Maintaining Optimal Mammary Gland Health and Prevention of Mastitis.

In dairy industry, quality of produced milk must be more important than quantity without a high somatic cells count (SCC) or pathogens causing mastitis of dairy cows and consumer diseases. Preserving the good health of dairy cows is a daily challenge for all involved in primary milk production. Despite the increasing level of technological support and veterinary measures, inflammation of the mammary gland-mastitis, is still one of the main health problems and reasons for economic losses faced by cow farmers. The mammary gland of high-yielding dairy cows requires making the right decisions and enforcing the proper measures aimed at minimizing external and internal factors that increase the risk of intramammary infection. Due to the polyfactorial nature of mastitis related to its reduction, the effectiveness of commonly used antimastitis methods tends to be limited and therefore it is necessary to find the areas of risk in udder health programs and monitoring systems. Only by implementing of complete udder health programs should be accompanied by research efforts to further development these complete udder health control. The present review analyses the current knowledge dealing with damping and prevention of mastitis include SCC control, proper nutrition, housing and management, milking and drying as practiced in dairy farming conditions. This information may help to improve the health of the mammary gland and the welfare of the dairy cows as well as the production of safe milk for consumers.

Polymorphism in ovine ANXA9 gene and the physio-chemical properties and the fraction of protein in milk.

BACKGROUND: Annexin A9 (ANXA9) is a specific fatty acid transport protein. The ANXA9 gene is expressed in various tissues, including secretory tissue and the mammary glands. The association between the three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the ANXA9 gene and sheep's milk composition was assessed. RESULTS: Genotype analysis was performed using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. The ANXA9 polymorphisms that were studied had the following major allele frequencies (MAFs): SNP1: allele G 0,66; SNP2: allele G 0,54; SNP3: allele C 0,57. The study found the most favorable profile of protein fractions, namely increased kappa-casein fractions and a decreased level of whey protein in sheep's milk for the SNP1 and SNP3 polymorphisms. Sheep with the SNP1 GA genotype had the highest (P < 0.05) content of fat and dry matter in milk. AXNA9 gene polymorphism did not influence the levels of protein, lactose, or urea in sheep's milk. CONCLUSION: The information contained in this study may be useful for determining the impact of the ANXA9 gene on sheep's milk. The ANXA9 SNP1 and SNP3 polymorphism results could be included in breeding programs to select sheep with the genotypes ensuring the highest kappa-casein levels in milk. However, it is worth conducting further research on ANXA9 and milk composition in larger herds of animals and various breeds of sheep. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.

Testing two Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus acidophilus strains for their suitability as a lipoid probiotic.

Two strains of lactobacilli (Lactobacillus acidophilus T-135 and Lactobacillus plantarum 4/97) were selected in order to study their inhibitory properties against frequent udder pathogens (Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, Streptococcus uberis, Salmonella enteritidis and Bacillus pumilus), their production of organic acids as well as their ability to survive on the teat skin, the teat duct mucosa and in a lipoid emulsion. Both strains inhibited the tested pathogenic microbes and survived on the investigated surfaces and in an emulsion for more than 6 hours and 11 days, respectively.