Profitability for the dairy producer comes when there is high demand for a high-quality product. The U.S. is now exporting more milk than ever before, and dairy producers are relying heavily on the global market to increase their bottom line.
High milk quality is a requirement in order to keep the global market share, and Pamela Ruegg, a professor and extension milk quality specialist from the University of Wisconsin, shared her expertise on excelling in milk quality at the 2017 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, Michigan.
Because of the increase in exports, the criteria for acceptable milk quality has been set by the export requirement of less than 400,000 somatic cell count (SCC). Ruegg reminisced that in 1984, when she was in a private veterinary practice, the legal SCC limit was 1.5 million.
“That’s the change that has happened in the length of my career, and in 2015, less than 3 percent of the U.S. milk did not meet the export quality standards,” she said. “We’ve really changed. In order to maintain the competitiveness of our farms, we have had to adapt, and we have.”
The national SCC trend has been consistent at about 200,000, while Michigan is slightly lower at about 158,000. Ruegg pointed out Michigan was leading the pack with high-quality milk and low bulk tank SCC, but having that low SCC doesn’t always mean mastitis is under control in the herd.
She mentioned while a low bulk tank cell count is a result of improved milking management and culling of chronic cows, the trend they are seeing is a higher rate of clinical mastitis, and that is a much more complex problem to address. The case rate of clinical mastitis has gone from 14 percent to 25 percent while there has been an overall decrease of SCC, and this seems counter-intuitive.
Ruegg noted the decrease in bulk tank SCC can be attributed almost exclusively to great control of strep ag and staph aureus. But she went on to explain, “The high clinical case rate is a consequence of much larger farms, more intensive management, different exposures – and we have a different cow today, so we have more exposure to opportunistic pathogens.”
While dairy producers are more intense in their management, there is a trade-off.
“A lot of the things we do to manage cows more efficiently – like putting cows in groups, milking them three times a day, overcrowding, using a variety of bedding surfaces – are all practices that increase the risk of exposure of opportunistic pathogens,” Ruegg said.
Another cause of higher clinical case rates of mastitis lies at the door of higher milk production per cow. Today, cows are producing more milk than ever, and while milking time hasn’t changed, we are now getting more milk out of that cow because the teat opening is wider than it was 30 years ago.
Ruegg conducted a case study in Wisconsin on the size of teats. They measured 3,500 cows’ teats and found that for every 1 millimeter the end of the teat increased in width, it was associated with a 20 percent increase in clinical case rate of mastitis.
Ruegg mentioned higher-yielding cows in freestall barns with bedding that supports bacterial growth and exposure to environmental pathogens are also common causes of a higher rate of clinical mastitis cases. She stressed we simply need to keep bacteria away from teats.
When looking at producing high-quality milk, Ruegg outlined several factors to consider. She said, “We have to look at bulk tank SCC. We have to be collecting enough data where we can monitor and assess the clinical case rate by making sure we have the right detection systems in place, like observing the fore-milk in every milking and recording it.”
Another aspect of producing high-quality milk to be competitive in today’s export market is justifiable antibiotic usage.
“Today, the whole world is looking at antibiotic usage in agriculture and saying, ‘We want less of it,’” she said. “And there is an increasing amount of attention by the processors. And if we don’t want processors handing down rules that we all have to be antibiotic-free, then we have to get a handle on this.”
Third, part of producing high-quality milk is having socially acceptable animal care. This means sufficient space, drying laying areas and humane animal husbandry practices.
Fixing one obvious problem on the farm does not automatically control all the mastitis on the farm. Ruegg stressed controlling mastitis on the farm is a result of cumulative management practices that all minimize clinical mastitis. Production of high-quality milk is based on good management of cows, people and environment.
Several Wisconsin farms enrolled in a survey, conducted by Ruegg, that followed the result of using six management practices aimed at raising milk quality. The six management practices were use of automatic takeoffs, removal of udder hair, complete milking routine, always wearing gloves, keeping of mastitis records and use of the CMT.
Ruegg reported that in every instance, the herds producing higher-quality milk had higher adoption of every one of these practices.
Ruegg concluded high-quality milk comes when producers excel at udder health. She provided the top five actions for excellent udder health: Cull chronically infected cows, reduce bacterial exposure of teats of highest-risk cows, develop and keep a professional workforce, don’t use antibiotics on cows that won’t benefit, and keep humane animal treatment in mind when managing the herd.
Ruegg is convinced the global dairy market can be secured by U.S. producers when they are dedicated to producing a high-quality product. 
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Melissa Hart
- Freelance Writer
- North Adams, Michigan
