ASSESSMENT OF SUBCLINICAL MASTITIS EFFECTS ON LIVE WEIGHT, BODY CONDITION SCORE (BCS) AND EXTERNAL UDDER MEASUREMENTS OF DORPER SHEEP

Abstract

Mastitis is an inflammation of the mammary gland that can be classified as clinical and subclinical mastitis. The clinical mastitis can be diagnosed based on clinical signs, whilst subclinical mastitis mostly through somatic cell count (SCC). This study was carried out to determine the subclinical mastitis effects on live weight, body condition score (BCS) and external udder traits of Dorper sheep. A total 16 Dorper ewes were selected and screened for mastitis using the Californian mastitis test (CMT). The live weight, BCS and external udder traits (i.e. udder length (UL), udder width (UW), rear udder depth (RUD), cistern depth (CD) and teat length (TL) of the ewes were measured. The subclinical mastitis did not affect the live weight and BCS of Dorper ewes. Whilst for external udder measurements; the highest average of udder length, udder width, rear udder depth and cistern depth were indicated in CMT score as strong positive which shows that the measurement values of external ewes’ udder are increased when the strength detection of CMT scores increased and vice versa. However, all of the external udder parameters measured were not statistically (P>0.05) affected by the mastitis infection scores. The present results indicate that live weight, BCS and all external udder parameters did not influence the subclinical mastitis detected in the milk’s samples of the ewes. This study suggests that subclinical mastitis does not directly affected by morphology alteration of external udder traits, live weight or BCS, however it is likely affect the quality of milk produced.