[The clinical effectiveness of a post milking teat disinfection method with a foaming iodophor teat dip]

The effect of postmilking teat dipping with a foaming iodophor agent on incidence of intramammary infections (IMI), incidence of clinical mastitis, somatic cell count and the characteristics of udder tissue and teat was investigated in a positively controlled field study. Two groups of animals were compared. Teats were dipped with a foaming iodophor in the treatment group (TG, 122 animals) while teats in the control group (CG, 121 animals) were dipped with a conventional iodophor teat dip with the same iodine content. A bacteriological examination of quarter milk samples divided the study period in two parts. The incidence of new IMI did not differ between the groups (1st part of trial: TG vs. CG: 6.84% vs. 9.16%, 2nd part of trial: 7.78% vs. 7.82%). There were no differences between the treatment groups regarding incidence of clinical mastitis. We detected 0.64 clinical cases per 100 days in the treatment group vs. 0.50 in the control group. The development of SCC was comparable in both groups. Teat skin and teat duct conditions showed variation during the study period. Clinical efficacy of postmilking teat disinfection with a foaming iodophor was comparable to the treatment with a conventional iodophor product.