Reference no: EM133540399 , Length: word count:6000
Research Project Details
Title of Project - Incidence, Etiology, and Risk Factors of Clinical Mastitis in Dairy Cows
Project Description -
Mastitis in cows is one of the most common diseases plaguing the dairy industry. Bovine mastitis is an inflammation of the mammary gland caused from trauma or an infection, leading to abnormal and decreased milk production.
For this project 50 cows will be select and mastitis cases will be detected through identification in the parlor and through health alerts from the individual cow monitoring system [cow manager software].
Upon detection of cases of clinical mastitis, the cow will be moved to the hospital facility. At this point 2 duplicate sterile milk samples would be obtained, and recorded with cow identification, quarter effected, date and severity of the case Treatment would then be initiated following the samples collection (i.e., sample collection does not delay treatment of cases).
One milk sample would be cultured on site- farm has own lab for sample culture [incubator, Petri films, pipettes facility and plates to allow on site culture].
The other sample would be then submitted to an external reference laboratory for culture. This will help validate our on-site culture methods and identify if any discrepancies are detected.
Results if the culture can then be analyzed alongside on farm records (dairy comp 305 computer software) to assess outcomes of the treatment, cow survival, somatic cell count, likelihood of recurrence etc.
Records can also be used to determine the bedding /housing type for the cows at time of mastitis detection to analyze how the bedding material affect the incidence of different causative pathogens (project will not be retrospective but will commence from the date of sampling I.e, new cases of mastitis can be analyzed for the causative organism and whether this relates to the bedding materials of the pen they are housed in).
Aims of Project -
1. Determine the validity of on-farm culture techniques in identifying mastitis pathogen.
2. Assess treatment success/ outcomes and how this is affected by the causative pathogen.
3. Review the profile of cultured mastitis pathogens and if /how these changes across different bedding types, and how this is affected with the change in bedding materials from recycled manure bedding to recycled sand.
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