Biochemical Profile of Milk : a Comparative Study of Health and Mastitic Buffaloes

A study carried out to compare the compositional quality of milk from healthy and mastitic buffaloes revealed mean ± S.E. content of sodium, potassium, chloride, protein, lactose and SNF in milk of healthy quarters as 40.00±1.19 mg/dl, 102.00±0.06 mg/dl, 0.126±0.006 per cent, 3.33±0.03 gm/dl, 5.92±0.01 gm/dl and 8.77±0.05 gm/dl, respectively. The milk from clinically infected quarters showed 85.00, 36.50 and 10.51 per cent higher (P<0.01) levels of sodium, chloride and protein; the actual values being 74±1.66 mg/dl, 0.172±0.012 per cent and 3.68±0.02 gm/dl, respectively. The levels of potassium (65.00±2.40 mg/dl), lactose (3.80±0.02 gm/dl) and SNF (8.36±0.02 gm/dl) in milk from mastitic quarters revealed significant (P<0.01) decrease of 36.27, 35.81 and 4.67 per cent as compared to the corresponding levels in milk from healthy buffaloes. * Present address: Faculty of Veterinary Science and AH, R.S. Pura, Jammu-181102. INTRODUCTION The very essence of dairying is the efficient production of wholesome raw milk that provides consumers with dairy products of high quality. But, it is well known that mastitis, the inflammation of mammary glands usually causes a depression in yield and alters significantly the biochemical composition of milk which in turn influences greatly the processing and keeping quality of milk and milk products (Murno et al., 1984, Needs et al., 1988 and Auldist et al., 1995). Although considerable data is available in this context for cows, very limited information is available on the effects of mastitis in dairy herd on the biochemical composition of milk from buffaloes.This investigation was carried out to obtain more complete and quantitative information on biochemical composition of milk from healthy buffaloes and to determine how the mastitis affects the compositional quality of milk. MATERIAL AND METHODS Animals: Study involved 27 healthy and 21 clinically mastitic Murrah buffaloes. Animals were distributed over different parities with a lactation stage varying from 2-7 months post-calving. The healthy animals in this trial were kept at an organised farm. while, the mastitic buffaloes comprised of individual animals presented for treatment at veterinary clinics of Punjab Agricultural University. The identification of healthy and mastitic quarters was done by carrying out physical examination of milk and udder, and subjecting milk samples to Sodium Lauryl Sulphate test (SLST) a modified CMT described by Pandit and Mehta (1969) and culturing. A quarter was considered to be mastitic when milk and/or udder showed apparent abnormalities and found positive for Sodium Lauryl Sulphate test and microbial isolation. Collection and analysis of milk samples: The individual quarters were examined for mastitis by Sodium Lauryl Sulphate as a animal side test and 15-20 ml of quarter foremilk samples were collected in sterilized and labelled test tubes taking all the possible aseptic precautions. The milk samples were brought to the laboratory and evaluated for bacterial cultural studies by standard microbial procedures described by National Mastitis Council (Brown et al., 1969). The estimation of chloride content was done as per the standard volumetric procedure Indian J. Anim. Res., 40 (1): 30 33, 2006