Diagnosis of Mastitis in Dairy Goats

Mastitis is an inflammation of the mammary gland (udder) that causes a chemical and physical reaction in milk produced by goats. Diagnosis of mastitis is based on signs and history of the herd. A microbiologic milk culture, a Somatic Cell Count (SCC), or an Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay (ELISA) test are used to diagnose infection. The SCC and the California Mastitis Test (CMT) are the most common tests used to diagnose mastitis in dairy goats. The Modified California Mastitis Test (MCMT) was found to be most convenient and easy for diagnosis of mastitis. The sometic cell count was found to be confirmatory test for clinical and subclinical mastitis in goats. The somatic cell count value in mastitis ranged from 37.64-79.60 x 10 5 cells per ml of milk. On bacteriological examination, overall 78 samples were cultured out of which 69 (88.46%) samples of which were found to be positive for mastitis. The bacterial load, i.e., aerobic plate count was found to be 9.0-30.8 x 10 -3 CFU/ml of milk which get reduced to 3.1-17.5 x 10 -3 CFU/ml of milk after treatment. Coliform count were found to be 2.1-8.7 x 10 -3 CFU/ml of milk which get reduced to 0.3-3.8 x 10 -3 CFU/ml of milk after treatment.