A survey on milk quality variations in farms

Abstract

One hundred and fourty three dairy farms located in Massif Central were included in a detailed survey involving the herd and the farm structure, winter and summer feeding practices, milking and hygiene practices, and cows characteristics and management (breed, calving distribution ...). These data allowed analysis of the variations of milk characteristics (fat and protein content, somatic cell count, total bacterial count, butyric spore count). Milk chemical composition differences among farms were higher in winter than in summer, and resulted essentially from breed and feeding practices (nature of the forages and nutritive supplies). Milk bacterial quality resulted both from the nature of winter forages and milking hygiene. In most of the farms, somatic cell count was higher in summer than in winter. Few farms had both a high protein content and a high milk hygienic quality.