Culling Criteria. Culling decisions are complex and involve knowledge of the cow’s current status and a prediction of its future performance. In organic production,farmers also have to consider the organic standards when evaluating cows with poor udder health.The standards prescribe limited use of antibiotics and withdrawal periods that are usually twice as long after medical treatment, compared with conventional production, which affect farm economy. Furthermore, differences
in ethical considerations between organic and conventional farmers may be involved, because animal health and integrity are thought to have a higher value in organic production compared with conventional systems (Verhoog et al., 2004). Thus, the higher proportion of cows culled due to udder health in organic production in Sweden and the earlier shift in main culling reason from fertility to udder health, compared with conventional production, may not solely depend on udder
health status but also on what level of udder health the farmers accept. This notion is strengthened by the results from previous studies of udder health in Swedish herds that have shown only small differences between organic and conventional production (Hamilton et al.,2006; Fall, 2009; Sundberg et al., 2009).