Here you’ll find clear, practical guidance to optimise milk quality by proactively preventing mastitis, checking data and monitoring your cows to protect udder health and keep production strong.
Summary:
Lowering somatic cell count and mastitis boosts cow health and efficiency. You’ll cut treatment costs, stress, and emissions while improving milk quality.
Proactively prevent mastitis
Work with your vet to prevent and treat mastitis through planning, hygiene, early action, and record-keeping.
Create an Animal Wellbeing Plan with your vet. Include:
- A mastitis treatment plan
- Steps to prevent mastitis (good hygiene, teat care, milking machine checks)
Agree with your vet on:
- How many mastitis cases are acceptable
- What actions to take if that number is exceeded
- Treat infected cows early.
- Separate them from the herd until they recover.
- Use pain relief – cows recover faster and breed better.
- Wear gloves when milking.
- Spray teats properly after milking.
- Don’t use high-pressure hoses near freshly milked cows.
- Service milking machines every year.
- Replace liners after 2,500 milkings.
- Check vacuum, airholes, cluster alignment, and rubberware every milking.
Make sure everyone knows:
- How to spot mastitis early
- How to keep hygiene standards high
- Record every mastitis case.
- Track dates and actions in your Animal Wellbeing Plan.
- Monitor mastitis trends in your herd.
Share the Plan
- Give each team member a copy of your Animal Wellbeing Plan.
- Highlight mastitis actions at team meetings.
- Use a whiteboard in the shed to list mastitis info and update it regularly.
Check data and monitor your cows
Monitor mastitis by checking data, training your team to spot signs early, and regularly assessing cow health and milking practices.
- Ask your vet first for advice and data.
- Use your Farm Insights Report to check mastitis rates and see how your farm compares to others in your area.
Train your team to spot mastitis early. Common signs:
- Swollen quarter
- Quarter not milking out properly
- Clots on filter socks
- Bulk milk somatic cell count spikes
Strip cows by hand onto a dark surface to check for clots.
Look at teat ends – rough or damaged teats can mean:
- Over-milking
- Poor machine function
- Bad teat spraying practices
Test milk samples often to find pathogens.
Check if antibiotics are working.
What you can do
- Talk to your vet about any health issues.
- Use trusted resources like DairyNZ’s Managing Sick Cows page.
Get a second pair of eyes
Improve animal health by consulting your vet and booking a Milk Quality Manager visit for expert on-farm advice.
- Talk to your vet during your Animal Wellbeing consult about ways to improve animal health.
- Co-op farmers can access specialised milk quality support.
What you can do
Book a visit with a Milk Quality Manager. They’ll come to your farm and give advice on:
- Reducing bulk somatic cell count
- Saving time in the milking shed
What’s the Opportunity for Your Farm?
Productivity, Profitability and Sustainability.
Productivity
- Sick cows use energy to heal, not produce milk.
- Healthy cows give more milk and fewer lost milking days.
- Research shows: Every time SCC doubles over 100,000 cells/ml, milk production drops by 2.1%.
- Keeping SCC under 100,000 can boost per cow production.
Profitability
Fewer treatments = less time and money spent. Lower clinical cases mean:
- Fewer restricted vet medicines
- Less milk lost during withholding periods
Sustainability
- More milk from the same inputs = lower emissions per litre.
- If farmers lift per cow production by 7.5% by 2030 (through better cow health), we can help meet sustainability targets.