Relationships between production, quality of milk and udder health status of ewes during machine milking

Abstract

The chosen traits of production, composition and quality of milk (analysis of 255 milk samples) were evaluated in ewes on the 1st to 3rd lactation (n=64) during milking period (4 control measurements – CM) and in the machine milking conditions. Udder health status of the ewes (UHS; n=255) was evaluated by means of 5 point linear scale subjectively at the same time. The ewes of three pure breeds (Tsigai – T, Improved Valachian – IV and Lacaune – LC) and two crossbreds (TxLC and IVxLC) were involved in the experiment. The machine milked milk (milk production) at CM (0.462 kg), the proportion of machine stripped milk (25.19 %) and also UHS (1.65) were significantly affected by the genotype group (P<0.001). The basic components of milk, somatic cell count (SCC=452.2 thousands) and somatic cell score (SCS=2.32) were not significantly affected by the genotype group. UHS of the ewes was effected by the genotype group and lactation order (P<0.001). The content of fat (7.72 %; F), lactose (4.62 %; L) and protein (5.68 %; P) were significantly affected by the CM (P<0.001, P<0.001 and P<0.05 respectively). The significant phenotype and residual correlations we determined between L and SCS (r = -0.372 and -0.399 respectively; P<0.001). The ewes with the worst UHS had on the basis of phenotype and residual correlations significantly lower lactose content in the milk (r = -0.206 and -0.194 respectively; P<0.001 and P<0.01 respectively). Between SCC and UHS and between SCS and UHS we found only weak phenotype and residual correlations (P<0.05 and P>0.05 respectively).