Monitoring of somatic cell count in milk by means of web application entitled cattle | Spremljanje stevila somatskih celic v mleku preko spletnega portala govedo

In Slovenia regular monitoring of somatic cell count on all farms which are included in milk recording scheme started in the year 2007. From February to August 385.398 records of milk recordings which were entered into Central database CATTLE (www.cattle.si) were analysed. We were interested in the situation of somatic cell count (SSC) and at the same time the data on somatic cell index (ISC), which was introduced following the National Centre of Danish Agricultural Advisory Service, were processed. According to milk yield, lactation number and stage of lactation, cows were grouped into five index classes, the first class with no problems and the fifth class with a suspect of serious problem of udder health. New module was implemented within the web application CATTLE which helps farmers in monitoring of SSC and calculates the theoretical contribution of SSC of individual cow to the bulk milk sample. With this module the breeders can find out cows with high SSC more efficiently and make their own decision about culling of problematic cows more easily. 37.2% of analysed milk samples have more then 200,000 SSC per ml. The data were transformed into ISC and our attention was focused to milk samples which were collected during the first 100 days after calving. The percentage of milk samples with the ISC 3, 4 and 5 were between 33.6 and 44.2% respectively with regard to breeds. It seems that udder health problems are the most common at Black & White breed, followed by Brown breed. The improvement of ISC from 5 to level 1, 2 or 3 until the next regular recording (30 days) is evident only in 30% of milk samples. Almost 53% of milk samples remained until the next recording at the same level, i.e. ISC 5. In the case of cows with ISC 4 25% of cows remain until the following recording (30 days) on the same level while in 30% of cows the index increase to ISC 5.Somatic cell count in milk of cows in milk recording scheme indicates a very serious situation of udder health, so we have to find a reasonable solutions as soon as possible.