Staph Aureus and Corynebacterium Pyogenes Mastitis in a Free Stall Dairy

A Case Report

Abstract

After sitting through so many mastitis lectures, one easily gets the impression that all practitioners who talk about mastitis really do is sit around doodling the time away at their desks with their nose in the latest journal until that fateful moment when the phone rings. On the other end of the line is a dairyperson in distress (vapid DAPID), calling all your expertise out to solve a mastitis problem. At that moment you mobilize, just like the SWAT team, grabbing your detco recorder, flowmeter, culture tubes and CMT paddle as you fly out the door and proceed code 3 to the scene of the crime.

In real life the scenario goes more like this. You have just finished palpating 50 or 60 head with 2 more herds to go. The office has just called on the radio and asked if you could pick up an OB on the way. They report that the calf should be ready to come out because its tail has been showing for 2 days already. As you are hurriedly washing off your boots preparing to roar off in search of "the aroma", your dairyman casually asks, "Say doc, have you got anything good for mastitis?"