Mastitis - inflammation of the udder - is the most common and costly disease in dairy cattle, causing significant pain and reduced welfare, yet remains preventable with good management practices.
Mastitis causes genuine suffering - affected cows show pain behaviours including shifting weight, reluctance to be milked, reduced feed intake and depressed demeanour. The welfare improvement potential is substantial because mastitis is largely preventable through good hygiene, milking technique, housing and nutrition management. Dairy farms with excellent management achieve clinical mastitis rates below 15%, demonstrating that high rates are not inevitable. From a welfare perspective, mastitis prevention is preferable to treatment - it avoids suffering rather than ending it after the fact.