Elizabeth Allison (Mailbox, August 13) tries hard to discredit my letter regarding the treatment of dairy cows.

I stated that in the herds I worked with we only had about four cases of mastitis in a year. She wrote that while clinical mastitis produces obvious symptoms it can occur in subclinical form with no visible changes to udder or milk.

And yet in a letter trying to discredit Wendy Warren she stated that mastitis is an inflammation of the udder which occurs in 50 per cent of UK dairy cows. This points to the fact that Ms Allison forgets her previous statements.

From my limited experience, I do know that if an animal is suffering excruciating pain (obvious symptoms or not), a good stocksman/woman would get to the bottom of it.

There is also the fact that an animal which is suffering – is not happy – will not produce as well as a happy contented one.

By the way, I never really worked on a farm. I used to spend my school holidays (summer holidays) at my dad's uncle's farm. I learned to milk by hand as a five-year-old. Just two cows a day. Then when I left school I went to a farm daily and was paid at the end of each week. But I never thought of it as work. It was just love of the land and animals.

So although I cared for most types of farm animals and don't understand the current trend, I don't rely on second-hand information for my views.

G A Wright, Leicester.