Mastitis — inflammation of the mammary gland — is the most economically costly and one of the most welfare-damaging diseases in dairy cattle, affecting millions of cows annually worldwide.
Mastitis causes significant and often underappreciated suffering in dairy cows. The mammary gland is a highly vascularized, sensitive tissue and its inflammation causes acute local pain and systemic illness. Subclinical mastitis, while invisible to observation, elevates somatic cell counts and causes chronic discomfort. Effective pain management with NSAIDs during clinical cases reduces suffering measurably but is not standard practice on all farms. Prevention through excellent hygiene, teat scoring, and milking machine maintenance is both the welfare-optimal and economically rational approach.