Ruminants are the main source of human infections with the obligate intracellular bacterium Coxiella (C.) burnetii. Infected animals shed high numbers of C. burnetii by milk, feces, and birth products. In goats, shedding by the latter route coincides with C. burnetii replication in epithelial (trophoblast) cells of the placenta, which led us to hypothesize that epithelial cells are generally im...

Pre-milking teat disinfection is practised in several countries to prevent environment-related mastitis. This study was designed to prove the antimicrobial efficacy of a foaming, iodine-based teat disinfectant with five different concentrations (250; 500; 1,000; 2,000 and 3,000 ppm) against a negative control. For this purpose the split-udder design was used and within an udder two teats were d...

Although mastitis in cattle is an important factor for dairy economy and animal welfare and although udder health parameters have a substantial genetic variability, in many countries there is little or no improvement of udder health in the conventional commercial breeding programs. Strategies implementing information about Quantitative trait loci (QTL) via genetic marker information seem to off...

Staphylococcus aureus is the most common contagious mastitis pathogen of dairy cattle. Antimicrobial treatment of infected cattle results in variable cure rates. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) plays an important role in the modulation of host innate immune responses and the regulation of mammary epithelial regeneration, indicating that EGF may be useful as a treatment for mastitis. A pilot study...

The Journal of Dairy Science has increasingly become a primary outlet for scientific research concerning the health of the dairy cow and her calf. This paper attempts to highlight Journal of Dairy Science articles that have linked nutrition and nutritional strategies to reduce disease incidence on the dairy farm. Disorders associated with an animal's inability to cope with the demands of high p...

Udder health troubles in dairy ruminants mainly include intra mammary infections, or mastitis, caused by a pathogen that enter the gland through the teat canal and develop in the gland cistern. Mastitis is a multifactorial disease; it’s origin, severity and outcome are highly variable and depend on environment, a wide variety of pathogens (mostly bacteria) and host. In dairy cattle, mastitis is...

In the present study, the relationship between the temperature-humidity index (THI) and the incidence of medical treatments in lactating dairy cows in Lower Saxony, Germany, was investigated. Records of all veterinary-treated cases over 2 years (2003 and 2005) from eight Holstein-Friesian dairy herds raised in loose-housing systems (55 to 170 cows per herd) were evaluated. After exclusion of ma...

The study was carried out on a total number of 360 dairy animal, 275 dairy cow and 85 buffalo during the period from Jan. 2010 to March 2015. All the cases were private cases seen in the villages of Damietta and in veterinary convoys held in villages of Upper Egypt. The udder affections included: Deep wounds ( 5(1.4%) , 1(0.28%) ); Heamatoma ( 20(5.6%) ,7(1.9%) ); Abscesses ( 21(5.83%) ,0 ); Ga...

Overmilking is a matter of concern because it may affect teat condition and udder health. The historic background for overmilking is mainly based on the assumption that all milk should be removed from the udder in order to maximise the milk yield. However, breeding for high milk yields has provided cows with a high alveolar capacity, large cistern capacity, and a higher proportion of cisternal ...

The relationship between milk yield and somatic cell score (log-transformed somatic cell count) in dairy goats may involve complex pathways with recursive or simultaneous effects. Structural equation models were fitted to longitudinal data on milk yield and on somatic cell scores. Data consisted of 4 repeated records of milk production and of somatic cell score from left and right halves of the...