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Intramammary infusion with antibiotics at dry off has been a staple in our mastitis control plan for a long time, but what if you can't get the product? Dr. Joe discusses what to do when dry cow tubes are in short supply. Thanks for listening!
Hosted by members of the University of Minnesota Extension Beef and Dairy Teams, The Moos Room discusses relevant topics to help beef and dairy producers be more successful. The information is evidence-based and presented as an informal conversation between the hosts and guests.
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Dr. Joe Armstrong: What is up everybody? This is Dr. Joe Armstrong and you are listening to The Moos Room. I am on my own again today. Just had some difficult weeks trying to get everyone in the same place and it's just not working out for us. You're stuck with me yet again, promise I won't ramble as long as last week. No one wants that. I've been getting a ton of questions about the lack of dry cow tubes in the dairy market, and when I say dry cow tube, I'm talking dry cow antibiotics that we would give as an intramammary infusion at dry-off. There are lots of frustrated producers out there because they can't get their hands on any of these tubes.
Now, this started with a particular brand and now it's just spread to every tube on the market not being available. Everything being back-ordered. I called around, I talked to a couple of my former clients, and I talked to my former clinic. I talked to drug sales reps. I talked to everybody involved trying to figure out what's going on. Why are dry cow tubes not available? Why can't producers get their hands on this very important medication that they use every single week?
From what I'm hearing, it has nothing to do with the production of the medication itself. It has to do with the production of the syringes that the medication comes in. We're short on syringes and that's not going to change for quite a while. There's even hints that some of these products won't be back until next year. What are we supposed to do about it? That's the big question I'm getting and what we're trying to address today in this episode.
My first question, when I was calling around is, is there anything else that's short right now? Because those syringes are pretty universal when we're talking about teat sealant as well, which is a big piece of our dry cow protocols and our lactating treatments as well. So far what I've been hearing is that there is no shortage on lactating treatments except for a couple of different products that have been short for a couple of months already.
We have no shortage on internal teat sealant at this point.
The internal teat sealant is going to be super important as we move forward because as we deal with a lack of intramammary dry cow antibiotics, we're going to need that internal teat sealant for the strategies that we use moving forward. It's going to be very, very critical. We'll have to keep an eye on that and make sure that it doesn't come up back ordered as well. All right, let's quit talking about all this other stuff and get down to what you need to do.
The first thing to note is that there's been quite a bit of research, some of it done by people here at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Godden being one of them. That research shows us that there isn't really a difference between the tubes when it comes to efficacy. They all work about the same. Now, there's plenty of differences between the tubes when we're talking about what product they are and withhold times. You have to be careful on that. Definitely difference on cost too. The important thing to note is that whatever you can get your hands on at this point while we're short is going to work and it's going to be sufficient for your needs in that capacity working as an intramammary antibiotic at dry-off. Basically, I'm telling you, if you can get your hands on the tube, it's going to work, go ahead and go for it.
The problem is it's really hard to get your hands on any of the tubes right now. We have to be aware of that fact in trying to figure out what are we going to do when we have really limited supply. Definitely, it's something that we've covered before and one of the things that everyone should be thinking about. I think way back in episode 36 we had Dr. Godden on to talk about this. Selective dry cow therapy is an absolute must. It immediately decreases the amount of antibiotic you need to use and therefore your need for antibiotic is decreased. You'd have to find basically half as many tubes because you're going to use about half the antibiotics you would use normally at dry-off.
I think this is the perfect time to review selective dry cow therapy, the different options for how to implement it, the different ways to go about it and making decisions, what the benefits are, all of those things. Just as a review, selective dry cow therapy is separating cows basically into two groups at dry-off and you treat some with antibiotics and you don't treat others. Everyone gets an internal teat sealant. That is a key piece of this whole program.
Why do we use selective dry cow therapy? Like I said already, it decreases the amount of dry cow antibiotics by 50%, which means money, money, money, money. After that, it is a public perception issue and something that we should all be doing, trying to figure out how to use antibiotics more judiciously. This is a way to use antibiotics in a very targeted way for the cows that need it and not give it to the cows that don't. Now, it's not for everybody and I get that, but there are certain situations where selective dry cow therapy is the right choice.
