Interrelationships between herd management practices and udder health status using canonical correspondence analysis

Abstract

The relationships between the herd-level distribution of udder health measures (traumatic, physical, functional and congestive udder disorders, clinical mastitis and somatic cell counts (SCC) greater than 400 × 10 3, ml −1) and farm (general hygiene, milking practices and housing system) and aggregated individual characteristics were studied by canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). This is a correspondence-analysis technique in which the axes representing disease patterns are expressed as linear combinations of potentially explanatory variables. These main axes can be drawn so that the distribution of diseases for combinations of the main-explanatory managerial variables can be visualized. The type of quarantine for newcomers, type of animal housing, presence of shelter at pasture, use of udder towel before milking, milk production and loss of body condition after calving, were strongly correlated with udder health status. Mastitis and physical udder disorders were associated with the combination of no introduction of replacement heifers and low loss of body condition after calving. Congestive disorders were more common on farms when no quarantine for newcomers was combined with high loss of body condition after calving. Higher clinical and subclinical mastitis incidence risks were associated with the combination of no udder towel, loose housing with high animal density and high milk production. In most cases, clinical mastitis and high SCC were explained by the same covariates but with contrasting levels of those covariates.