Relationship of somatic cell count, physical, chemical and enzymatic properties to the bacterial standard plate count in different breeds of dairy goats

The objective of the present study was to investigate the accuracy of mastitis diagnostic indicators for different dairy goat breeds. Biweekly milk samples were collected from individual half mammary gland of seven Saanen and seven Alpine dairy goats in the period of 40 to 120 days in milk. With threshold value set at 2.8 and 3.1 for Alpine and Saanen dairy goats, respectively, log (SPC) offered good sensitivity (0.89, 0.93), specificity (0.88, 0.95), positive predictive value (0.75, 0.85) and negative predictive value (0.95, 0.98) as a mastitis diagnostic tool. The correlations of log (SPC) with milk yield, log (SCC), ALP, LDH, Na+, K+ and EC were significant in Saanen dairy goats (p<0.05), with the highest correlation coefficient (0.653) existing between log (SPC) and log (SCC). The correlations of log (SPC) with milk yield, milk fat, milk protein, log (SCC), Na+, K+, EC were significant in Alpine dairy goats (p<0.05), with the highest correlation coefficient (0.416) existing between log (SPC) and log (SCC). There were different best-fit regression equations with different multiple diagnostic indicators for Saanen and Alpine dairy goats. In conclusion, different breeds of dairy goats may have to adapt different mastitis diagnostic parameters for a better diagnosis.