Selective use of dry cow therapy

Sam Kade

Do any of you use dry cow therapy on cows over 200 scc only and just use a sealer on the cows under 200? The European parliament are pushing for reduced antibotic use on farms and selective use at drying off could reduce their use.
http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/expert-warns-that-farmers-are-at-a-crossroads-in-terms-of-antibiotic-use/

Mooooo

And will they do anything about the drugs prescribed to people that don't need em I wonder.... unlikely.
If putting in a sealer and no antibiotic tube cleanliness would want to be excellent. I guess the only way to know would be try it. Have always used both here. Would a longer dry period be required if no antibiotic used?

Sam Kade

That's true, it would be safer use a dry cow tube than not use it, regardless of scc. The expert is promoting boviseal as well. Doctors hand out tablets like smarties and no restrictions on that.

GrasstoMilk

Up until 12 years ago no dry cow was used here. A bad bout of mastitis had us using blanket dry cow treatment since.
I see no reason why it wouldnt work again.

But by my own admission, I'm keeping cows I shouldn't due to expansion.

Once I get to a stage where I can clear all the dirt out ( which has begun) I will go to selective dry cow.

Dry cow facilities need to be good with a cubicle for every cow

Freejin

Sam Kade wrote: »

Do any of you use dry cow therapy on cows over 200 scc only and just use a sealer on the cows under 200? The European parliament are pushing for reduced antibotic use on farms and selective use at drying off could reduce their use.
http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/expert-warns-that-farmers-are-at-a-crossroads-in-terms-of-antibiotic-use/

This thread just reminded me I put sealers only on about 15% of the herd last year. They would have been the lowest scc cows,all well under 100. Just compared this year's milk recordings (5 so far), and two cows showed a significant increase, all the rest are around the same. One of the two that increased is a 5th lactation cow. Most of the others were first and second lactation. I reckon it would probably suit younger cows best.

aidanki

Sam Kade wrote: »

That's true, it would be safer use a dry cow tube than not use it, regardless of scc. The expert is promoting boviseal as well. Doctors hand out tablets like smarties and no restrictions on that.

did it once and will never do it again, what we lost in the April milk check and the extra hassle of testing and giving tubes in March April and keeping back milk from tank was the greatest hassle on the planet

will be blanketing all cows in the future

think it was spring 2014 that we had all the bother, and that spring was a bad year for cell counts I think anyway

this year was a good year for cell counts for everyone I think espically in the spring time, so maybe had we not used it last year mighn't be saying this

Timmaay

I did very few of the early calvers who were out wintered for Dec so good and clean, definitely wouldn't risk just sealer on later calvers, march/April/may are the pressure months here, for time, shedspace and hygiene, and last thing I need are extra cases of mastitis.

J.O. Farmer

Mooooo wrote: »

And will they do anything about the drugs prescribed to people that don't need em I wonder.... unlikely.
If putting in a sealer and no antibiotic tube cleanliness would want to be excellent. I guess the only way to know would be try it. Have always used both here. Would a longer dry period be required if no antibiotic used?

Could the dry cow period not be shorter due to no withdrawal period.

Mooooo

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

Mooooo wrote: »

And will they do anything about the drugs prescribed to people that don't need em I wonder.... unlikely.
If putting in a sealer and no antibiotic tube cleanliness would want to be excellent. I guess the only way to know would be try it. Have always used both here. Would a longer dry period be required if no antibiotic used?

Could the dry cow period not be shorter due to no withdrawal period.

I was thinking longer due to give the cow a chance to help scc when treatment not given

Water John

I think Dawgone posted in another thread that only 10% of cows could get dry cow tubes in France in any year.
Might be a sign of what's coming.

boggerman1

Another bull**** idea from the eu.its doctors dishing out meds willie nillie that causes most resistance.but hey blame the ticko farmers as usual

pedigree 6

boggerman1 wrote: »

Another bull**** idea from the eu.its doctors dishing out meds willie nillie that causes most resistance.but hey blame the ticko farmers as usual

When this came up here I was reminded of this article.
Read the comments section in this article.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/when-it-comes-antimicrobial-resistance-watch-out-wildlife

It seems vegan campaigners views on milk has now made it into mainstream thinking. You keep saying something often enough and people will believe you.

J.O. Farmer

Mooooo wrote: »

I was thinking longer due to give the cow a chance to help scc when treatment not given

Maybe but I could argue the logic for that both ways.
I think though that the idea would be to not use dry cow therapy only in cows with very low scc therefore not really needing extra time to recover from the scc count.

