ECONOMY OF MASTITIS CONTROL - RELEVANCE O F DIAGNOSTICS

Mastitis control should be based on herd specific data. In addition to information on herd bulk milli or cow composite milk level (e.g. cell count) to evaluate routinely the state of udder health in a herd, the examination of quarter milk samples (e.g. California-mastitis-test or electrical conductivity) is needed. Moreover, data resulted from the milk recording system should be applied also for the evaluation of the udder health status. To determine a specific mastitis control strateg y the calculation of the mastitis-induced complete economic costs is n ecessary. The dairy farmer will accept only a proposed concept to ensu re udder health, as long as the costs-benefit-relation is in balance.