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Abstract
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Background and Aim:Bovine mastitis is an inflammation of mammary glands usually caused by bacterial infections. These infections are usually associated with wet and dirty conditions that expose teat ends to bacterial contaminations. Dirty housing and calving environments, certain types of bedding materials, improper or inadequate cow preparation for milking, and conditions within milking systems are all factors that can potentially lead to mastitis. As the economic losses due to bovine mastitis can be very high and may include milk reduction, treatment costs, and even elimination of affected livestock, taking proper management policies for prevention and/or reduction of the disease incidence is very important. The aim of this study was to assess the health status of dairy cattle after implementation of health management practices in some dairy herds in Hamedan province of Iran. Methods:Milk samples of dairy cattle were collected from two industrial dairy cattle farms before and after applying changes in health management practices. These changes involved dry cow therapy, teat pre-washing and drying, and teat dipping in 2% povidone iodine solution after milking. The samples were collected in a 6 months period at two stages and transferred to the lab in an ice box. Immediately after transferring the samples to the laboratory, they were evaluated by somatic cell count (SCC) assay. Afterwards, the samples were cultured on Blood agar media in order to identify possible bacterial causing agents of bovine mastitis. Results:The results showed that at the first stage of sampling, the amounts obtained by SCC assays were too high for the milk samples (over 300,000 cell/ml). Moreover, loads of bacterial contaminations were also very high at the first stage. Conversely, at the second stage of sampling, loads of bacterial contamination and incidence of mastitis cases were significantly decreased in the herds. Among all bacterial mastitis, staphylococcal mastitis percentage was de
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