Alternative Method for Determination of Milk Somatic Cell Count in Dairy Cow

Introduction Milk somatic cell count is considered as an indicator for raw milk quality and udder health status in dairy cows (4, 6). Many approaches have been made to determine milk somatic cell counts in dairy cow and goat both in the field and laboratory including California Mastitis Test (CMT, a cow side test), Fossomatic cell count (FSCC), and Direct Microscopic Count (DMC) (1,7). These conventional methods possess their own limitations in terms of cost, accuracy and time on sample processing. Fossomatic cell count (FSCC) required expensive equipment and was time-consuming. In particular, human error is of great concern for determination of SCC measured by CMT and DMC. DeLaval cell counter (DCC) has been recently introduced as an alternative tool for bulk milk screening and udder health monitoring both in dairy cow and goat (1, 2, 3, 8). DCC was a portable device yielded a reliable and rapid results as compared to the standard method (Fossomatic analyzer) (1, 3, 8). Therefore, this study was conducted to determine quarter milk SCCs in dairy cows using 3 different methods including CMT, DMC and DCC.