| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||||
1 Departamento de Producción Animal, Facultad de Veterinaria, Universidad de León, 24071-León, Spain
2 Consorcio de Promoción del Ovino, 49630-Villalpando, Zamora, Spain
Corresponding author: C. Gonzalo; e-mail: dp2cga{at}unileon.es.
Between January and December 2002, a total of 21,685 records for bulk tank milk somatic cell count (BTSCC) were obtained from 309 dairy ewe herds belonging to the Sheep Improvement Consortium in Castilla-León, Spain. Based on the first statistical model, ANOVA detected significant effects of herd, breed, month within herd, dry therapy, type of milking, contagious agalactia, and installations within machine milking on logBTSCC. A second statistical model was used on herds with machine milking to study the effect of the vacuum level and pulsation rate on BTSCC. Herd and month within herd were important variation factors as they explained 48.4 and 16.1% of the variance in BTSCC. Variability in logBTSCC among breeds ranged from 5.84 (Castellana) to 6.09 (Awassi and Spanish Assaf). Implementing dry-ewe therapy (5.91) significantly reduced logBTSCC compared with when it was not implemented (6.10). Hand milking elicited greater logBTSCC (6.07) than machine milking (5.94). Machine milking of ewes in milking parlors (logBTSCC: 5.88 to 5.94) was associated with better udder health than was the use of bucket-milking machines (6.04). Reduced vacuum levels and elevated pulsation rate during machine milking optimized BTSCC. In all cases, clinical outbreaks of contagious agalactia increased BTSCC. As a result, dry therapy was proposed as the main tool to reduce BTSCC. Optimization of milking-machine standards and parlor systems also improved udder health in dairy sheep.
Key Words: bulk tank milk • somatic cell count • mastitis • milking
Abbreviation key: BTSCC = bulk tank somatic cell count.
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  J. M. Rodriguez-Nogales, A. M. Vivar-Quintana, and I. Revilla Influence of Somatic Cell Count and Breed on Capillary Electrophoretic Protein Profiles of Ewes' Milk: A Chemometric Study J Dairy Sci, July 1, 2007; 90(7): 3187 - 3196. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. Gonzalo, J. A. Carriedo, E. Beneitez, M. T. Juarez, L. F. De La Fuente, and F. San Primitivo Short Communication: Bulk Tank Total Bacterial Count in Dairy Sheep: Factors of Variation and Relationship with Somatic Cell Count J Dairy Sci, February 1, 2006; 89(2): 549 - 552. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
U. M. El-Saied, L. F. De La Fuente, J. A. Carriedo, and F. S. Primitivo Genetic and Phenotypic Parameter Estimates of Total and Partial Lifetime Traits for Dairy Ewes J Dairy Sci, September 1, 2005; 88(9): 3265 - 3272. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
