INCIDENCE OF MASTITIS IN IMPORTED JERSEY COWS

MOHAMED SHAFIT HUSSAIN AND ABAS MAZNI

SUMMARY

This paper reports the mastitis incidence, its causative organisms and the effect of the infection on milk production in a herd of imported Jersey cattle at MARDI , Serdang from 1979 to 1981. From late 1979 to December 1980 the levels of infection in cows dropped from 95% to 15.2% and from 55.7% to 10.9% . In quarters. From January 1981 till July 1981, fluctuations in infection ranged from 63% to 27.5% in cows and from 34% to 19.4% in quarters. Staphylococcus aureus was the predominant organism isolated. Streptococcus agalactiae occurred in 2.2% of the samples. In antibiotic sensitivity tests were performed on S. aureus, 12.5%, 25%, 13.3% , 11.8% and 20% of the isolates were resistant to penicillin, ampicillin, chloramphenicol and streptomycin, respectively. P. aeruginosa was resistant to all but slightly, resistant to Kanamycin and 100% sensitive to polymyxin B. Infected cows with a Rapid Mastitis Test (RMT) score of 2 above produced on an average 386 kg less milk per lactation than unintected cows.

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