USE OF ON-FARM DATA AND MILK LEUCOCYTE COMPONENTS FOR MONITORING THE HEALTH OF DAIRY COWS
type: CreativeWork
description: The aim of this PhD project was monitoring cow health and welfare, using on-farm data and leucocytes components in milk. For this reason, the investigation focused on the two main diseases of dairy cows: mastitis and lameness. Critical aspects are linked with these diseases and some of them were considered and discussed in four different experiments. The first experiment focused on the variability of leucocytes in milk, that affects its use as a detection tool for mastitis. For this reason, the factors that influence neutrophils, lymphocytes and macrophages of milk were analyzed. A total of 848 milk samples from 179 dairy cows bred in 6 farms of Northern Italy were collected and analyzed, with Vetscan DC-Q milk Analyzer (Advanced Animal Diagnostic) and DeLaval Cell Counter (DeLaval), to detect Total Leucocyte Count (TLC), Somatic Cell Count (SCC) and the concentration of neutrophils, macrophages and lymphocyte. The results of the Generalized Mixed Model highlighted that the three fractions of leucocytes were significantly influenced by parity, stage of lactation, and farm. The highest values of neutrophils (>60% of TLC) were found at the beginning and at the end of lactation, the two most critical moments for mastitis onset. In accordance, high level of neutrophils (>63% of TLC) was described as one of the risk factors of high SCC (>100,000 cells/ml), highlighting the possibility to apply neutrophils as indicators of udder issues, after accounting for parity, stage of lactation and management conditions. The second experiment focused on the reduction of antimicrobials usage to treat and prevent the insurgence of intramammary infections, investigating one of the main critical periods for antimicrobial overuse: dry-off. This experiment proposed a Selective Dry Cow Therapy (SDCT) protocol based on SCC (thresholds 100,000 cells/ml for primiparous cows and 200,000 cells/ml for multiparous ones) and Differential Somatic Cell Count (threshold of 69.3%) to identify the cows…
abstract: The aim of this PhD project was monitoring cow health and welfare, using on-farm data and leucocytes components in milk. For this reason, the investigation focused on the two main diseases of dairy cows: mastitis and lameness. Critical aspects are linked with these diseases and some of them were considered and discussed in four different experiments. The first experiment focused on the variability of leucocytes in milk, that affects its use as a detection tool for mastitis. For this reason, the factors that influence neutrophils, lymphocytes and macrophages of milk were analyzed. A total of 848 milk samples from 179 dairy cows bred in 6 farms of Northern Italy were collected and analyzed, with Vetscan DC-Q milk Analyzer (Advanced Animal Diagnostic) and DeLaval Cell Counter (DeLaval), to detect Total Leucocyte Count (TLC), Somatic Cell Count (SCC) and the concentration of neutrophils, macrophages and lymphocyte. The results of the Generalized Mixed Model highlighted that the three fractions of leucocytes were significantly influenced by parity, stage of lactation, and farm. The highest values of neutrophils (>60% of TLC) were found at the beginning and at the end of lactation, the two most critical moments for mastitis onset. In accordance, high level of neutrophils (>63% of TLC) was described as one of the risk factors of high SCC (>100,000 cells/ml), highlighting the possibility to apply neutrophils as indicators of udder issues, after accounting for parity, stage of lactation and management conditions. The second experiment focused on the reduction of antimicrobials usage to treat and prevent the insurgence of intramammary infections, investigating one of the main critical periods for antimicrobial overuse: dry-off. This experiment proposed a Selective Dry Cow Therapy (SDCT) protocol based on SCC (thresholds 100,000 cells/ml for primiparous cows and 200,000 cells/ml for multiparous ones) and Differential Somatic Cell Count (threshold of 69.3%) to identify the cows…
author: MONDINI, SARA
language: eng
keywords: dairy cow, lamene, mastiti, precision livestock farming, Settore AGRI-09/C - Zootecnia speciale
date published: 2025-12-16
date modified: 2026-07-27T20:18:48Z
provider: Università degli Studi di Milano
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Università degli Studi di Milano

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property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/1198077