Viertelselektives Trockenstellen - ein Ansatz zur nachhaltigen Reduktion des Antibiotikaeinsatzes

The use of antibiotics in animal husbandry has been under discussion for many years. In dairy farming, a large part of antibiotics is still used for dry cow therapy. In contrast to other strategies for selective dry cow treatment, we adopted a quarter-selective approach. The aim was not only to reduce the use of antibiotics, but also to target the quarters that benefit from antibiotic treatment at drying off. Only quarters infected with major pathogens were treated with antibiotics. Internal teat sealers were applied on all quarters to prevent new infections. This strategy was tested on 16 commercial dairy farms in Germany. Although all farms used selective dry-off strategies before, antibiotics usage was further reduced to a total of 8.7 % of quarters (2.3 % - 28.8 % on individual farms). The bacteriological cure rate for antibiotic-treated quarters was 97.4 % (86.7 - 100.0 % depending on the mastitis pathogen). The results show that it is possible to save antibiotics without compromising udder health.