Mooooo

Yeah valid point. Shortest dry period I'd use would be 6 weeks and there are tubes with 35 day withdrawal that I use then. Only done that with good solid cows but so far I've found that while they calved down and went back in calf fine they were down approx 1k litres in yield the following lactation. Now I know that's not scientific as every year is different as well but I feel it def contributed. Chasing the last 2 or 3 weeks yield by shortening the dry period too much costs the following year

J.O. Farmer

boggerman1 wrote: »

Another bull**** idea from the eu.its doctors dishing out meds willie nillie that causes most resistance.but hey blame the ticko farmers as usual

There is merit in the idea of not routinely using antibiotics prophylatically. How it is implemented would need to be evidence based.

I'm not a doctor but I think some responsible doctors are more careful about handing out antibiotics while others are as you say handing them out willie nillie. That's something that needs to change too.

The other thing that needs to happen is countries like the US need to bring in similar rules.

I'm not necessarily a fan of the EU and their way of telling us what we should and shouldn't do but antibiotic resistance is a real problem but the way that bacteria can interact in the environment means that the mastitis pathogen today could pass on the resistance to the pneumonia pathogen of tomorrow.

pedigree 6

What this all boils down to is human health.
That last article I put up, the argument was that antibiotic resistant bacteria came from human faeces that the human themselves had taken antibiotics and the bacteria had somehow now became resistant to antibiotics because of antibiotic use.
This really doesn't hold water. 1000 year old mummies have been studied and been found to contain antibiotic resistant bacteria and no antibiotics were in use 1000 years ago. So antibiotics don't cause them to come into existence. They were already there. We just never looked for them.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2096495-antibiotic-resistance-discovered-in-the-guts-of-ancient-mummies/

Dawggone

Water John wrote: »

I think Dawgone posted in another thread that only 10% of cows could get dry cow tubes in France in any year.
Might be a sign of what's coming.

That's a proposal John...along with many many others.

Dawggone

pedigree 6 wrote: »

What this all boils down to is human health.
That last article I put up, the argument was that antibiotic resistant bacteria came from human faeces that the human themselves had taken antibiotics and the bacteria had somehow now became resistant to antibiotics because of antibiotic use.
This really doesn't hold water. 1000 year old mummies have been studied and been found to contain antibiotic resistant bacteria and no antibiotics were in use 1000 years ago. So antibiotics don't cause them to come into existence. They were already there. We just never looked for them.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2096495-antibiotic-resistance-discovered-in-the-guts-of-ancient-mummies/

If they could find some pesticide resistant insects and a few weeds resistant to weedkiller, it would add some gravity to the find...

J.O. Farmer

pedigree 6 wrote: »

What this all boils down to is human health.
That last article I put up, the argument was that antibiotic resistant bacteria came from human faeces that the human themselves had taken antibiotics and the bacteria had somehow now became resistant to antibiotics because of antibiotic use.
This really doesn't hold water. 1000 year old mummies have been studied and been found to contain antibiotic resistant bacteria and no antibiotics were in use 1000 years ago. So antibiotics don't cause them to come into existence. They were already there. We just never looked for them.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2096495-antibiotic-resistance-discovered-in-the-guts-of-ancient-mummies/

That articlepoints out that most antibiotics are derived from naturally occurring substances. The resistance genes are also naturally occurring and always have been. It is the prevalence of multiple resistances that are increasing.

As farmers we should be aware of wormer resistance and this is a similar concept. It is a form of evolution. As the microorganisms are exposed to more antibiotics those with resistance are more likely to survive and reproduce.

The thing with bacteria are they can pass on resistance in weird and wonderful ways. For example if you keep beltex sheep (the belgian blue of the sheep world) in the same field as some narrow extreme holstein type cattle the cattle aren't going to pick up the double muscling. Bacteria aren't always so concerned with not passing things to other species.

However even if we stop using antibiotics and just try to breed cows resistant to mastitis it will be a constant battle as the microorganisms will evolve to overcome whatever way we breed the cows to overcome the problem.

It is an interesting debate and one worth having. My fear is that the bureaucrats in Europe act without proper scientific research based on something which is a nice soundbite that they can engage in a bit of back slapping about how great they are.

