Contamination

Mastitis in Dairy Cows

A painful infection that is so common we all have to accept pus in our coffee

35%

of UK dairy cows suffer from mastitis every year.¹

of cows ‘exiting’ the system are slaughtered because they have mastitis.²

400,000

pus-producing cells are legally permitted in every millilitre of milk we drink.³

What It Is

Mastitis is a painful, debilitating bacterial infection that affects every dairy herd in the UK.⁴ It is a direct consequence of the biological pressure placed on animals who, in the drive for greater profits, have been selectively bred to produce many times more milk than is natural. Their swollen udders are attached to milking machines multiple times a day and become a fertile environment for infection to take hold. And boy, does mastitis take hold.

The milk that comes from mastitis-infected cows contains elevated somatic cell counts. This is the industry’s preferred term for what is, in plain English, white blood cells and pus. The UK’s legal limit for how many of these cells can be in the milk we buy is 400,000 per millilitre⁵ which is 400 million in every litre. And that’s not all that’s in the milk. Mastitis is a leading cause of antibiotic use in the dairy industry,⁶ and residues of those drugs can also be found in the milk.⁷