Somatic Cell Counts and Quality of Goat Milk Produced in the Central Region of Mexico

Although, Mexico is the main goat milk producer of the American continent, there are no published data regarding the quality of its milk. This is the first study on quality assessment of goat milk realized in Mexico, in terms of the percentage of fat, protein and lactose, as well as for fat contents, total solids and Somatic Cell Count (SCC). Samples were taken from 1st to 7th lactation clinically healthy goats yielding in 6 Mexican farms with high level of management, with an average lactation length of 318 days. The mean percentage of fat, protein, lactose and total solids in the analyzed milk were 3.7, 2.7, 4.5 and 11.9, respectively. The mean daily production was 3.7 kg and the average SCC was 493,000 mL 1. The effects of farm, lactation number, sampling month, interaction between farm and sampling month and the random effect of goat nested in farm on milk constituents and SCC were analyzed using mixed models for repeated measurements. SCC was affected by all the study effects (p<0.01). Relationship between SCC and milk production was analyzed and results showed that high milk production was accompanied by low SCC, which might be associated to a dilution effect.