Improving udder health on well managed farms: Mitigating the 'perfect storm'

Udder health on dairy farms is a multi-faceted phenomenon where both, subclinical mastitis and clinical mastitis are important components. In this review we describe a generic mastitis control program. While describing this control program, it becomes clear that many gaps in our knowledge exist. Progress and gaps in our knowledge in the areas of bacterial pathogens, management and motivation, and host response are discussed. We finally argue that it is important to maintain a connection between on-farm control programs and the direction of research in mastitis. Ultimately the research will need to be applied on farms and lead to an increase in milk quality, reduction in incidence of clinical disease and improvement of animal well-being and farm profitability. In this review we have tried to show this link and identify important areas for future research.