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Handling the dry-off problem in organic dairy herds by teat sealing or homeopathy com-pared to therapy omission

Klocke, Peter; Ivemeyer, Silvia; Walkenhorst, Michael; Maeschli, Ariane and Heil, Fritz (2006) Handling the dry-off problem in organic dairy herds by teat sealing or homeopathy com-pared to therapy omission. Paper at: Joint Organic Congress, Odense, Denmark, May 30-31, 2006.

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Summary

Avoiding antibiotics is one of the crucial goals in organic dairy herd health management. Thus, a trial with 102 cows (408 quarters) was conducted to com-pare 2 common medical dry-off practices in organic dairying, internal teat sealant (Orbeseal®, Pfizer) and herd specific homeopathic remedies, with an untreated control. Regarding the sub-clinical mastitis protection rate (IPR), the results show no significant benefit for the two treatment groups in general. The homeopathic group had an advantage in the treatment of cows at drying off showing less than 200k cells/ml. The protection OR of these cows was 5.80 (95%-CI 1.36-29.87) compared to control.
Teat sealants showed the best results in protection against environmental infections. Only 13% (n=10/80) of the primarily healthy quarters were infected by environmental Streptococci, Enterococci or Coliforms after calving compared to 21% (15/70; n.s.) after homeopathic treatment and 28% in the control group. This is a 3-fold protection chance (3.04 - 95%-CI 1.2-9.0) compared to control.
The results indicate that in herds with good udder health with few environmental infections, a treatment at drying off can be omitted, while sub-clinically in-fected cows could be treated by homeopathics. Only in case of increased environmental infection risk, a strategic teat sealant usage is recommended.


EPrint Type:Conference paper, poster, etc.
Type of presentation:Paper
Keywords:QLIF, FiBL 35001
Agrovoc keywords:
Language
Value
URI
English
dairy herds
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_10272
Subjects: Animal husbandry > Production systems > Dairy cattle
Animal husbandry > Health and welfare
Research affiliation: Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Animal > Animal health > Homeopathy
European Union > QualityLowInputFood > Subproject 4: Livestock production systems
International Conferences > 2006: Joint Organic Congress > Theme 8: Animal health and disease handling
Deposited By: Klocke, Dr. Peter
ID Code:7681
Deposited On:09 May 2006
Last Modified:22 Jul 2021 11:09
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Not peer-reviewed

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