A longitudinal study of risk factors for teat lesions in 67 suckler ewes in a single flock in England

Cooper, Selin; Huntley, Selene J.; Green, Laura

doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2012.11.015

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…In beef cows, reasons for teat injuries are less well documented but traumatic causes are also likely. An observational study by Cooper et al ( 18 ) described risk factors for traumatic and non-traumatic lesions in a flock of suckler ewes. Huntley et al ( 19 ) demonstrated that teat injuries have a significant negative impact on the daily weight gain of suckler lambs, but this cannot be extrapolated to include suckler cows.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Case report: Teat stenosis in a suckler cow

Schären-Bannert,

Starke,

Snedec

et al. 2023

Front. Vet. Sci.

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Bovine veterinarians are regularly confronted with teat lesions in cows. The number of studies on the diagnosis and treatment of teat lesions as well as the exchange of practical experience among clinicians are extensive in dairy cows compared with suckler cows. The aim of this case report was to describe the successful treatment of teat stenosis in a suckler cow and discuss possible challenges. A four-year-old Simmental cow, in her third lactation and 4 days in milk, was referred to our clinic along with her calf because of teat stenosis in the front left quarter. The owner had repeatedly used a rigid teat cannula in an attempt to relieve the stenosis during the previous lactation. However, the cow had refused to allow the current calf to suckle the affected teat and resisted attempts by the owner to cannulate the teat. The results of clinical examination, ultrasonography, and milk sampling showed stenosis of the proximal, middle, and distal parts of the front left teat cistern, accompanied by thelitis and cisternitis and mild chronic clinical mastitis. Based on published recommendations, treatment of the thelitis, cisternitis, and mastitis was initiated before resolution of the stenosis surgically. The first week of treatment included the administration of an intramammary product containing cefapirin and prednisolone, a systemic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, a wax teat-boogie, and bandaging of the teat. Thereafter, the treatment was reduced to insertion of a wax-teat boogie and bandaging. Conservative treatment resulted in resolution of the mastitis, cisternitis, and stenosis in the proximal and middle parts of the teat, which had most likely been caused by repeated cannulation of the teat by the owner. Lateral theloscopy was then used to remove the distal stenosis, which was the primary lesion. Healing of the surgical wound and resolution of the swelling occurred several days postoperatively, and the calf’s first attempt to suckle the teat was successful. The cow and calf were discharged from the clinic 2 weeks after surgery. A follow-up visit 4.5 months after surgery revealed that the calf was still nursing the teat and the operated quarter was producing a normal amount of milk.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Case report: Teat stenosis in a suckler cow

Schären-Bannert,

Starke,

Snedec

et al. 2023

Front. Vet. Sci.

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“…These farmer behaviours indicate that there is likely to be under-reporting of mild cases of mastitis and other time varying factors associated with mastitis. For example, teat lesions are relatively transient in nature ( Cooper et al, 2013 ) compared with udder conformation that is less changeable over time and the irregularity of farmer checks coupled with the transient nature of teat lesions might have resulted in an under-estimation of teat lesions, and therefore an inaccurate identification of a lack of association with flock mean IRCM.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A cross-sectional study of 329 farms in England to identify risk factors for ovine clinical mastitis

