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ANIMAL HEALTH
Author(s) -
Booth J. M.
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
international journal of dairy technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.061
H-Index - 53
eISSN - 1471-0307
pISSN - 1364-727X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1471-0307.1976.tb00419.x
Subject(s) - mastitis , brucellosis , dairy industry , herd , milk production , dairy cattle , medicine , veterinary medicine , zoology , biology , food science , pathology
Many of the classical infectious diseases of dairy cattle are no longer present in this country and others are in the process of eradication. Tuberculosis is almost eradicated, although small pockets of infection persist, and considerable progress is being made on brucellosis where infection has been reduced from 28‐5 per cent of dairy herds in England and Wales in 1971 to 15‐6 per cent four years later. The main disease of dairy cattle which is of economic importance to the milk processing industry is the mastitis complex and in particular subclinical mastitis. This reduces yields and effects milk quality; due mainly to the latter there are now draft EEC regulations for the production of milk for the liquid market which designate a maximum cell content. The past year has seen a very large reduction in the national mastitic cell count, probably for reasons more directly connected with financial factors such as the price of cull cows, and this stood at 508,000 cells/ml in December 1975.