Somatic Cell Count.

For the last 10 year's we've struggled to get under 200,000 and generally had counts between 200,000 and 300,000 which are respectable, but not good enough in our book.  For the first time in 10 year's, Bridgewater Dairy had a monthly average of less than 200,000!!!  I attribute it to a lot of hard work by the dairy team, managing the digester bedding and the health of the cows with a level of perfection we've never had before.

Actually for the 28 days in February we averaged 194,000, and so far our March average is 167,000.  We've always produced High Quality MIlk, but exciting to watch our quality get better.  Good Job Guys.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term Somatic Cell Count, Wikipedia has a good review below is an excerpt, click on the link for the whole story.  Somatic cell count (SCC) is one of indicators of the quality of milk. Somatic cells are leukocytes (white blood cells). The number of somatic cells increases in response to pathogenic bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus, a cause of mastitis. The SCC is quantified as cells per ml. General agreement rests on the values of less than 100,000 cells/ml for uninfected cows and greater than 300,000 for cows infected with significant pathogens(need reference). The California mastitis test provides a cow-side measure of somatic cell count.