# Dairy Board test showing mastitis?



## Suellen

We have dairy goats and are licensed to sell cheese. Someone from the dairy board comes out once a month
to test our milk. Our tests come back and we pass the bacteria count but they keep reporting traces of mastitis
not high enough that we fail the test but high enough to indicate that 1 or both of the 2 goats we are milking has a really 
bad case of mastitis. We have tested them and neither come up positive and neither show any symptoms of mastitis. 
Does anyone know if something else could be making the dairy board test positive for mastitis?
~Suellen~


----------



## Ziggy

What exactly are they reporting? SCC?


----------



## linuxboy

How did you test them? Plated out the milk? For what pathogens?


----------



## Suellen

The report is telling us that we have a Somatic cell count of 470,000
We use the California mastitis kit. Is there another way that we can test for mastitis?
~Suellen~


----------



## linuxboy

CMT is just a range to tell you when you already have a problem. It's not a good early predictor, not does it have good granularity. 470K is somewhat high, especially when it is persistent. You can approach this from many ways, but I suggest a systems approach to evaluate the entire sanitation condition and milk processing.

You could
- Inspect your milking equipment. Maybe it's worm, like if inflations need replacing. Maybe Sanitation is not thorough. 
- Check living conditions. Do animals rest in clean conditions? Are udders and hind quarters dirty? Enough space for everyone?
- Check nutrition. If selenium/vit E levels are low, immunity is weakened.
- Check milking process. Do you post dip?Are you fore stripping?

Right away what you can do is check each goat separately and try to see if it's a persistent condition, or just a few animals.


----------



## NubianSoaps.com

And mastitis tests at LSU (information is in goatkeeping 101) is free. Do make sure you ship them and collect them correctly. This way you can find out who the culprit is, treat her and get this overwith. WE have found in testing that a great deal of does carry sublicnical mastitis only seen in high SCC and lopsided udders, although most dairies have does with cloroform and other mastitis that would have been culled for in the home farm.

Like PAV said, CMT is just a tool, some does never gel, some does carry a gel all the time or only show gell at the end of lactation, by the time you have any mastitis that a CMT will pick up you already know it from the keeping quality or the quality period of your milk. CMT shows you change in SSC and you already are having that test done by your state. Vicki


----------



## Suellen

You could

The inflations may need to be replaced I will check them
I think we do great with the sanitation
Plenty of space. Stalls are concrete and cleaned every day. The have pallets to sleep on. Outside we have
mud off and on. I have more pallets outside for them to sunny themselves
The udder and hind quarter get cleaned before milking 
We have had problems off and on with selenium/vit E I will check this
Before milking we clean, dip, strip, milk, dip
These were great suggestions thanks
I also found out that the Dairy inspector is using Cow milk standards. I am getting
research proof together to give the Dairy inspector that shows Goats milk will have a higher count than cow
I found some more info on the internet. Other things that can increase the SCC:
Days in lactation
Acidosis and high grain feeding
CAE
Breed effects
teytracyclings
Some nutritional supplements

I will keep you posted on my progress
~Suellen~


----------



## nightskyfarm

Cow testing WILL NOT work with goat milk and the result will be about 30% higher than if the test were properly done for goat milk. Here in VA our lab hand counts the Somatic Cells because there is no reliable machine available without buying something special.


----------



## Sondra

Do as Vicki says and send off to LSU just to be sure 
but like said above goats have and are allowed a higher count (at least here in TX)


----------



## Suellen

I have been working on compling research prooving that goat SCC is higher than cow and should not
be tested using cow standards. When I think I have enough documentation I will give it to our dairy
inspector. If anyone has information I should look at please let me know.
~Suellen~


----------



## nightskyfarm

According to the regs the milk needs to conform to the species not to cow standards which is why the Feds raised the SCC levels from 1000000 to 1500000 last year for Grade A milk. A level of 450000 arrived at through the o milk method is not anywhere close to a health hazard.


----------

