Survey on dairy farmers' management practices for and satisfaction with the detection of clinical mastitis by automatic milking systems in Bavaria, Germany.

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to identify (i) management practices for the detection of clinical mastitis (CM) in dairy farms with automatic milking systems (AMS), and (ii) the farmers’ personal assessment of their work with the AMS as well as the mastitis detection performance of the AMS through an online survey. Complete responses of 47 of the 108 contacted Bavarian dairy producers were available for analysis. Warning lists of AMS, highlighting cows with potential udder health problems, were checked twice a day by 68% and once per day or less frequently by 27% of the farmers. Checking warning lists reportedly took five minutes per day (median). Besides the presence of flakes on the milk filter (75%), data from the AMS (78%) was another important factor that farmers considered for their decision to assess an indicated cow in the barn. Electrical conductivity (EC; 50%), milk color/ blood presence (49%), and, if available, somatic cell count (66%) were selected most frequently as “extremely important” from provided options in the survey. Flagged cows were commonly checked within 12 hours of the alert (23%) in the barn. Most commonly, these cows were assessed by organoleptic examination of the udder and/or the first milk strains (50%). Most farmers (68%) agreed with the statement of being very satisfied with the detection performance of CM by the AMS. However, almost half of the farmers (44%) perceived the number of false-positively flagged cows by the AMS as too high. While farmers were overall positive towards the detection of CM in AMS, some management factors such as the frequency of monitoring the warning list and cows in the barn could be intensified.