How to Lower Somatic Cell Count

Lowering somatic cell count on your dairy farm is an extremely important process that must be taken seriously to protect your herd and your consumers. Somatic cell count is a term that refers to the total cells per milliliter in milk. Monitoring somatic cell count essentially ensures that only minimal amounts of bacteria are produced in the milk of cows that produce consumer dairy products. While monitoring somatic cell count sounds difficult, it is actually quite easy with the help of a few simple processes.

Instructions

• 1

  Cull approximately 5 percent of the cows in your herd. By removing even a small percentage of your herd from producing milk, you can significantly reduce the overall bacteria presence in the milk that is produced. This will not only protect consumers from drinking unsafe products, it will also benefit the overall health of your animals.

• 2

  Increase the cow's resistance to mastitis pathogens. Mastitis is a disease that occurs when bacteria enters through the utter and moves into the teat canal and causes a bacterial infection. You can increase the cows' resistance to mastitis pathogens by supplementing the cows' diet with high doses of vitamin E and selenium.

• 3

  Improve the sanitary conditions for the areas in which your cows live and roam on a daily basis. Make sure that bedding areas are dry at all times and there is clean sod in the areas where new baby cows are being born and bred. Do your best to control the fly population in the area. Flies are known to spread mastitis-causing bacteria. Green wood sawdust is also a breeding ground for this type of bacteria and should be avoided.