Mastitis is the most costly disease in dairy farming and a major source of cow welfare suffering. Evidence-based prevention programs dramatically reduce incidence and the associated pain and production losses.
Mastitis welfare in dairy cattle involves both the acute pain of clinical episodes — characterized by hot, swollen udder quarters, fever, and systemic illness — and the chronic subclinical inflammation that affects a much larger proportion of cows without causing obvious signs. Clinical mastitis is one of the most painful conditions commonly experienced by dairy cows, and research using pain assessment tools and analgesic preference testing confirms that cows with mastitis experience significant discomfort that anti-inflammatory medication meaningfully reduces. The welfare case for aggressive mastitis prevention is therefore both economic and ethical: prevention is far more welfare-positive than treatment, and the pain of clinical mastitis represents avoidable suffering in well-managed herds. Prevention programs combining milking hygiene, teat dipping, bedding management, dry cow therapy, and regular somatic cell count monitoring achieve herd-level mastitis incidence well below industry average benchmarks. Prompt treatment of clinical cases with NSAIDs alongside appropriate antimicrobial therapy reduces pain duration. Welfare certification schemes that include mastitis monitoring requirements provide consumer-facing accountability for these welfare outcomes.