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Leon Spurrell (right) and Natasha Maguire with their mastitis diagnostic tool.
Figures from DairyNZ suggest the average New Zealand dairy farm spends around $54,000 annually on the battle against mastitis.
This includes treatment, the value of milk withheld and lost production, so it can be called a ‘silent tax’ on the dairy production sector.
So it was good to see the Farm Medix Company walk off with the National Fieldays Launch NZ Innovation Award and the Innovation Den Award for its Check-Up mastitis diagnostic tool.
Herd testing might give ‘snapshots’ of somatic cell counts on a given day, but these don‘t reveal sub-clinical symptoms, and that a cow might be harbouring more serious and likely contagious pathogens that might pass to others in the herd.
The Check-Up kit requires the initial purchase of an incubator, and includes reference books and a poster to identify the most common pathogens.
In practice a sample is taken after teat cleaning and the stripping of fore milk. This might be from a suspected quarter, or as a composite sample from the four quarters to get an overall picture of udder health.
The sample is then streaked onto the Check-Up test plate and incubated for 24 hours then compared with the reference charts. The location and colour of any growths will determine the pathogen involved.
If there are no growths it is prudent to re-incubate for a further 24-96 hours to ensure the sample is clear. In a lot of cases the cow will self-heal but the test will enable the user to detect underlying pathogens that lead to chronic problems.
The test kit can detect S.aureus, CNS, Corynebacterium, Strep Uberis, Strep dysgalactiae, Strep agalactiae, Enterococcus, E.coli, Kliebsiella, Serratia, Enterobacter, yeast, prototheca and pseudomonas. By identifying the key pathogen, the correct antibiotic can be prescribed for effective treatment and a reduction in resistance often caused by general treatment.
The key benefit of the kit is that results are to hand in 24 hours, as opposed to a vet test that might take 3-14 days depending on where the samples are cultured and analysed.
Other than the incubator, no special equipment is required, and the test eliminates the need for a microscope, so might prove useful to vets who don’t have on-site laboratories but seek to get to the bottom of farmers’ high cell counts quickly.
Price: $620+GST for the start-up kit including the incubator and reference materials; individual tests then cost $22 each, bundled as 10 consumables.
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