The ARS National Animal Disease Center in Ames found promising treatment for mastitis

Vitamin D and chemicals like chlorate and nitro compounds are good candidates to replace antibiotics in bovine.
The research team at the ARS National Animal Disease Center in Ames, IA has found that Vitamin D is a promising treatment for mastitis, a mammary gland infection common among dairy cows that is currently usually treated with antibiotics. 
Cows treated with vitamin D showed fewer bacterial counts and fewer clinical signs of severe infection and if they were treated early enough in the infection, the treated cows also produced more milk than untreated cows, reported Agricultural Research. "We hope this natural form of vitamin D will be a means to reduce antibiotic use either by using this in tandem with antibiotics and shortening the duration of antibiotic use, or as a means against some bacteria that are resistant to antibiotic treatments.
ARS researchers at the Food and Feed Safety Research United in College Station, TX patented their new technology to fight foodborne pathogens in the intestinal tracts of animals. The method uses chlorate and nitro compounds to significantly reduce or eliminate pathogens like Salmonella and E. coli O157: H7, according to ARS. 
Researchers found that mixing the chlorate-based compound into cattle's water or feed two days before slaughter was highly effective in killing E. coli -- reducing bacteria levels from 100,000 E. coli cells per gram of fecal material to 100 cells per gram. 
The researchers found similar results with Salmonella in turkeys: the incidence of Salmonella dropped from 35 percent to 0 and from 37 percent to 2 percent in broiler chickens. 
Chlorate by itself had significant bacteria-killing activity against E. coli and Salmonella, and that activity was enhanced 10- to 100-fold with addition of the nitro compound. The nitro compounds by themselves had also significant bacteria-killing activity, and that activity was more persistent than the chlorate activity by itself.
These options could be used instead of certain antibiotics that are commonly used to treat diarrheal infections in young pigs and cattle.
A major issue to be addressed is novel biocontrol approaches for reducing bacterial pathogens in food animal production is to employ strategies specifically geared to reduce or eliminate drug-resistance development.
Source: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/may12/animal0512.htm
Aporte: Dalia Clarisa Echeverri