Reduction of the Incidence of New Mastitis Infections by “Pre-squirting” Teats

“Pre-squirting” is a technique for flushing out the streak canal of a lactating cow while avoiding movement of milk from the teat back into the udder. When 500 colony-forming units of Streptococcus agalactiae were placed into the streak canal, pre-squirting before let down at succeeding milkings reduced the number of new udder infections. In contrast to this result, pre-squirting was not effective against challenging S. agalactiae placed into the teat cistern.