Impact of various milking equipment on incidence of mastitis in dairy herd

Abstract

It was found that the lowest percentage of cows with mastitis was recorded in winter: 10.3% (P<0.001) when milking with ‘DeLaval’ equipment and 17.7% (P<0.001) when milking with the ADM-8A unit. The highest incidence of mastitis in cows was observed in summer: 21.0% (P<0.001) and 27.1% (P<0.001), respectively, when milking cows at milking parlors ‘DeLaval’ and ADM-8A. It was found that, when using milking equipment ADM-8A, adult cows are 2.1-1.7 times more prone to mastitis compared to cows of the 1st and 2nd calving. When milking cows with the ‘DeLaval’ unit, the incidence of mastitis in adult cows is 4.3-1.1 times higher than in cows of the 1st and 2nd calving. Gentle milking mode on the ‘DeLaval’ equipment allowed to increase the number of completely healthy animals to 74%, which is 9.6% more than when using the milking unit ADM-8A (64.4%), and to reduce the incidence of clinical mastitis in cows by 3.4 times. It has been established that in cows with disorders in the udder the content of somatic cells in the secretion of the udder significantly changes (with a high degree of correlation) in all periods of the functional state of the body. Thus, during subclinical mastitis r = 0.72 (P<0.001) and udder irritation r = 0.58 (P<0.05). At the beginning of lactation, subclinical mastitis is accompanied with significant changes in the activity of enzymes: muramidase r = 0.84 (P<0.001), lactoperoxidase r = 0.65 (P<0.01) and lactoferrin r = 0.66 (P<0.01).