Fossomatic cell-counting on ewe milk: comparison with direct microscopy and study of variation factors

Using the Fossomatic method (FSCC) a total of 23,003 analytical SCC observations were carried out on 6400 aliquots taken from 80 individual ewe milk samples with the objective of studying the influence of 4 preservation procedures (without preservation, potassium dichromate, azidiol, and bronopol), 2 storage temperatures (ambient and refrigeration), 10 milk ages (3,6,12, and 24h, and 2,3,4,5,7, and 9d postcollection), and two analytical temperatures (40 and 60 degrees C). In addition, each sample was analyzed with direct microscopic method (DMSCC), using 3 different stainings for each sample: methylene blue (MB), May-Grünwald-Giemsa (MGG) and Pyronin Y-methyl green (PGM). This allowed DMSCC and FSCC (at 24 h of age) to be compared. The reference DMSCC from MB staining was a reliable method in ewe milk, though more specific stainings such as MGG and PMG slightly improve the residual standard deviation for repeated SCC. Between DMSCC and FSCC, the highest coefficients of correlation (0.972 to 0.996) corresponded to preserved and refrigerated milk, and the lowest (0.708 to 0.919) to unpreserved and ambient stored aliquots. Except for the unpreserved and ambient stored aliquots, SCC values were similar in all aliquots. Under FSCC, preservation, storage and analytical temperature, milk age, and most of the interactions showed a significant effect on SCC variation. In preserved samples, logSCC values ranged between 5.67 (bronopol) and 5.62 (azidiol). The higest values (5.72) were for unpreserved milk, which showed false overestimation of SCC due to bacterial proliferation. LogSCC was higher at 60 degrees C (5.68) than at 40 degrees C (5.65). The interaction between age, preservation and storage temperature showed no cell degeneration in properly handled samples over the 9 d of study.