Cooper

Huntley

Crump

et al. 2016

Preventive Veterinary Medicine

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The aims of this study were to estimate the incidence rate of clinical mastitis (IRCM) and identify risk factors for clinical mastitis in suckler ewes to generate hypotheses for future study. A postal questionnaire was sent to 999 randomly selected English sheep farmers in 2010 to gather data on farmer reported IRCM and flock management practices for the calendar year 2009, of which 329 provided usable information. The mean IRCM per flock was 1.2/100 ewes/year (CI:1.10:1.35). The IRCM was 2.0, 0.9 and 1.3/100 ewes/year for flocks that lambed indoors, outdoors and a combination of both, respectively.Farmers ran a variety of managements before, during and after lambing that were not comparable within one model, therefore six mixed effects over-dispersed Poisson regression models were developed.Factors significantly associated with increased IRCM were increasing percentage of the flock with poor udder conformation, increasing mean number of lambs reared/ewe and when some or all ewes lambed in barns compared with outdoors (Model 1).For ewes housed in barns before lambing (Model 2), concrete, earth and other materials were associated with an increase in IRCM compared with hardcore floors (an aggregate of broken bricks and stones). For ewes in barns during lambing (Model 3), an increase in IRCM was associated with concrete compared with hardcore flooring and where bedding was stored covered outdoors or in a building compared with bedding stored outdoors uncovered. For ewes in barns after lambing (Model 4), increased IRCM was associated with earth compared with hardcore floors, and when fresh bedding was added once per week compared with at a frequency of ≤2 days or twice/week.The IRCM was lower for flocks where some or all ewes remained in the same fields before, during and after lambing compared with flocks that did not (Model 5). Where ewes and lambs were turned outdoors after lambing (Model 6), the IRCM increased as the age of the oldest lambs at turnout increased.We conclude that the reported IRCM is low but highly variable and that the complexity of management of sheep around lambing limits the insight into generating hypotheses at flock level for risks for clinical mastitis across the whole industry. Whilst indoor production was generally associated with an increased IRCM, for ewes with large litter size indoor lambing was protective, we hypothesise that this is possibly because of better nutrition or reduced exposure to poor weather and factors associated with hygiene.

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“…Palpable masses in the udder were defined as IMM and recorded as present or absent. Teat lesions were defined as any lesion present on the teat including bites, tears, grazes, spots, warts and proliferative scabs (Cooper et al, 2013) and were also recorded as present or absent.…”

Section: Data Collected On Udder and Teat Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Casu et al, 2010, de la Fuenta et al, 2011, Fernandez et al, 1997, Legarra and Ugarte, 2005, Makovický et al, 2015, where udder and teat traits were heritable and genetically correlated with somatic cell count (SCC) or somatic cell score. In crossbred suckler ewes, udder and teat phenotype are associated with raised SCC, indicative of subclinical mastitis (Huntley et al, 2012), and traumatic teat lesions (Cooper et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heritability of phenotypic udder traits to improve resilience to mastitis in Texel ewes

Crump

Cooper

Smith

et al. 2019

animal

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There are no estimates of the heritability of phenotypic udder traits in suckler sheep, which produce meat lambs, and whether these are associated with resilience to mastitis. Mastitis is a common disease which damages the mammary gland and reduces productivity. The aims of this study were to investigate the feasibility of collecting udder phenotypes, their heritability and their association with mastitis in suckler ewes. Udder and teat conformation, teat lesions, intramammary masses (IMM) and litter size were recorded from 10 Texel flocks in Great Britain between 2012 and 2014; 968 records were collected. Pedigree data were obtained from an online pedigree recording system. Univariate quantitative genetic parameters were estimated using animal and sire models. Linear mixed models were used to analyse continuous traits and generalised linear mixed models were used to analyse binary traits. Continuous traits had higher heritabilities than binary with teat placement and teat length heritability (h2) highest at 0.35 (SD 0.04) and 0.42 (SD 0.04), respectively. Udder width, drop and separation heritabilities were lower and varied with udder volume. The heritabilities of IMM and teat lesions (sire model) were 0.18 (SD 0.12) and 0.17 (SD 0.11), respectively. All heritabilities were sufficiently high to be in a selection programme to increase resilience to mastitis in the population of Texel sheep. Further studies are required to investigate genetic relationships between traits and to determine whether udder traits predict IMM, and the potential benefits from including traits in a selection programme to increase resilience to chronic mastitis.

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A longitudinal study of risk factors for teat lesions in 67 suckler ewes in a single flock in England

Cited by 8 publications

References 27 publications

Case report: Teat stenosis in a suckler cow

Case report: Teat stenosis in a suckler cow

A cross-sectional study of 329 farms in England to identify risk factors for ovine clinical mastitis

Heritability of phenotypic udder traits to improve resilience to mastitis in Texel ewes

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