Mastitis is the most common and costly disease in dairy cattle — its welfare implications and evidence-based prevention.
Mastitis welfare is compounded by its extraordinary prevalence — a disease affecting 25-35% of the dairy herd annually represents chronic welfare harm at industrial scale. Clinical mastitis is acutely painful; subclinical mastitis causes persistent immune activation that degrades health and production over time. The strong economic alignment between mastitis prevention and welfare — mastitis is the most costly disease in dairy farming — has not translated into adequate investment in prevention everywhere, suggesting that market signals and welfare standards must work together rather than assuming economic motivation is sufficient. Welfare certification schemes that require low SCC thresholds and documented mastitis monitoring create the regulatory complement to economic motivation.