A new approach to fast mastitis detection for improved milk quality monitoring

Udder health greatly influences the economics of dairy farms. Hence, to ensure the requested hygienic status of the milk fast and reliable methods for online measurement of relevant infections are required. Mastitis is an important udder disease of dairy cows which leads to reduced milk quality and high economic losses. Increasing somatic cell count of milk is an indicator for udder infections and is used for monitoring udder health and milk quality. Somatic cell count is conventionally determined by the Fossomatic method.