TDK conference 2014

The economic significance of alternative intramammary infusions arises from the fact that there is no milk withdrawal period for lactation therapy, hence significant sales of milk can be saved. The experiment was designed to study the efficacy of the usage of intramammary infusion with antibiotic (AB), alternative Vetramil® infusion with essential oil (VEO) content and alternative Vetramil® intramammary infusion without essential oils (VNEO) for clinical mastitis. The economic comparison of conventional and alternative intramammary infusions were carried out on the basis of the farms production indicators, cost and revenue items, thus their impact on the profitability.

The experiment was conducted in a large-scale dairy farm with average of 693 milking cows in Central Hungary between July and September of 2014. Three groups of cows (AB, VEO and VNEO) were set up, in each group there were 40 cows. Milk samples were collected before and after the clinical mastitis treatment and bacterial and resistance tests was carried out and for every second sample somatic cell count (SCC) was measured. We examined the milk yields data before the treatment, during the treatment and after the treatment (daily milk, SCC, etc..) in the purpose of monitoring the long-term production impact of the examined drugs. The total recovery rate was the highest in the case of antibiotics: 37 cases out of 18 (48%), the ratio in the case of alternative intramammary infusions were significantly lower: 8% for VEO (3 out of 37 cases), and 10% of VNEO (4 out of 40). The clinical signs of clinical mastitis were mostly mitigated by AB, the condition of the udder and the exerted milk’s macroscopic appearance was also completely normalized in this group in the largest proportion (43.2%, and 55.3%), compared to those in the group treated with VEO (26.3% and 8.1%) and those in the group treated with VNEO (15% and 12.5%). In addition, in several cases the use of Vetramilź infusions deterioriated the udder clinical symptoms (7,9% for essential oil and 15% for oil-free formulation). Because of the clinical mastitis in the group of AB 5,26%, in the VEO group 10,8% and in the VNEO group 5% of the cows were culled. Individual SCC was decreased only in the group where AB was used to 56% (from 2,198 thousand/ml to 1252 thousand/ml), while in the groups where the alternative udder infusions were administered the individual SCC values slightly increased to 103% (from 2571 thousand/ml to 2,660 thousand/ml) in VEO group and to 110% (from 2,983 thousand to 3,300 thousand / ml) in the VNEO group. The total drug cost of treatments for both Vetramilź alternative intramammary infusions was 3,760 HUF, while the treatment with AB was only 1960 HUF. However, due to the use of antibiotics an amount of 135 liters milk was withdrawn, whose value was 13,440 HUF. Thus, the use of alternative intramammary infusions would be beneficial, however 57,14% of the VEO treatments and after 66,67% of the VNEO treatments an additional AB treatment was needful, meaning additional drug cost and withdrawal milk, so the use of alternative intramammary infusion for clinical mastitis is not proved to be economically worthy.