Mastitis is the most common and costly disease in dairy cattle, causing significant pain and welfare impact that welfare-conscious dairy management can substantially reduce.
Mastitis is painful. The inflammation of udder tissue, swelling, heat, and systemic fever of clinical mastitis cause acute suffering comparable to any painful infection. A cow with mastitis experiencing repeated milking of an inflamed quarter is experiencing significant discomfort. The welfare problem scales with the prevalence: in a herd of 200 cows with 30% mastitis incidence, 60 cows per year experience clinical disease. Sub-clinical mastitis with elevated somatic cell counts causes chronic lower-grade welfare impact across a larger proportion of the herd. The five-point control plan demonstrates that most mastitis is preventable - herds that implement it rigorously achieve dramatically lower incidence. Mastitis prevention is welfare improvement in a measurable, tractable form.