DB—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 20,1981
SCC,
By Larry Hutchinson
Penn State Veterinary Science Extension
UNIVERSITY PARK Americans, private and governmental, like to
use initials to abbreviate all sorts of things.
Mastitis reporting is no exception. We have an entire “alphabet soup”
of abbreviations. What do these letters, and the numbers that go with
them mean for your herd?
Somatic Cell Count - The SCC is a count of somatic or body cells in milk.
This includes white blood cells or leukocytes as well as the cells that line
the of the udder. When the SCC is elevated or increased most of this
increase is due to white blood cells migrating to the udder from the
bloodstream in response to injury or infection in the udder.
Direct Microscopic Somatic Cell Count - One method of evaluation of
bulk tank milk quality is to examine a milk smear under a microscope
and count the somatic cells. This is called the DMSCC. Your milk plant
may be reporting this count to you on a monthly basis.
Wisconsin Mastitis Test - This is another test for somatic cells in bulk
tank milk. Unlike the DMSCC which is a direct counting method, the
WMT is an indirect me&o- ~e. Milk is mixed with a chemical that thickens
in the presence of somat.c cells. The more somatic cells present, the
thicker the solution. WMT scores are measured in millimeters or mm.
California Mastitis Test - like the WMT, the CMT measures thickening
of a milk and chemical mixture. Usually, CMT is employed as an on-farm
test of individual quarter milk rather than for bulk tank milk. CMT
readings are estimated as negative, trace 1,2,3 with higher readings
indicating a greater degree of thickening.'
DHIA-SCC
Dairy Herd Improvement Association Somatic Cell Count - About half
of the DHIA herds in Pennsylvania are on a somatic cell count program.
Participating herds have a milk sample from each lactating cow tested
monthly for somatic cell count.
The test is run at the DHIA lab on an electronic cell counting machine
known as the Fossomatic. The cow counts are coded from 1 to 9 with each
code number representing a range of 250,000 cells. Example: Code 1 = 0-
250,000; Code 2 = 250,000 to 500,000, etc.
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CMT, DMSCC, WMT, what do they mean?
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What do these tests mean to your herd? As bulk tank counts, either
DMSCC or WMT go up, production goes down. That’s because the count is
directly related to the number of infected quarters in your herd and in
fected quarters produce less milk than non-mfected.
% % reduction in
infected herd
DMSCC WMT quarters milk production
250.000 3 8 0
500.000 3 16 2
750.000 11 24 4
1,000,000 14 32 6
1.250.000 17 40 8 '
1.500.000 20-22 48 10
The CMT run on individual quarter milk also “shows a direct correlation
between test reading, infection, and somatic cell count As CMT reading in
creases, milk production from that quarter is decreased.
% decrease
in production
CMT reaction Somatic cell count
negative 0-200,000
trace 150,000-500,000 7.5
1 400,000-1,500,000 14
2 800,000-5,000,000 23
3 over 5,000,000 34
Herds on the DHIA-SCC receive on their monthly reports SCO’s on
individual cows. They also receive a summary sheet that includes an
average SCC expressed both as a code number (such as 1.8) and as a cell
count (such as 325,000). The number and percent of cows in the various
code categories are also included in the summary. The average percent
of Pennsylvania DHIA-SCC cows by somatic cell counts are: codes 1 and
2 - about 80 percent; codes 3,4,5,6 - about 10 percent; codes 7,8,9 - about 10
percent.
Since high counts whether quarter, cow, or tank result in lost
- production, high counts cost you money. Why not set some goals for your
farm in order to reduce the dollar drain of mastitis? Here are some
suggested goals. If you’re doing this well already, you may want to set
more ambitious goals for your own farm:
Bulk tank count: DMSCC of 300,000 or less or WMT of 4 or less.
DHIA-SCC: at least 65 percent Code 1 cows; at least 85 percent Code 1
and 2 cows.
CMT: at least 90% of quarters negative or trace.
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