Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Nature B.V.. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be self-archived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com". AbstractTo find out the effect of reducing energy intake during dry period on milk production, udder health, and body condition, the experiment was conducted on 14 Jersey crossbred cows during whole dry period and continued up to 120 days of lactation. Reduction in energy intake was done during far-off period for each dry cow of treatment group as compared to control group. Statistically analyzed data revealed that overall significantly (P < 0.01) lower DMI and WI were recorded in control than treatment group. Overall significantly (P < 0.01) higher total milk production was found in treatment than control group. Overall significantly (P < 0.01) lower milk SCC, MCMT, pH, and EC were found in treatment than control group. Nonsignificant difference in milk fat, SNF, total solid, total protein, and fat:protein ratio was found. Overall significantly (P < 0.01) better quality milk (MBRT) was found in treatment than control groups. BCS during dry period and at calving was significantly (P < 0.01) different between groups. Significantly (P < 0.01) higher plasma NEFA concentration was estimated in control than treatment groups in all stages. No significant difference was found for plasma concentrations of glucose, urea, and total protein. The coefficients of correlation indicated significant (P < 0.01) correlation among BCS, milk production, milk SCC, MCMT, pH, and EC. It can be concluded that reducing energy intake during far-off dry period can lead to achieve optimum BCS at calving. Suitable BCS at calving was beneficial to get higher milk production with improved quality, better maintenance of udder health and body condition of Jersey crossbred cows at tropical lower Gangetic region.

Mastitis in dairy cattle is the most common management disorder that causes higher economic losses by lowering production and quality of milk leads to substantial economical loss. The aim of this article was to review worldwide important advances in strategies to control mastitis for production augmentation in dairy cattle. Many scientists worked to identify effective strategies to control mastitis caused by Streptococcus agalactiae, Staphylococcus aureus, and others. It is necessary to identify mechanisms of infection, define clinical and subclinical states of disease, determine exposure time, and identify pathogen-specific characteristics. Evolvement of management strategies that incorporated hygienic procedures (animal, floor, and milkman), post milking standing period of animal and strategic use of antibiotic or herbal therapy at dry-off, nutritional supplementation, fly control, body condition score optimization, etc., resulted in widespread control of mastitis. The udder, teat of animal, scientific management of milking, automatic milking procedure, genetic selection are considered as important factors to control mastitis. As farm management changed, scientists were directed to redefine control of mastitis caused by opportunistic pathogens of environmental sources and have sought to explore management strategies which will maintain animal well-being in a judicial way. Although significant advances in mastitis management have been made changing herd structure, changing climatic scenario and more rigorous milk processing standards ensure that mastitis will remain important issue for future research.

Experiment was conducted on Jersey crossbred cows (12) to compare 2 management practices viz. hand andmachine milking. Field investigations were also carried out on other milking management practices, IMI, hygienestatus and cleanliness in 3 stages. A total of 459 milk samples were analysed. Farm experimentation revealed thatSCC and MCMT were significantly higher in hand milking as compared to machine milking management. Butmilk yield and milk extraction rate were significantly lower in hand milking as compared to machine milkingmanagement. The time required for milking/animal was significantly higher in hand milking as compared to machinemilking management. The morning and evening milk samples of both hand and machine milking showed highervalues of SCC, MCMT, pH during evening as compared to morning session but milk yield and milk extraction ratewere lower during evening as compared to morning session whereas time required for milking/animal was higherin morning as compared to evening time. Almost similar trend of fat and SNF (%) were estimated in both milkingsession. Field investigation indicated that SCC, MCMT, pH were higher in IMI animal as compared to no-IMIanimal whereas fat and SNF were lower in IMI animal as compared to no IMI animal. Teat dipping and screeningof udders for mastitis were never followed by any farmer. Most of farmer having single cow, maintained goodhygiene status and cleanliness but most of the farmer having &gt;3 cows, maintained poor hygiene status. Farmexperimentation concluded that the IMI can be reduced in machine milking practices in comparison to hand milkingpractices with higher milk quantity without affecting milk composition in Jersey crossbred cows. Field investigationconcluded that there is a significant association between animal keeping pattern and hygiene status/cleanliness atstudy area. So efforts should be made to increase cleanliness and hygiene status in milking cows itself, housing ofanimal and milkers of farmer’s house to reduce incidence of IMI in changing scenario.

Background and Aim: Alpha-tocopherol supplementation influences milk yield, milk quality, and udder health of dairy cows, which needs to be investigated for Jersey crossbred cows at hot-humid climate. Therefore, the present study was framed with an objective to study the effect of pre and postpartum Alpha-tocopherol supplementation on milk yield, milk quality, and udder health status of Jersey crossbred cows at tropical climate. Materials and Methods: For this study, 19 similar parity, body condition score, and production level dairy animals were separated randomly into three groups, namely, Control, T1 and T2. Control group (no supplementation) was compared with two treatment groups, namely, T1 and T2. Supplementation of Alpha-tocopherol was done in concentrate fed to the animals (at 1 g/cow/day) 30 days prepartum to 30 days postpartum in T1 and 30 days prepartum to 60 days postpartum in T2 groups. Observations were taken for different parameters up to 5 months of lactation. Results: Statistically analyzed data revealed that overall significantly (p<0.01) more milk production was found in T2, followed by T1 than the control group. Overall significantly (p<0.01) lower somatic cell counts and modified California mastitis tests were recorded in T2, followed by T1 than the control group. Overall significantly (p<0.01), better milk quality in terms of methylene blue reduction test was found in T2, followed by T1 than control groups. Differences in the milk composition of all three groups were non-significant (p>0.05). Conclusion: Supplementation of Alpha-tocopherol during prepartum to initial lactation period may enhance milk yield, milk quality, and udder health status of Jersey crossbred cows at the tropical lower Gangetic region.

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