Vol. 12, Issue 4 (2023)

Author(s):
Ranveer Kumar Sinha, Pallav Shekhar, Bibha Kumari, Arvind Kumar Das, Anil Kumar, Bhoomika and Vivek Kumar Singh

Abstract:
Mastitis is a multi-factorial and multi-etiological disease which adversely affects dairy animals and economics of milk production of dairy farms in developed and developing countries like India. A variety of factors affect the incidence of clinical mastitis in crossbred cows. During the study period, a total of 50 crossbred lactating cows suffered from clinical mastitis with any one quarter were undertaken for evaluation. During the study, we tried to investigate the effect of four non-genetic factors viz., parity, stage of lactation, lactation strength and quarter position on incidence of clinical mastitis in crossbred cows. The percentage of incidence of clinical mastitis was significantly highest (p<0.05) in right rear quarter (38%). Similarly maximum incidence of clinical mastitis was observed in third parity (40%). Stages of lactation also have a significant effect on incidence of mastitis and it was found highest (48%) in early lactation (up to 90 days) followed by mid and late lactation. It was also observed that incidence of mastitis was significantly (p<0.05) highest in cattle which produces more than 15 litres of milk/day. Therefore it can be inferred that hind quarters are more affected to mastitis due to frequent exposure of dung and urine. Animals in advance parity were also more affected, it indicate that widened teat canal, elongated teat shape and peak lactation predisposes animal to mastitis. One important reason for higher prevalence of clinical mastitis during early lactation is that, many a time the new infections are observed in the dry period and most of these infections persist until the next lactation, causing clinical symptoms within the first 2 week after calving. High-producing animals are more prone to mastitis due to lactational stress.