Ms Finola McCoy:

There were some questions about CellCheck regarding cell count and mastitis, and the consequence of having milk with a cell count of more than 200,000 cells per millilitre. The impact is in two areas. From a processor's point of view, as the cell count of the milk - the raw product - increases, the quality, quantity and value of the finished product decrease. As the cell count of the raw milk gets higher there is less that the processors can do with it. There is also the issue of certain high-value products or high-value markets that can only use milk of a specified cell count. Similarly some countries will only purchase product - not necessarily high-value product but any product at all - from milk of a specified level. From a processor point of view there are many potential impacts as the cell count increases.

The same is true from a farmer's perspective. As mentioned, the Teagasc research has identified the impact on net farm profit of having a herd average cell count of increasing levels. Essentially the lower the cell count, the better the return and the higher the profit. Most of that loss occurs where animals with a high cell count have infected quarters. If those quarters are infected, they cannot produce to their full potential and farmers are not maximising the full volume of potential production from the herd. That is an unseen cost that has been somewhat difficult to quantify in the past, but it probably accounts for the largest volume of it. One of the tools developed within CellCheck is a cost check calculator which allows farmers to use their own farm figures to identify what reaching a certain herd cell count target would equate to in terms of their profit.

What is our cell count nationally? It is a good question and difficult to answer because at this point the only figures we have to indicate that are the milk recording figures as a proxy. Traditionally, the bulk tank cell counts as measured by the co-operatives are not collated centrally. We are working on the matter and we hope we are close to having all of that information collated and analysed. However, at the moment all we can use are the milk recording figures, which account for approximately one third of the herds in the country.

Based on those figures an annual average is probably about 250,000 cells per millilitre. The current average, based on the most recent figures for the milk recording herds in the past ten days, is 198,000 cells per millilitre. If we break that down in terms of distribution, 52% of those herds have a cell count of under 200,000 cells per millilitre, 27% are between 200,000 and 300,000 cells per millilitre, 12% are between 300,000 and 400,000 cells per millilitre, and a tail of 9% have more than 400,000 cells per millilitre. That is not necessarily the milk being supplied to the co-operative, but milk may be being withheld to achieve the standard required by the co-operative. However, the reality is that it is still a loss that is happening on-farm related to the cell count.