The objectives of this research were to analyze and quantify the economic impact of the annual average frequency of clinical mastitis in dairy cattle. The research was carried through data simulation in the CU$TO MASTITE computational system, considering dairy cattle with 1, 7 and 15% of clinical mastitis. The expenditures considered as prevention included those of monitoring (culture and antibiogram, bulk tank somatic cell count and individual somatic cell count) pre- and post-dipping, vaccination, treatment of dry cows and maintenance of the milking machine. The measures considered as healing consisted only of the treatment of clinical cases. The impact of the mastitis was estimated as being the total in losses in addition to the expenditures with prevention and treatment of clinical cases. The increase of the annual average frequency of mastitis directly influenced the economic impact of the mastitis. The higher economic impact evidences the need for the monitoring of clinical and subclinical mastitis and the adoption of preventative measures to diminish the damages caused by this disease. The expenditures with preventive treatment represented, at maximum, 19.7% of the economic impact, which demonstrates the advantages of investing in this practice, since it contributes significantly toward reducing the economic impact of mastitis.
Animal health; clinical mastitis; dairy cattle