Mastitis is the most common and economically significant disease in dairy cattle, causing chronic pain and representing a major welfare failure in herds without proactive prevention programs.
Mastitis is a welfare crisis normalized by its prevalence in dairy systems. The chronic pain of subclinical mastitis affects millions of dairy cows without the obvious clinical signs that prompt treatment. Clinical mastitis causes acute systemic illness, fever, and severe udder pain. Repeated mastitis episodes accumulate welfare costs and contribute to the early culling that shortens dairy cow productive lives. The solutions are well-established through the five-point plan, individual cow management protocols, and milking hygiene standards — mastitis is largely preventable with appropriate management investment. Herds with low mastitis rates demonstrate that the disease is not an inevitable feature of dairy production but a consequence of management decisions that can be changed.