Klebsiella is a gram-negative bacteria that can cause severe clinical mastitis in dairy cows. If they survive the illness, cows are often culled due to low milk production. This article describes some common ways Klebsiella is transmitted from the environment to teats and strategies on how to prevent Klebsiella mastitis cases on your farm.

I am so proud of the great improvement in milk quality I have seen in nearly 50 years. Who knows where it will be in another five to 10 years?

Are you utilizing and optimizing all you have already paid for? Is there untapped potential and ways your existing milking equipment can help you out? Many milk point manufacturers have a stimulation function on their equipment.

Correctly differentiating mastitis from teat sealant residue is important to minimize unnecessary interventions and to make sure we’re using antibiotics judiciously on farms. 

While it is possible to have SOPs for many important tasks on a dairy farm, there are few more important than milking parlor procedures. 

Recently, Tom Wegner was named the recipient of the 2023 Boehringer Ingelheim Dairy First Award. “It was pretty cool for Rebecca Gotham, my BI rep, to recognize me, our farm and my employees for all the hard work we do,” Wegner says.

The first year of milking cows in a rotary can be both a dynamic and humbling experience; the learning curve is different for every individual farm. 

Let’s be very clear – we do not use vacuum to “suck” the milk out of the cow. She must give it to us voluntarily. If we want to milk cows more gently, quickly and completely, the goal must be to improve milk flow rates through better stimulation and milk letdowns.