When we're talking about selective dry cow therapy, there's a whole bunch of check marks that we need to really just check off the list and make sure that it's something that you can implement on your farm. With that, let's run through them.
You need to have an annual bulk tank somatic cell, less than 250,000. You really should have low numbers of staph aureus and strep egg. Those are very contagious mastitis pathogens and we can't have high numbers of those or this is really going to be a problem for you. Like I've said already a couple times, teat sealant has to be in all quarters of all cows at dry-off. Anytime we're talking about intramammary infusions, we got to have the correct technique. If you don't do things in a clean way, you're going to end up with issues and causing more of a problem than helping.
Something tied very closely to that is having well-trained personnel and employees. You got to have people that are on board with what you're trying to accomplish and understand the why behind the things that they're doing. At the very end of all of these check marks that we're talking about is we have to have a way to monitor that it's actually working. That's something you really need to work with your veterinarian to do to figure out how am I going to tell if this is going right or wrong or anywhere in between.
Most recent research on selective dry cow therapy tells us there are two ways to do this and ways that are pretty accessible for most dairies. We're talking about either an algorithm based or a culture-guided based decision tree. With algorithm-guided selective dry cow therapy, what we're really looking at is records to see what's going on with each individual cow and creating criteria for whether or not she should be treated with antibiotics at dry-off.
The criteria for being able to be eligible for no antibiotics at dry-off really comes down to three things. Cows eligible for teat sealant only with no antibiotics should have a somatic cell count less than 200,000 for the entire lactation. If you get above 200,000 at any point in that lactation, they're not eligible for teat sealant only. The second criteria is that a cow cannot have had clinical mastitis in the last 14 days of lactation. If that cow has had clinical mastitis in the last 14 days of lactation, then she needs antibiotics at dry-off.
The last criteria for cows to be eligible for teat sealant only is that they cannot have had two or more clinical mastitis cases during the current lactation. If you got a cow that's had one clinical mastitis case during lactation, she's still eligible. If she's had two or more, then she should receive antibiotics at dry-off. If you have a cow that had less than 200,000 somatic cell count the entire lactation, did not have clinical mastitis in the last 14 days, and did not have two or more clinical mastitis cases during the lactation, she can get teat sealant only and does not need antibiotics at dry-off.
The same research that looked at algorithm-guided selective dry cow therapy also looked at culture-guided selective dry cow therapy. With culture guided, you're actually culturing each quarter and it's important that we culture at a quarter level because the studies are showing that if you culture at a quarter level and make your decisions at that level, then you have a reduction in dry cow antibiotics by about 55%. If you use composite cultures, so if you're taking all four quarters and making a decision on that animal level, your reduction is much, much less. It starts to be a point at a point where we are not really penciling out anymore and you're not saving the money.
This is pretty simple. You take a quarter sample from each quarter, you plate that on a Minnesota easy forecast plate. If you get growth, you treat that quarter with teat sealant and antibiotic. If you don't get growth, then you treat with teat sealant only. The question I've been kicking around with some colleagues, some friends, is if I adopt selective dry cow therapy and we're still short of dry cow tubes, what if it's not enough? What if I reduce my usage by 50% to 55% but I still can't find tubes for the rest of them, for that other 50% that still need the tubes? Here's where I go back to my crutch of you got to talk to your veterinarian.
Now, I'm not trying to pass the buck on this, but that veterinarian knows what's going on in your farm or should know what's going on in your farm and what makes a reasonable or unreasonable suggestion as we move forward trying to make a decision on, "I only have tubes enough to give them to 25% of my herd. How do I then make those decisions?" I can't make blanket statements about your herd based on that kind of situation. That has to come down to someone who knows your herd better than I do.
Now, that being said, if I had to make compromises somewhere, and let's say I'm using an algorithm-guided approach because I think that's where you can get by making a few compromises to try to include more cows in the criteria that make it to a teat sealant only rather than having to have antibiotics. Now, for me, a clinical mastitis in the last 14 days of lactation, that one is pretty hard to compromise on. I don't think I would change that criteria, but I might start to let the somatic cell creep up a little bit. If instead of saying only cows that have stayed under 200,000 for the entire lactation are eligible, I might let that slide to 250 or 300.