Mooooo

Dawggone wrote: »

pedigree 6 wrote: »

What this all boils down to is human health.
That last article I put up, the argument was that antibiotic resistant bacteria came from human faeces that the human themselves had taken antibiotics and the bacteria had somehow now became resistant to antibiotics because of antibiotic use.
This really doesn't hold water. 1000 year old mummies have been studied and been found to contain antibiotic resistant bacteria and no antibiotics were in use 1000 years ago. So antibiotics don't cause them to come into existence. They were already there. We just never looked for them.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2096495-antibiotic-resistance-discovered-in-the-guts-of-ancient-mummies/

If they could find some pesticide resistant insects and a few weeds resistant to weedkiller, it would add some gravity to the find...

Don't know about all pesticides but some work by blocking receptor sites in the insects central nervous system and that is how they are killed so I'd say it would be extremely unlikely for an insect to becomes resistant to that as it would have to develop a new way for nervous system communication whereas bacteria are a different kettle of fish

Dawggone

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

That articlepoints out that most antibiotics are derived from naturally occurring substances. The resistance genes are also naturally occurring and always have been. It is the prevalence of multiple resistances that are increasing.

As farmers we should be aware of wormer resistance and this is a similar concept. It is a form of evolution. As the microorganisms are exposed to more antibiotics those with resistance are more likely to survive and reproduce.

The thing with bacteria are they can pass on resistance in weird and wonderful ways. For example if you keep beltex sheep (the belgian blue of the sheep world) in the same field as some narrow extreme holstein type cattle the cattle aren't going to pick up the double muscling. Bacteria aren't always so concerned with not passing things to other species.

However even if we stop using antibiotics and just try to breed cows resistant to mastitis it will be a constant battle as the microorganisms will evolve to overcome whatever way we breed the cows to overcome the problem.

It is an interesting debate and one worth having. My fear is that the bureaucrats in Europe act without proper scientific research based on something which is a nice soundbite that they can engage in a bit of back slapping about how great they are.

There's a EU debate about the science/technology industry being a half a step ahead of the curve with antibiotics/pesticides/chemicals.
Questions are being asked about the net beneficiaries...farmers?...mankind?...or the chemical/pharma industry?

Has merit.

yosemitesam1

Dawggone wrote: »

If they could find some pesticide resistant insects and a few weeds resistant to weedkiller, it would add some gravity to the find...

I vaguely remember seeing something similar about herbicide resistance, I think it might have been charlock.

cute geoge

Ya a great idea to use selective dry cow terepy but you better spend every hour of the rest of the winter brushing down and liming cubicles .I have a few dry cows that insist in lying in shlt and trow a few more dry cows on slats for the winter ,never a bother with scc once they are tubed with antibiotic and sealer .if the eu made selective dry cow compulsory ,i would not bother milking cows anymore i think!!

Dawggone

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

I vaguely remember seeing something similar about herbicide resistance, I think it might have been charlock.

Farming is pretty much in a mess across the EU. Ask Waffle about Blackgrass herbicide resistance in East Anglia (not to mention soil degradation), fungicide resistance to crop diseases, antibiotic resistance etc.
Couple this with imminent climate change policy....
There must be a better way.

Already we must increase om by 0.4%, planting monoculture grasses prohibited, proposals on limiting antibiotic use, limitations on fungicide/pesticide/herbicide use etc etc.

pedigree 6

Ah bloody hell I had a long post and it disappeared.

I'll try again. Yea the argument about weeds and insects getting resistance.
Resistance builds up because of underdosing. Say dosing an animal for worms you are supposed to use 60ml because of their weight. Now the farmer decides to save and use 40ml, 90% of the worms will be killed but 10% will be knocked back but not killed. Then the next dose is given, again 40ml. These same worms will be knocked back again but not killed. Now we are starting to get a problem which could easily have been solved in the first place if the farmer had given the correct 60ml or even 70ml.

So never underdose.

J.O. Farmer

cute geoge wrote: »

Ya a great idea to use selective dry cow terepy but you better spend every hour of the rest of the winter brushing down and liming cubicles .

I think the proposal is to use a sealer without antibiotic. The sealer mimics the natural keratin seal the cow will produce after drying off in a few weeks. The antibiotic is not effective for most of the dry cow period if you look at the withdrawal and take into account that it's well out of the system by then.

Water John

I suspect it will mean screening each quarter at the time and applying antibiotic only to the high SCC ones.

yosemitesam1

Dawggone wrote: »

Farming is pretty much in a mess across the EU. Ask Waffle about Blackgrass herbicide resistance in East Anglia (not to mention soil degradation), fungicide resistance to crop diseases, antibiotic resistance etc.
Couple this with imminent climate change policy....
There must be a better way.

Already we must increase om by 0.4%, planting monoculture grasses prohibited, proposals on limiting antibiotic use, limitations on fungicide/pesticide/herbicide use etc etc.

