Teat dipping with antiseptic solutions before and after milking is the most evidence-based mastitis prevention tool in dairy farming, reducing a painful condition that affects millions of cows worldwide.
Mastitis is one of the most prevalent and painful conditions affecting dairy cows. Clinical mastitis causes visible swelling, heat, and pain in the udder; cows with clinical mastitis show reduced weight-bearing, reduced appetite, and elevated cortisol. Subclinical mastitis — with elevated somatic cell counts but no visible signs — causes chronic low-grade inflammation and pain that is harder to detect but affects quality of life for extended periods. Effective teat dipping programmes directly reduce the number of animals experiencing this pain each year. The welfare-economics alignment here is unusually strong: mastitis prevention reduces veterinary costs, antibiotic use, milk discards, and culling rates while simultaneously improving cow welfare. Farms that implement structured mastitis prevention protocols including teat dipping, dry cow therapy, and culling of chronically infected animals achieve substantially lower prevalence rates and better individual cow welfare.