Preventing mastitis in canadian dairy cattle while reducing industry reliance on antibiotics

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Bovine mastitis is a bacterial infection that is common in dairy cattle. This disease is painful for cows, costs $665 million in losses annually for the Canadian dairy industry, and results in the use of large quantities of antibiotics. Antibiotic use in agriculture is becoming controversial and unsustainable due to the rising numbers of antibiotic resistant human infections; however, outright prohibition of antibiotic use in dairy farming would cause catastrophic and unsustainable losses due to the increased prevalence of bovine mastitis. In this project, we will partner with with two industrial partners to develop a topical probiotic solution that can be applied to the bovine teat to introduce a healthy microbiome and reduce the potential of pathogen colonization. This project will fill important knowledge gaps including the optimal composition of a healthy teat microbiome, how pathogens and symbionts interact in the teat environment, if teat symbionts can inhibit pathogen colonization, and if we can reliably manipulate the bovine teat microbiome. We will accomplish this by conducting culture based work that builds on and complements culture-independent work already completed in my laboratory - which has identified possible pathogen antagonists present in the microbiome of particularly healthy, and mastitis resistant, dairy cattle. We will ensure that this product is both effective at preventing mastitis by optimizing it with DeLaval, and that it meets the needs of dairy farmers by communicating our findings with them and receiving feed back via Dairy Farmers of Ontario. At the end of this project we aim to have a developed probiotic teat dip that is ready for clinical efficacy testing for preventing bovine mastitis.