Vol. 12, Special Issue 9 (2023)

Author(s):
Aprajita Johri, Niddhi Arora, Maansi and Meena Mrigesh

Abstract:
Udder health is the most crucial factor for dairy industry as healthy udder produce good quality milk with enhanced milk production. Mastitis is one of the costliest diseases affecting udder health leading to reduced milk yield and high treatment costs. Mastitis in buffaloes occurs due to various infections. Mastitic milk has high pH due to leakage of blood bicarbonate into milk following damage to mammary epithelium. Lactose is the main determinant for pH and is the most important osmotic component of milk. The current investigation was conducted to detect bubaline mastitis using milk pH technique. Forty five milk samples of buffaloes were collected from the university dairy farm. The results for pH was determined as low as 6.62 and as high as 7.18. The fluctuation in pH might be attributed to leakage of blood bicarbonate into milk following damage to mammary epithelium. 60% milk samples showed pH values within average range and considered negative for mastitis with mean of 6.62, while 40% milk samples were found with high pH values than average range. The mean pH value for subclinical mastitis is 6.85 and 7.16 for clinical mastitis. This proposed the presence of blood bicarbonate into milk as an indication of mastitis in buffaloes. This result concludes that milk pH can be effectively used to detect bubaline mastitis.