Bovine Mastitis as an Evolving Disease and Its Impact on the Dairy Industry (original) (raw)

Worldwide, mastitis is emerging as a major challenge in dairy development, on account of being the cause for severe wastage and undesirable milk quality, besides breed development, nutritional management, control of infections and internal parasitic diseases. The major factors found to be important and affecting the prevalence of subclinical mastitis included flock size, regional agro climatic conditions, distinctive socio-cultural practices, marketing of milk and its byproducts, literacy level of the animal owner, feeding system and administration. The continuing presence of the disease may be attributed to poor practices which includes unhygienic conditions, improper milking practices, faulty milking equipment, lack of veterinary medicines, poor housing besides breeding strategies for ever-increasing milk yield. It is important to be aware of the fact that being an infectious disease, all methods of commercial milk production may provide suitable breeding conditions for mastitis organisms and thus spread mastitis from cow to cow. On account of insights provided by a considerable body of evidence it is suggested that to increase exposure of cows to mastitis organisms and thereby get infected, several management and environmental factors interact together which compromise the cows natural resistance to disease help organisms in gaining entrance through the teat canal to milk secreting tissues of the udder where they cause infection. The incidence of disease is thus result of interplay between the infectious agents and management practices emphasizing the importance of udder defense.

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