Milk production of hand-milked dairy cattle in Burkina Faso

The overall aim of the present thesis was to improve milk production and milking routines in Burkina Faso. There is a long tradition of keeping livestock in Burkina Faso and there are large numbers of cattle in the country. However, Burkina Faso today depends on the import of meat and milk, and the domestic production is greatly in need of improvement. The first in this thesis study was a survey that aimed to investigate the current situation in dairy farming and milk processing in periurban areas of Burkina Faso. Two experimental studies and two field studies were designed to answer questions arising from the survey. Day-to-day variation in milk yield and milk composition was determined in ten multiparous Zebu cows. Three different hand-milking techniques identified in the survey were compared in twelve Zebu cows, milked by three different milkers. A milk recording pilot study was carried out on ten farms, with a total of 79 cows. Finally, milk hygiene was investigated along the dairy chain, from the cow to the dairy or market. The main constraints on milk production in peri-urban areas of Burkina Faso are low availability of feed and water, lack of selective breeding, milking management and lack of infrastructure. The milking routine was hand-milking and restricted suckling in both traditional and semi-intensive systems. The pilot milk recording data suggested it would be possible to improve milk production through selective breeding and that monthly milk recording would be useful for this purpose. The relative day-to-day variation in milk yield was much higher in hand-milked and restrictedly suckled cows (18-21%) than previously reported for machine milked cows (6-8%). Therefore, more frequent milk recording would be needed in order to use milk records for improving cow management. Three hand-milking techniques ("full hand grip", "thumb in" and "pull down") did not differ in their effects on teat treatment, milk yield or milk composition. However, different hand-milking techniques seemed to suit different milkers. Overall, low somatic cell counts were found in milk, which indicated good udder health. Milk was contaminated with bacteria directly after milking and the total bacteria count was dangerously high (10⁶-10⁷ cfu/ml) when the milk reached the consumers.