Producer profiles, production characteristics and mastitis control applications at dairy herds in Konya, Burdur and Kırklareli provinces, Turkey

Abstract

In order to investigate the producer & production characteristics and disease control applications at Turkish dairy herds, an interview survey was carried out in randomly selected 91 dairy herds out of 1684 Turkish Dairy Breeding Association herds in Burdur, Kirklareli and Konya provinces in July 2004. The study depicted that percentages of producers having education level higher than primary school, and not having any job training relate to dairy farming were 21% and 79% respectively. The majority of the producers did not follow innovations (46%) and, was not aware of somatic cell counts and subclinical mastitis (93-97%), and the European Union's regulations related to dairy farming (76%). Amongst the producers interviewed, 13% used antiseptic when cleaning udder and 37% dried udder after washing. The percentage of producers using post milking teat dip, dry cow therapy, vaccination against mastitis, California Mastitis Test (CMT), and regularly keeping records for clinical cases were 18%, 62%, 29%, 15% and 20% respectively. The findings differed amongst the provinces and between the herd sizes. For majority of the questions the differences amongst the provinces were found to be significant at p<0.05. However, the statistical associations between the herd size were not statistically significant at, p<0.05. The study concluded that the producers in general, applied well-known methods for treatment and control of mastitis, but had lack in knowledge related to basic rules of hygiene applications and disease preventions. These problems are likely to have strong links with the level of formal education and job training of the producers. These findings emphasise that improvements in education and job training of the dairy farmers are as important as the efforts to improve farm size during the process of Turkey's integration to the European Union