For more information contact: Bruce L. Clark

LOCATION: North Mississippi Branch Experiment Station, Holly Springs

With increased premiums being paid for higher quality milk (lower SCC), many dairy producers are looking for new methods to aid them in the production of high quality milk. One such method that has gained increasing interest is the practice of tail docking.

Tail switches flip dirt and manure onto rear udders. This dirt and manure increases the chances of bacteria entering the udder and creating either clinical or sub-clinical mastitis, thus producing a lower quality milk, if not causing the death of the cow.

Nine months of data compilation registering the monthly differences in average milk production and somatic cell counts reveals the treatment group (docked tails) produced 54.07 lbs milk per cow with a 3.64 somatic cell count, whereas control group animals produced 53.42 lbs milk per cow with a 4.20 somatic cell count. It is apparent that over a cow's productive lifetime a difference of .56 somatic cell counts, considering the lower the cell count the higher the quality of milk produced, many dollars could be lost because of a cow's tail.

Many dairymen reject the practice of tail docking because they believe the tail to be a natural fly swatter. This research considered this idea and performed visual inspections of fly populations per cow. Researchers agree that the presence or absence of the cow's tail had no bearing upon the fly population per cow. Only when approved chemical fly control methods are routinely practiced can fly populations be controlled. Cow tails have minimal use as fly managers. Tail docking is not the miracle cure-all in the quest for high quality milk but is another management practice, which can increase the chances of preventing mastitis and producing more and higher quality milk.