The push away from whole herd dry cow therapy is being made, however, as an industry, we are now heavily reliant on SCC data to make drying-off decisions, because there has been no practical substitute available.
What if there was a better way?
The gold standard approach of culturing a large number of milk samples while retaining cost-effectiveness, efficiency and practicality has, until now, just been a dream.
DairySmart have combined both science and technology to take the guesswork out of mastitis diagnostics. Whole herd culture-based screening, rapid on-farm mastitis diagnostics and sale/purchase cow screening are now available to identify which bacteria each cow has.
In combination with expertise in mastitis management, this is leading to significant gains in milk quality for a number of farms in Canterbury already.
Developed by farmers, for farmers - Chris Brook, Founder of DairySmart and with over 20 years of experience in dairy farming, took it upon himself to solve the practical issues with traditional mastitis diagnostics after a heart-breaking season on the farm a few years ago. Getting accurate culture results back in a timely manner, and being able to process a large number of samples in a timely manner while retaining cost-effectiveness were hurdles that were not easy to overcome.
Chris Brook said "We've invented a wand with RFID technology to read a cows EID and write it onto a milk sample, so there is no human data entry errors. It's all cloud-based and our Jupiter device is a machine learning algorithm that can identify the species on the plate and give that to you in real time."
Ben Davison, previously Vet & Director of Rangiora Vet Centre, said "I've seen the change DairySmart system can make on one of my clients. But it's not only the change of results he's achieved with mastitis, but the engagement within his team with everything around mastitis through using DairySmart that is a real shift in the way Mastitis is managed on-farm."
The DairySmart approach to mastitis is a game-changer - know the bacteria your cows have, find and treat the right cows while using less antimicrobials overall, and get results back when you need them.
DairySmart is leading the way into future for mastitis management. Find out more at dairysmart.co.nz.