Développement d'une litière de bois recyclé permettant de réduire les risques de mammites dans la production laitière

Milk quality and udder health of cows are priority issues for Canadian dairy producers. The development of new diseases and infections in a dairy herd, such as clinical mastitis, can be very harmful to the milk production and can cause significant economic losses estimated at $400 million annually in Canada. These losses are associated with the release of not consumable milk, low production efficiencies, high costs of veterinary care, hasty reform and mortality of affected cows.

BRQ Fibre et Broyure inc is a company located in Trois-Rivières, working on the value-addition of residual biomass to produce different kind of value-added products. In recent years, the company has developed an animal bedding made of recycled wood residues that shows very interesting properties to reduce the risk of developing clinical mastitis in cows.

The aim of this project is to develop a new bedding material made from recycled wood residues to prevent bovine mastitis in dairy cattle in Quebec, as well as to identify the best methods and the good practices that should be used with this animal bedding to prevent the inflammation of the udder. The goal of this project is also to improve the physical and biological properties of the bedding, to validate the impact of this animal bedding on the incidence of clinical mastitis and the health of the animals, to evaluate if this new bedding.