Improvement of animal health indicators in German organic dairy farms through "Stable Schools"

In this study we initiated four regional stable schools focusing on animal health with in total 19 German organic dairy farms. A modified stable school approach was used, i.e. providing the farmers with detailed information on the health status of each farm. The participating farmers showed a positive attitude towards this concept. Accordingly, the compliance regarding implementation was high. More than two thirds of all 123 recommendations given by the stable school groups to host farmers were implemented. The degree of implementation was similar to the level achieved in other intervention studies using a face-to-face advice. Across all farms, cleanliness of the cows improved significantly over the two years monitoring period. In nine farms which had implemented measures regarding udder health, the somatic cell score improved significantly and milk yield increased as compared to the control peer farms. However, treatment incidence for mastitis and antibiotic drying-off remained unchanged.