All research done by UGCN scientists is applied research. Dairy farmers have to profit from the results, directly or indirectly. And of course we don’t want to do research that al ready has been done elsewhere. Therefore the first phase of the project was to visualize the needs of knowledge to improve udder health. Based on that, researchers were asked to write proposals to fill in those gaps. By now a number of researchers (PhD students as well as post-docs) are working in different disciplines related to udder health. To keep overview the research projects were divided in three themes: Bacteria, Cow and Farmer. UGCN participates in the regular meetings of the Dutch Mastitis Research Workers (DMRW). Abstracts of the UGCN research projects can be found in Book or abstract of the annual meeting of the DMRW from December 2007.

Bacteria
In the theme ‘Bacteria’ aspects of infectious pressure and diagnostics are gathered. Subjects studied in this theme are:

• Typing Coagulase negative staphylococci (CNS): comparison of Apistaph, Staph-zym and PCR. (O Sampimon)
• Influence of different CNS types on udder health. (O Sampimon)
• Sensitivity of a multidiagnostic test for simultaneous detection of two important mastitis pathogens in milk. (H Smith)
• Correlation between biofilm forming van antibiotic sensitivity of (pre)clinical and chronic bovine Staph. aureus isolates. (J Fink Gremmels)
• Isolate characteristics and cure. (G van Schaik)
• Detection of Mycoplasma spp. in culture negative milk samples. (O Sampimon)
• Culturing of bulk milk (O Sampimon)

Cow
All cows come in contact with bacteria at some point in time, some more than others and some become infected easier than others. In this theme, factors related to these aspects are studied. Subjects in this theme are:

• Oral vitamin E supplementation in relation to (sub)clinical mastitis under Dutch circumstances. (T van Werven)
• Dynamic measurement of the milking machine in relation to udder health. (F Neijenhuis)
• Measurement of detachment level of automatic cluster removal equipment. (K de Koning)
• The effect of becoming BVDV-free on udder health in dairy herds. (G van Schaik)
• Breeding to decrease the mastitis incidence: improving the mastitis index by using mastitis data. (G de Jong)
• Parameters for natural resistance in cow’s milk. (JAM van Arendonk and HFJ Savelkoul)
• Dry cow management in Dutch dairy herds. (T van Werven)
• Riskfactors for clinical mastitis in heifers. (O Sampimon)
• Riskfactors for udderhealth on farms with an automatic milking system. (K de Koning)

Farmer
A field highly underestimated in veterinary research is the field of Communication Sciences. In a pilot study we found that farmers are often frustrated by the unpredictability of the success of treatment of mastitis both, at the cow- and the herd level. This aspect as well as economics, another factor influencing behaviour, is studied in this theme. Subjects are:

• Convincing and activating: what motivates farmers and veterinarian? (RJ Renes)
• Intervention studies at the level of the veterinary practice and at the level of the cow to improve udder health. (G van Schaik)
• The effect of financial stimuli on mastitis management. (H Hogeveen)
• Costs and profits of mastitis management measures. (H Hogeveen)
• Evaluation of udder health improvement tools used by UGCN. (A Ritskes)
• The effect of visualisation of financial losses due to subclinical mastitis. (H Hogeveen)
• Effective communication with ‘hard to reach’ farmers. (RJ Renes)