Depending on how many dry tubes I really have available, that might be the way to include more cows but still have a system for doing it, not just randomly choosing which cows are included and which aren't. Somatic cell count through the entire lactation, I might let that number creep up above 200,000 just to see if I can include more cows. I think that's a relatively okay compromise if you talk to your veterinarian about that.
The other criteria of having two or more clinical mastitis cases during the current lactation, it's hard to compromise. I think then it starts to come down to you really looking at, why are we having two or more? Is it a consistent environmental coliform bacteria, so it's an E. coli or something like that where I know that animal is cleared the pathogen and there might be some residual damage but at least the pathogen is gone. I'll let that start to slide saying okay, let's get that to two.
If they've had two but we know that there were a spike in somatic cell and cleared quickly, well, maybe that cow is okay to get teat sealant only, but I'm not going to say that same thing for that cow that's been roller-coastering and has had two or three or four, and then I look at the previous lactation and she also had two or three or four. That cow needs antibiotics or she needs to go to town. This is a great time to figure out and dig into preventing mastitis because the more we prevent mastitis, the more we keep cows under that 200,000 somatic cell for their entire lactation, the more we make sure that they don't have clinical mastitis cases, the more cows are eligible to not receive antibiotics at dry-off.
Now, I mentioned some cows should go to town and that is a real option. There is a calling piece of this. If you've got cows that are chronics, you haven't been able to figure them out up to this point. They've been chronic for several lactations. They might have been high somatic cell and they've been, I don't know, somewhat saved to then limp along again by a intramammary infusion at dry-off, maybe it's time to say that cow should go.
She's not helping you by being a chronic cow and regardless of the fact that she might be a high producer, it's maybe time to make that tough decision and say, "I don't have the availability of those dry cow antibiotics or those antibiotics I would give you at dry-off anymore, and so it's time to go."
I can't stress enough to work with your veterinarian that knows your system. I can throw out a few statements, general recommendations, but I can't know what's right for you on your farm because I don't know your farm as well as you do or your veterinarian.
In summary of this episode, just to make sure that we're all on the same page, if you can get your hands on a dry cow antibiotic for intramammary infusion at dry-off, all of them seem to work the same according to the research that we have available. Now, the difference is in price, you need to be very careful with withhold times, but they all seem to work about the same. If you can find some, go for it.
Consider selective dry cow therapy. Doesn't really matter if you use algorithm-guided or culture-guided. If you have the records, algorithm-guided works great. Both of them will save you money. Both will reduce your dry cow antibiotic use by about 50% to 55%. It's a great option, especially when we're short on those dry cow antibiotics anyway.
If that reduction in use using selective dry cow therapy still doesn't get you to where you need to be because dry cow tubes are that short, you got to start playing with the algorithm a little bit. You got to do that with the help of your veterinarian to make sure that you're not setting yourself up for failure down the road.
After that, there might be some tough decisions about looking at records and figuring out who really needs to be in my herd, who has been limping by with the help of these antibiotics at dry-off, and who potentially needs to go to town. No one wants to get rid of cows and especially high-producing cows, but sometimes there's cows that are high-producing that need to go. There's other criteria that make them a call animal.
Regardless of whether or not she's making a lot of milk, she could be hurting the herd and hurting your bottom line by having a high somatic cell count or having a contagious pathogen that continues to be a problem for everyone. Even though it's a tough decision, it is a time that we should be looking at a records really, really closely, identifying those cows that may need to go. If we need to add culture to that call criteria to make sure that there is really a reason to let that animal go, then maybe that's the way to go. Talk to your veterinarian about culturing some animals that are suspicious for being chronic and if they are, they need to go. That will reduce your need for those antibiotics as well.
That's enough talking from me. Enough blabbering on. I promise you won't have to listen to another week of just me. I will get Emily or Bradley or both in here and we will get that recorded. If you have comments, questions, scathing rebuttals to this episode, please send them to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M at U-M-N dot E-D-U. You can catch us on Twitter @UMNmoosroom and @UMNFarmSafety. Thank you for listening everybody. We will catch you next week.
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