Assessment of Hygiene Practices and Bacteriological Quality of Raw Cow Milk of Selected Dairy Farm in Dessie, Ethiopia

Abstract

A cross sectional study was conducted to assess the hygienic practices and bacteriological quality of milk in Dessie town, South Wollo zone in Amhara regional state, Ethiopia. The data was generated by interviewing 60 dairy cow owners and farm attendants using semi-structured questionnaire regarding milking area and barn hygiene, hygienic practice of milker, cleaning of the udder and milking equipments. The result showed that the majority of the interviewers (98.34%) milked their cows in the barn, about 88.33% clean the barn daily and others clean once, twice and three times a week. All respondents washed their hands before milking. All respondents practiced udder washing before milking but only 30% of the respondents used towel for udder drying. Plastic utensils were mainly used for milking cows and used detergents and warm water for cleaning milking equipments. Lower number of respondents (36.66%) had a habit of consuming raw milk. From a total of 70 milk samples were collected from two milking points (the teat and milking bucket), The mean total bacterial count of milk samples collected directly from the teat and the milking buckets from current finding were 5.087log10 and 5.759log10 respectively. The mean difference (0.6728 ± 0.1579) indicated the increment of bacterial count from teat to the milking bucket. The results showed very significant difference between the two points (P<0.05). About 65.71% of milk samples collected directly from the teat and milking buckets at the farm were above the accepted level 105 according to the international milk quality standard. The high count of bacteria in the milk suggests a poor bacterial quality of milk and indicating poor hygienic quality of milk. Keeping the quality of the milk is the responsibility of dairy cow owners, institutions concerned and the government. This needs training of milk producers on the importance of milk hygiene and raising awareness on risks of consumption of raw milk.