Our team recently hosted a milk quality educational event in collaboration with Springville Veterinary Services and Cornell Quality Milk Production Services. During the program, Dr. Amy Stuart presented "Cutting Cost, Not Corners: Targeted Mastitis and Dry Cow Treatment," which got me thinking about how more dairies might be interested in adopting this approach and ultimately inspired me to write this article. As I put this together, I leaned on the American Association of Bovine Practitioners Selective Dry Cow Therapy Implementation Guidelines (March 2024) to make sure the information reflects current recommendations. With margins tight across the dairy industry, many farms are looking for practical ways to cut costs without sacrificing milk quality or herd health, and this is exactly what Dr. Amy emphasized in her talk.

              Responsible antibiotic stewardship is an important goal for veterinarians and selective dry-cow therapy (SDCT) is a great way to minimize antibiotic use on farms which benefits the environment and your wallet. The general premise of SDCT is to only treat the cows who are at the highest risk of having a subclinical mastitis infection with antibiotics and cows that are identified as low risk only receiving a teat sealant. Historically, recommendations were to use blanket dry-cow therapy (BDCT) due to the high prevalence of subclinical mastitis in dairy cows. More recent recommendations suggest that farms should work with their veterinarians to determine whether SDCT is an appropriate fit, as it may not benefit every operation. To help guide that conversation, here is a checklist of criteria to help you decide if it is worth reaching out to your veterinarian.

Selective Dry Cow Therapy Readiness Checklist

• Is everyone on your farm on board with this idea?
• Do you have a strong working relationship with your veterinarian?
• Have you successfully implemented new management strategies previously?
• Do you have written or digital documentation of treatments?
• Is there sufficient health data on individual cows recorded to identify their risk status?
• Is your bulk tank somatic cell count (SCC) regularly less than 250,000 cells/mL?
• Are you routinely detecting visually abnormal milk?
• Do you have regular DHI testing or other form of routine individual SCC?
• Do you have reliable and systematic dry-off procedures currently in place?
• Are you using teat sealants correctly and consistently?

If you answered yes to most of these questions, SDCT may be a good fit for your farm and is worth discussing further with your veterinarian.

Resources:

American Association of Bovine Practitioners, "Selective Dry Cow Therapy Implementation Guidelines" March 2024. https://aabp.org/committees/re...