For decades now, milk-testing laboratories have been using somatic cell count as an indicator of mastitis. And while somatic cell count is still the best test for mastitis screening, a more refined screening method could help dairy farmers further improve herd health. Under the direction of Peter Höckels,
German milk laboratory Landeskontrollverband Nordrhein Westfalen aims to do just that by using advanced milk-testing technology. Fossomatic 7 DC, said Höckels, could be a game changer for dairy farmers around the world.
Indexing udder health data
When infection is present in the udder, the body sends high numbers of somatic cells to the injured site. Not all cells are created equal, though, and different parts of cells give important information on the status of mastitis and inflammation. Oftentimes that information isn’t available until after it’s too late to do anything about it.
Mr Höckels and the milk laboratory are part of a collaborative project called ZellDiX that aims to improve milk control by assessing and indexing udder health data using cell differentiation technology. It is their hope that the information will lead to a reduction in antimicrobial use, and improve productivity and udder health. “Until today we are only able to count the total somatic cells and there was no possibility to look into these somatic cells and to find out which kinds of cells are in the samples. Is the inflammation acute or chronic for example? We think it’s very important to have this information to give answers to the farmers for useful treatment of cows,” Mr Höckels explained.
Somatic cells are divided into 3 components:
the lymphocytes,
the macrophages and
the branulocytes or polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN).
All 3 components play a vital role in the inflammatory response inside the mammary gland, explained Mr Höckels.
The proportion of the 3 different cells is dependent on the status of the inflammation. In a healthy udder, somatic cells are low, as are macrophages. If there is inflammation, the number of somatic cells increases; the number of granulocytes (PMNs) will also increase. Rather than just providing an overall cell count.
