Managing and monitoring mastitis in your herd

Join us to hear how mastitis issues are being tackled at Hillhead of Covington, an all-year-round fully housed herd based in Scotland.

The webinar features farmer Willie Baillie, along with vet James Breen, who will share what they’ve learnt since their last meeting in October 2019. They’ll show how QuarterPRO helped them understand patterns of mastitis, the steps they’ve taken and progress they’ve made to reduce new cases of clinical mastitis on the farm over the last nine months.

In this meeting you will learn:

• The changes Willie made to his operations, their impact and remaining areas of focus
• How to establish cell count trends and track progress
• About the Mastitis Control Plan – a proven, structured approach to mastitis prevention and control
• How QuarterPRO can help you achieve continuous improvement in mastitis rates on your farm

Who should attend?

Dairy farmers wanting help with the management and control of mastitis.

About Hillhead of Covington

William Ballie bought Hillhead of Covington in 1996 which consists of 159 hectares of grassland and arable cropping. Since then, William has grown the milking herd from 50 to 360 pedigree Holsteins with a top 15% genetic ranking. 

Housed all year round, the herd is milked three times a day and is fed a diet of mainly grass silage, whole crop and draff.

Benchmarking has played an important part in the business for over five years by enabling William to set key performance targets and measure progress towards being among the best-performing herds.

Follow Hillhead of Covington’s story and compare your performance by visiting www.ahdb.org.uk/farm-excellence/hillhead-of-covington and by searching for #SDFHillheadofCovington on Twitter

About Dr James Breen

Dr James Breen is an Associate Professor of Cattle Health and Production at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham. He is a Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons recognised specialist in cattle health and production with expertise in mastitis control and was part of the team behind the development of the AHDB Mastitis Control Plan. He has spent many years as an associate with QMMS Ltd and now works with The Evidence Group, as well as remaining in part-time dairy practice in Somerset.

About Strategic Dairy Farms

Strategic dairy farms help farmers learn from each other through regular on-farm meetings where we share key performance data and showcase what the best farmers are doing.

They form part of the Optimal Dairy Systems programme which aims to help dairy farmer’s lower costs and increase efficiency by focusing on either a block or all-year-round calving system.

The growing network of strategic dairy farms have calculated key performance indicators (KPIs) for their enterprises which are shared at meetings and published online. These are physical and financial performance measures that are critical to success. Farmers can benchmark their businesses against these KPIs and identify areas for improvement.

Follow the progress of farm’s like yours and learn from their progress at www.ahdb.org.uk/farm-excellence