A comparative study on the blood and milk cell counts of healthy, subclinical, and clinical mastitis Karan Fries cows.

Mohanned Alhussien,Ashok K Mohanty,Mandheer Kaur,Ajay K Dang,Pasumarti Manjari,Shiv Prasad Kimothi

doi:10.14202/vetworld.2015.685-689

Abstract

Aim:The present study was aimed to study the use of cell counts as an early indicator of mammary health.Materials and Methods:Milk and blood cell counts were estimated from 8 healthy, 8 subclinical (SCM), and 8 clinically mastitis (CM) groups of Karan Fries (KF) cows.Results:Total leucocyte counts and neutrophil percent in blood and milk somatic cells and milk neutrophil percent of healthy cows increased significantly (p<0.05) in SCM cows and CM cows. Viability of blood and milk neutrophils was more in healthy cows, but decreased significantly (p<0.05) in SCM and CM cows. Significant (p<0.05) decrease were also observed in both the blood and milk lymphocytes and monocytes of SCM and CM cows. Phagocytic activity (PA) of blood neutrophils also decreased significantly (p<0.05) in SCM cows. There was no difference between the PA of SCM and CM cows. Milk neutrophil percent was more in the SCM and clinically infected milk than in the blood of these cows. About 96-97% of the neutrophils had segmented nucleus in both healthy and subclinical milk, whereas, 2-3% were having band shaped or immature nuclei. There was a significant decrease in the segmented neutrophils, whereas, band neutrophils increase significantly to about 5% in the infected milk of mastitic cows. Viability of the milk neutrophils decreased more in case of subclinical and clinical milk as compared to that of blood. PA was found to be highest in the milk of healthy group of cows, but decreased significantly (p<0.05) in subclinically infected cows. However, there was no difference between the PA of milk neutrophils of SCM and CM cows. PA of milk was also found to be significantly lower in the milk of healthy cows when compared to that of blood neutrophils.Conclusion:This study indicated that percent neutrophils and their type in conjunction with milk somatic cell counts can be used as a more reliable indicator of mammary health in cows.

Highlights

Mastitis is considered as one of the costliest diseases of dairy animals
Viability of the blood neutrophils showed that viability was 93% in healthy cows, but this viability decreased to 84 and 80%, respectively, in subclinical and clinical mastitic cows
There was no difference between the Phagocytic activity (PA) of SCM and clinically mastitis (CM) cows

Summary

Introduction

Mastitis occurs when a pathogen enters the mammary gland of a cow and tries to establish itself within the gland. Subclinical form of mastitis was found more important in India (varying from 10% to 50% in cows and 5-20% in buffaloes) than clinical mastitis (1-10%). The incidence was highest in Purebred Holsteins and Jerseys and lowest in local cattle and buffaloes [1]. Mastitis whether subclinical or clinical leads to an increase in milk cells, the milk leucocytes, decrease in the milk producing mammary epithelial cells, and an altered milk composition. Neutrophils are the most vital primary mobile phagocytes [2] in the body of mammals and play a key role in initiating an innate, inflammatory, and specific immune response. With the invasion of pathogens, the neutrophils migrate from the blood into milk

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