The Size of the Farm and Its Influence at Cleanliness of the Cows and Milk Hygiene

Abstract

For animals the sense of physical comfort is necessary (physical comfort). When animals feel physically comfortable, it means that every part of their bodies is in harmony with the surrounding area. Therefore, the farms are usually build in accordance with the number of cattle that will be hold in designed facilities, which provide a higher degree of cows cleanliness. Cleanliness of cows is important in order to produce hygienically clean milk and to achieve the cattle welfare of dairy cows too. Cleanliness of animals mostly depends on what kind of object they are placed in. Hygienically proper milk includes the number of microorganisms up to 100,000 / ml and the number of somatic cells to 400,000 / ml, which are regulated by the "Regulations on quality of fresh raw milk." For this research farms are divided into three groups according to the number of cows. The first group included the number of cows from 1 to 9, the second group included 10 to 19, and a third group 20 or more cows. The aim of this paper is to examine whether there is an influence of the size of farms (number of cows) on the subjective cow cleanliness and hygienic quality of milk.