Effect of inflammatory response related to mastitis on dairy cattle reproduction

Abstract

Mastitis is the inflammation of the mammary gland and is a common disease that affects dairy cattle health and wellbeing. Economic losses attributed to mastitis include lower milk production, increase in the amount of discarded milk, labor and medical costs, and premature culling (Fetrow, 2000). In addition to these costs, over the past two decades there has been mounting evidence that both clinical and subclinical mastitis reduce reproductive efficiency in dairy cattle (Kumar et al., 2017; Dahl et al., 2017). This paper discusses the effect of mastitis on dairy cattle reproduction from an inflammatory response basis of the mammary gland to infection.