Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL AND VETERINARY ADVANCES, cilt.9, sa.8, ss.1245-1249, 2010 (SCI-Expanded)
In this experiment, effectiveness of antibiotic treatment was evaluated by bacteriology and Somatic Cell Count (SCC). Ninety-six heifers were divided randomly into two groups: either to be treated with antibiotics (200 mg cephalexin monohydrate and 250 mg neomycin) 45 days prior to expected calving date (Group 1, n = 41) or not treated (Group 2, n = 55). Bacteriologic tests were used for detection of infected quarters. Of the quarters, 58.3% had infection at least in one quarter before calving. Mastitis pathogens were isolated from 31% of the quarters. In the treatment group, 43 of 52 infected quarters (82.6%) were cured but new infections (n = 43) were detected in the beginning of the lactation. Spontaneous cure rate was 69.3% in the control group and new infection rate (24.2%) was lower than the treated group. The treatment was effective for reducing prepartum Intramammary Infections (IMI) and persistent IMI; it was however inadequate to protect the quarters from new IMI in the beginning of lactation (p>0.05). Precalving antibiotic treatment was however quite effective for reducing individual SCC. There were less quarters (n = 5) with high SCC (>400.000 cells mL(-1)) in the treated group than the control group. In conclusion, antibiotic treatment prepartum may be necessary to reduce incidence of mastitis and improve quality of milk.