Udder health is an important aspect in dairy farming because it is the basis for economic and hygienic milk production. Somatic cell count (SCC) in cow milk is the most widely used indicator of udder health. High levels of SCC are associated with mastitis, the most economically important disease of dairy cattle. Mastitis is associated with milk yield losses, reduced feed efficiency in lactating cows, increased labor costs, reduced cull cow values, and increased costs for drugs and veterinary services. On top of that, milk buyers impose price penalties on the basis of milk SCC. As a result, farmers have many reasons for reducing the level of SCC in milk.
In a recent study, I and my colleague Prof. Victor Cabrera examined how efficient are dairy farmers in improving the udder health of their cows, and how this compares to their technical (in)efficiency (i.e. how well dairy farmers transform inputs into outputs based on a given production technology). We further assessed the factors that affected udder health management inefficiency. Our analysis was based on a sample of 297 Wisconsin dairy farms observed during the 2007-2017 period.
We found that the sample farms were more inefficient in udder health management than in production. A group of farmers showed very high udder health management inefficiency scores, and another group showed significantly lower scores. The udder health management inefficiency scores of the sample farms were found to increase as a result of higher summer temperatures and off-farm work.
Read the full study here.