And all on its way here where the whole system is hopelessly unprepared for the change...

Was up in the alps last week and it was great to see the farming around there, cows up in the high pastures grazing away, last cut of hay done down in the valleys, all from very diverse swards that I doubt were getting any fert with well over 20+ different species, huge amount of insects around as well. I'd say we'll be looking to these 'backward' systems for inspiration yet...

pedigree 6

It seems bacteria do evolve. I suppose they had to otherwise we wouldn't be here.:pac:

http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-this-amazing-video-shows-evolution-happening-in-just-days

blue5000

All sucklers here the past 10 years or so, no dry cow therapy since I changed over. In 10 years I'd safely say only 2 cows have lost a quarter.

Water John

Similar experience to you Blue. Used to have good numbers, small herd now but very little mastitis in sucklers. Not holding milk as long either, calf cleaning them out regularly. Are you suggesting milking the cows 6 times a day to solve the issue?

yosemitesam1

pedigree 6 wrote: »

It seems bacteria do evolve. I suppose they had to otherwise we wouldn't be here.:pac:

http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-this-amazing-video-shows-evolution-happening-in-just-days

It used to be possible to select for annual ryegrass out of a pure perrenial variety and vice versa, even when it appears that there's 0 resistance there probably is an awful lot of potential before allowing for mutations. They can also adapt themselves within a field to specific resistance genes a crop variety could have which is why in the wild the bottom half of plants who wont be passing on a huge amount of genes to next generation still play a role in slowing disease evolution

Freejin

Resurrecting an old thread but its the time of year!

Are there many using selective DC therapy? Did a small experiment last year with 12 cows. All 1st,2nd and 3rd calvers, average SCC for the year of 80 or under, no individual test over 150, last test before drying off 100 or under and no cases of clinical mastitis during the year were my criteria for user sealer only. All others got Cepravin DC and sealer.

9 of the 12 had a lower average SCC this year than last. The other three went up, but the highest went to an average of 148 so not bad.

If I apply the same criteria to this years recording results, over a third of the herd would fall into the sealer only category.

I'm a bit nervous about doing that many, any others have experiences?

The man in red and black

Freejin wrote: »

Resurrecting an old thread but its the time of year!

Are there many using selective DC therapy? Did a small experiment last year with 12 cows. All 1st,2nd and 3rd calvers, average SCC for the year of 80 or under, no individual test over 150, last test before drying off 100 or under and no cases of clinical mastitis during the year were my criteria for user sealer only. All others got Cepravin DC and sealer.

9 of the 12 had a lower average SCC this year than last. The other three went up, but the highest went to an average of 148 so not bad.

If I apply the same criteria to this years recording results, over a third of the herd would fall into the sealer only category.

I'm a bit nervous about doing that many, any others have experiences?

Don't see why not. If you maintain strict selection criteria, have a solid drying off routine with excellent attention to hygiene you have done the trial run so roll out the full program where appropriate. Selective DCT will become mandatory in the future with some countries already gone that way so why not get ahead of the curve and save some money on antibiotics?

Have a chat with your vet/ask them to do a mastitis audit and help you build a plan if you are still unsure.

joejobrien

Been using DCT for 6 to 7 yearts at this stage. Wouldnt use Antibiotics and sealer on no more than av 8 cows /yr.
Sealers on balance
Hygine is upper most of importance, clean twice daily and lime daily . Cows recieve 8 wk dry peroid. often still yielding 16litres/ day when put dry. All above based on 140 cow herd. scc under 100k all year average. wont be changing this plan

mahoney_j

For anyone thinking of going this route sealers are not in big supply this year and aithbnext few weeks seen start of dry off supply will tighten further .my scc for year is averaging 98 and I’m in no way willing to use selective dct ,it’s just not worth the risk

Buford T. Justice XIX

mahoney_j wrote: »

For anyone thinking of going this route sealers are not in big supply this year and aithbnext few weeks seen start of dry off supply will tighten further .my scc for year is averaging 98 and I’m in no way willing to use selective dct ,it’s just not worth the risk

I bought mine last month after Whelans warning here so I'm sorted:P

Mooooo

Was talking to vets was some issue with the plant in Germany or where ever but according to them they'll be in alright. That was boviseal. They had plenty sureseal

mahoney_j

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

I bought mine last month after Whelans warning here so I'm sorted:P

I was paying a bill yesterday and vet mentioned it ,balance was at zero for all of 5 minutes I’d say!!!!!,noroseal got and cephaguard dry cow ordered