The economic value of somatic cell count payment schemes for UK dairy cattle breeding programmes

Abstract

Predicted transmitting abilities for somatic cell counts (SCC) are available in the United Kingdom and there is a direct economic benefit attached to reducing SCC as the milk payment schemes include a penalty for high SCC levels in bulk tank samples and sometimes a premium for low SCC. The aim of the present study was to establish the economic importance of bulls' breeding values for SCC in relation to this payment scheme for SCC. To do this, an empirical method was developed using 645071 individual cow SCC and milk yield test-day records from 358 herds. The economic value was calculated by (i) decreasing all individual cow records by 0·01 and comparing the average penalty with the current average penalty, and (ii) taking the derivative of a Gompertz function describing the within-herd penalty per cow as a function of the average within-herd 3-month rolling geometric mean SCC. Mean milk test-day yield and average test-day SCC were 20·4 kg and 262 kcount per ml respectively with, on average, 83 cows tested each day. In the current situation the average penalty paid was 0·54, 0·18 and 3·2 pence per litre depending on whether an England and Wales, Scottish or future payment scheme was used, respectively. Across the population, the economic values per 0·01 decrease in SCC were £1·04, £0·54 and £6·03 per cow per year for these three payments schemes respectively. However these economic values depend strongly on the mean SCC. Herds have different means and as the future population mean is difficult to predict, it is suggested that for herds with the majority of their bulk tank samples in penalty bands 1, 2 or 3+ (average SCC of <150, 150 to 250 and 250+) the economic values are £0, £0·50, and £15 per cow per year per 0·01 reduction in SCC, respectively, until additional benefits have been quantified.