbH, Germany), a herdmanagement program was used to analyse the data from the economic point ofview. The 50,000 somatic cell counts (SCC)/mL of a cut-off value was used tocalculate the decrease in milk production emerged in subclinical mastitis.Average figures on an individual basis showed a daily decrease in milkproduction of 2.98 kg, 5.41 kg and 6.41 kg for cows with 50,001-100,000 SCC/mL,100,001-250,000 SCC/mL and over 250,000 SCC/mL, respectively. All thereductions in milk yield were statistically significant by using mixed effectANOVA and Tukey’s multiple comparison method. Based on the average milk pricein the survey period, a single cow according to the aforementioned SCC classificationshowed a loss of Euro (€) 294.85, € 536.80 and € 634.40 per lactation in grossmilk receipts, respectively. On an average herd level, which was 637 dairy cowsin this study, a total decrease of gross milk receipts was calculated to bealmost € 241,000 per year. This findings show that the milk production beginsto reduce over 50,000 SCC/mL, therefore the generally accepted cut-off value of100,000 SCC/mL for subclinical mastitis should be re-evaluated.