EFFECT OF THERAPEUTIC AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES IN THE DRY PERIOD ON THE EFFICIENCY OF ANTIBIOTIC THERAPY FOR MASTITIS IN LACTATING COWS

Abstract

A comparative study of the effect of preventive antibiotic treatment on the treatment efficiency of bovine mastitis was carried out. The experiment was carried out on lactating Holstein cows of 3-5 lactation with diagnosed subclinical mastitis. The cows were divided into 3 groups: Group 1 (n=13) – cows with no previous cases of mastitis and with no antibiotics given to prevent mastitis during the dry period; Group 2 (n=15) – cows with no previous cases of mastitis, which were injected azithromycin as preventive measures, and received a drug based on cefapirin intercisternally, within the drying off period; and Group 3 (n=11) – cows, that had previously undergone mastitis treatment (2-3 times). The animals from groups 1 and 2 were injected azithromycin and received a drug based on cefapirin intercisternally, within the drying off period, as well as cephalosporins of the 3rd generation injected during the postpartum period. It was found that the treatment efficacy of cows from group 1 was 84.6%, and in groups 2 and 3 was lower by 37.9 and 48.2%, respectively. Spearman's correlation analysis has shown that there is a significant inverse correlation between the presence of preventive antibiotic treatment and the efficacy of mastitis treatment (r = - 0.40; p = 0.011), indicating that preventive antibiotic treatment reduces the subsequent treatment efficacy of mastitis.