Staphylococcus aureus transmission and control in a robotic milking dairy herd

Abstract

Robotic or automated milking systems (AMS) are being introduced as an alternative to conventional milking systems. Investment in an AMS may be advantageous for some dairy farmers, particularly in terms of reducing labor costs and shifting labor from the repetitive, physical task of milking to other areas of farm management. Research on the effect of AMS on udder health has focused on somatic cell count measures. Theoretically, the consistency of milking hygiene practices is improved with AMSs, where quarters are milked individually, pre-milking stimulation, and preand post-milking teat disinfection are applied uniformly, and individual quarter milking teat cups are sanitized between cows. These AMS factors should contribute to the control of the transmission of contagious mastitis pathogens; however, to our knowledge, no study has been conducted to quantify the dynamics of mastitis pathogen transmission in AMS under field conditions. The objectives of this study were to describe the transmission dynamics of Staphylococcus aureus intramammary infections (IMI) in dairy herd with an AMS and to estimate the diversity of S. aureus strains in that herd by multilocus sequence typing (MLST) of selected isolates.