Effect of the somatic cell count on physicochemical components of milk from crossbred cows

Abstract

The aim of the present work was to evaluate the effect of somatic cell count on the composition of milk in individual samples from crossbred cows at the Rio Verde municipality. Data from 2,730 individual samples of milk from crossbred cows were used. The samples were collected between February and April 2012 and analyzed at the Milk Quality Laboratory (Laboratório de Qualidade do Leite) in the Food Research Center (Centro de PesquisaemAlimentos) of the School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science of the Federal University of Goiás (Escola de Veterinária e Zootecnia da Universidade Federal de Goiás). Protein, fat, lactose, casein, urea, defatted dry extract and somatic cell counts (SCC) were analyzed. A completely randomized experimental design was used. An analysis of variance was performed, and individual means were compared using Tukey’s test (p<0.05). The urea content did not vary with increasing SCC. The lactose levels decreased with increasing SCC. The defatted dry extract was minimally influenced by increasing SCC. Key words: SCC, percent composition, milk quality, casein, urea.