Teatsealants as a Mastitis Preventative at Dry Off

The use of antibiotics in agriculture will continue to come under increasing pressure.  The World Health Organisation has concerns about the use of antibiotics in animals and the risk of antimicrobial resistance transferring into the human population.  Dry cow antibiotic preparations have become an area of significant scrutiny.  Already dairy farms in some European Countries can not use antibiotic dry cow preparations unless the individual cow can be demonstrated to have an infection - i.e. a high SCC from a herd test.

We have had many farms last season that took the step to use Teatseal only in cows with herd test SCCs consistently below 150,000 for the season.  When administered hygienically Teatseal will significantly reduce the risk of picking up new infections at dry off and close to calving.

In the graph below from a local farm, clinical mastitis cases have been recorded from cows which either received Teatseal or Antibiotic Dry Cow Therapy.  Those that received DCT (not Teatsealed) had a higher rate of mastitis in the following season, but it must be remembered that being high SCC cows they have more risk factors for picking up new infections in the next season.  The Teatseal treated cows had extremely low levels of recorded clinical mastitis in the first 2 months of lactation.