Managing Mastitis in Dairy Ewes: You Can Contribute to an Exciting Research Project Greg Chambers BVSc, MVS (Dist. Epi)
Mastitis (inflammation of the mammary gland) is a fact of life for all dairy livestock, their farmers, and processors. The bovine dairy industry has had decades to accumulate a wealth of knowledge and tools for measuring and managing mastitis, but, as a newer industry, less is known about it in milking sheep. Greg Chambers, a veterinarian and epidemiologist at EpiVets, is passionate about the New Zealand sheep milking industry and wants to help it grow. One small way he can help is by combining his enthusiasm for sheep milk with his research and analysis skills and experience as a dairy vet. Sheep farmers and industry partners identified mastitis as a research priority. Mastitis is known to not only affect animal wellbeing, but also milk quantity and quality, milk processing, lamb growth rates, farm efficiency, and profitability. Furthermore, mastitis significantly inflates the environmental footprint of producing a litre of cow’s milk, so the same probably applies to sheep. Based on that clear signal, Greg is starting a research project this spring that will establish baseline mastitis information for the New Zealand sheep milking industry and help farmers manage mastitis. Individual farmers have done a lot of high-quality independent work with their advisors, but farmers and vets are ready for information collected systematically in a coordinated way across the industry to make evidence-based decisions. Based in Te Awamutu, EpiVets is a new veterinary research team with three veterinary epidemiologists and two technicians, and they are very proud to take on this project. With help from his team, sponsors, industry advisors and Massey University experts, Greg will coordinate the research, which focuses on clinical and subclinical mastitis, causes, risk factors, treatments, and diagnosis and monitoring. The goal is to communicate results, practical advice, and provide tools for farmers that can be applied on farms. Starting at lambing 2022, Greg aims to enrol 20 farms and, striking while the iron is hot, collect as much information and as many samples as possible. Participating farmers will collect milk samples from all ewes with clinical mastitis and fill out a form to collect information about the ewes and treatments. Greg and his team will visit each farm in early, mid, and late lactation to examine and sample 30 randomly selected ewes. The ewes will have a visual and physical udder examination, their teat ends will be scored, and milk samples will be collected from both glands.
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Goat & Sheep Milk NZ - Issue 7 | June 2022
The samples will be used for rapid mastitis test (RMT), somatic cell count (SCC), and laboratory work looking at bacterial loads and species. This will help answer questions like “Are lumps associated with high SCC?”, or “Can we use RMT in sheep?”. The treatment records, culture results, and laboratory testing of mastitis samples, will help decide if any treatments stand out, which will be useful for lobbying for registered mastitis treatments. Nobody enjoys the 35-day default milk withhold! The research won’t fix mastitis on farms immediately, but it will provide the basic information needed for any further work, such as developing solid management tools and selecting potential treatments. Enthusiasm and encouragement from sheep milking farmers and companies have been overwhelming. Greg is extremely grateful for the sponsorship and support of Spring Sheep, Maui Sheep Milk, Sheep Milk NZ, Massey University, AGMARDT, The Society of Sheep and Beef Cattle Veterinarians of the New Zealand Veterinary Association, Virbac New Zealand, Boehringer-Ingelheim New Zealand, MilkTestNZ and several veterinary, animal health and management experts. It is a privilege to be part of such a passionate, positive, and collaborative group of people who are all striving to grow this exciting industry. Greg is applying to Massey University for scholarship funding, but he is still looking for sponsors to help meet the full scope of this research. If you would like to co-sponsor this research in some way, Greg would love to hear from you and give you more information! Contact details: P 027 416 7865 E greg@epivets.co.nz
