Correlation of Serum Calcium with Enzymes Aspartate Aminotransfrase, Creatine Kinase and Mastitis in Postpartum Period in Dairy Cattle

Abstract

Mastitis is inflammation of udder and its chances increases in hypocalcemia cases because sphincters of teat are loosened due to calcium-ion channel blockage. Cows those suffered milk fever have 8 times more chances of developing mastitis than other cows which haven’t suffered hypocalcaemia. The values of AST and CK are high in downer cows due to hypocalcemia as compared to healthy cows. Subclinical hypocalcaemia is one of the major complication occurring just after parturition in local and exotic breeds of cattle in Pakistan. It weakens the immune system of dairy animal and also decreases the production potential of animals thus causing serious economic losses in terms of decrease milk production of animal, decrease earning of animal and increased treatment cost due to secondary infection like mastitis occurred due to weakened immune function. The current study was aimed to the correlation of serum calcium with enzymes Creatine Kinase and Aspartate amino transferase and mastitis in postpartum period in dairy cattle. A total of 50 cattle (n=50) just after parturition were included in this study. The cattle were sampled in two ways. Firstly, 10ml blood was drawn aseptically into clot activator vacutainers from jugular vein. Secondly milk samples were taken from all four teats. First 2 milk strips were discarded and next strips were collected in aseptic test tubes. The samples were transported to Pathology laboratory, Department of Pathology, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore maintaining the cold chain and stored at -20 0C till further analysis. Correlation between calcium and creatin kinase comes out to be 0.279 which is weak positive correlation. Correlation between calcium and aspartate aminotransferase is also weak and comes out to be 0.111. Similarly, correlation between calcium and SCC also weak and comes out to be 0.193.This is the first study of correlation of calcium with CK, AST and SCC in dairy cattle after postpartum period.