Short Courses

The short courses have limited enrollment and require an additional registration fee. Registration is based on a first come, first served basis.

The deadline for short course registration is January 12. Registrations may be accepted after the deadline if space is available. Courses may fill up before the deadline, so early registration is recommended. In order to sign up for a short course, you must also register for the general session.

Payment must accompany registration. Phone-in reservations are NOT accepted.

To increase the likelihood of getting registered for a short course, register online (mailed or faxed registration forms are not entered into the system as quickly).

Click here to check short course availability

Course 1: Monitoring Udder Health Intervention with PCDART Tools
Date and Time: Sunday January 25, 2009; 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Class Size Limit: 30 people
Course Fee: $115
Instructors: Bruce Clark, Northstar Cooperative DHI Services, Lansing, MI and Kas Ingawa, Dairy Records Management Systems - NCSU, Raleigh, NC

This short course will focus on utilizing tools within the PCDART dairy herd assessment and Herd Detective (can be used with all major on-farm dairy herd management programs) software programs to monitor the success or failure of intervention. The course will consist of a short review of the specific database items and reports which help define a herd's current udder health status and then monitoring changes over time in both individual cows and the overall herd's udder health status. The majority of the course will be designed in a case review format in which data from actual herds are provided; a structured approach is implemented to evaluate the success or failure of intervention strategies.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Participants must provide their own laptop to run programs used in the course.

Course 2: Milking System Evaluation - Where Do I Start?
Date and Time: Sunday January 25, 2009; 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Class Size Limit: 40 people
Course Fee: $115
Instructor: Patrick Gorden, Iowa State University, Ames, IA

This short course is meant to be a beginner to intermediate course on evaluating milking systems within a complete milking time evaluation. Evaluation of milking systems utilizing guidelines established by NMC will be discussed with emphasis on milking unit performance. The course will utilize case studies to emphasize important concepts of system evaluations. All participants will receive a copy of NMC's "Procedures for Evaluating Vacuum Levels and Air Flows in Milking" and should understand the concepts for completing the Milking System Evaluation Form upon completion of the course.

Course 3: Estimating the Costs of Mastitis and the Benefits of Control
Date and Time: Monday January 26, 2009; 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Class Size Limit: 45 people
Course Fee: $115
Instructors: Henk Hogeveen & Wilma Steeneveld, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Dairy producers run a business, and understanding the cost effectiveness of management decisions is important. Calculating the cost effectiveness of advice on mastitis control starts with insight about the costs of mastitis. This short course is targeted toward people interested in the economic background of mastitis, for instance, because they are giving advice about mastitis management. Participants will learn how to estimate the costs of mastitis and how to make practical decisions based on the calculated costs. Basic principles of cost calculations on mastitis will be introduced and examples of variation in costs of mastitis due to differences in milk losses, treatment costs and labor will be illustrated. A second objective of this course is to determine the cost efficiency of management measures, based on NMC's 10-point recommended mastitis control plan. For different farm types (bad versus good udder health) the efficiency of management measures will be illustrated for contagious and environmental pathogens. The third objective will be to evaluate the value of different decisions for cows that have mastitis. For example, is it cost efficient to take a bacteriological culture of a cow with clinical mastitis? Or is it cost-efficient to treat a cow with subclinical mastitis?

IMPORTANT NOTE: Participants must provide their own laptop to run programs used in the course and will be requested to provide their email address to the instructors, so that they can receive course materials for review prior to the course.

Course 4: Contagious Mastitis: Attacking an Old Foe with New Knowledge
Date and Time: Monday January 26, 2009; 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Class Size Limit: 45 people
Course Fee: $115
Instructors: Greg Keefe, Atlantic Veterinary College Charlottetown, PEI, Canada and Martin Pol, LactoDiagnosticoSur, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Contagious mastitis continues to be an important milk quality issue, despite intensive extension and education programs over the last 30 years. This program assesses the successes and failures of contagious mastitis control programs by strategically examining strengths and weakness of important contagious pathogens. Using this approach, conventional control programs are tailored to the specific limitations of the target organism. This is an entry to intermediate level course, which discusses the control of Streptococcus agalactiae, Staphylococcus aureus, Mycoplasma species as well as the coagulase-negative staphylococci and Corynebacterium bovis. The use of information sources to define the problem and target solutions will be described. Herd investigation strategies for managers and consultants will be reviewed. The role of milking machine function in contagious mastitis control will also be examined. A case-study approach will be used to illustrate implementation of corrective measures.

Course 5: Using Bacterial Count Data to Investigate Herd Problems: A Case-Based Approach
Date and Time: Monday January 26, 2009; 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Class Size Limit: 40 people
Course Fee: $115
Instructors: Doug Reinemann and Jose Pantoja, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI

This short course will help you to refine your skills at diagnosing bulk tank cultures. We will review the types of organisms that are typically found in the bulk tank and the potential sources of these organisms. Because the sources and tests for bacteriology are inherently highly variable, statistical tools must be applied in order to make sensible diagnoses. We will introduce you to some statistical techniques and provide you with statistical analysis tools (Excel spreadsheet based) to help you differentiate between true bacteriological signals and the inherent noise in the data. Bacteriological responses are also multivariate by nature, as in any complex biological system. We will provide you with statistical tools to understand the interaction between bacteriological responses.

Course 6: Milk Microbiology in the 21st Century - When to Use New Laboratory Techniques to Solve Milk Quality Problems
Date and Time: Monday January 26, 2009; 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Class Size Limit: 45 people
Course Fee: $125
Instructors: Ellen Schmitt-van de Leemput, Clinique Veterinaire de Villaines La Juhel, Villaines La Juhel, France; Ynte H. Schukken, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Ruth N. Zadoks, Moredun Research Institute/University of Edinburgh, Scotland

This intermediate level course will introduce a variety of molecular or DNA-based typing methods used to investigate mastitis and milk quality problems. Instructors include university-based veterinarians who have used molecular methods for years, and a general practitioner who is about to purchase a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machine for use in veterinary practice. Principles of PCR, including multiplex and real-time PCR, DNA-sequencing and a number of strain typing methods will be discussed. Rather than a detailed technical "how to" manual, this course aims to provide a "when to" guideline. The objective is to enable you to decide if and how to use molecular methods when dealing with milk quality and udder health issues. Molecular methods should not be used in isolation, but based on an understanding of the epidemiological context and relevance of the questions that we try to answer. On-farm investigations and collection of material for testing may be as important as the selection of molecular methods. Case studies will be presented by teams of field and laboratory veterinarians. We will discuss characterization of mastitis pathogens, foodborne pathogens and milk spoilage organisms, identification of sources and routes of transmission, integration of molecular and epidemiological data, and costs and logistics of molecular diagnostics.