[Udder health management practices in dairy enterprises to reduce the incidence of bovine mastitis].

Abstract

An effective programme to reduce mastitis on farm level focuses on both decreasing the rate of mastitis incidence and shortening the duration of existing infections. Therefore, the present paper deals with the identification of those evidence-based management practices which are known to reduce the mastitis incidence on farm level. Corresponding practices in the areas of personnel, breeding, husbandry, feeding and milking are presented and evaluated. As most factors evaluated here pose a "pathogen-specific" risk rather than a "general" one, any systematic measure designed to control mastitis in a given herd has to consider this by performing a structured risk analysis based on the specific bacteriological findings.