Development of Rapid electronic mastitis test

Abstract. Rapid electronic mastitis test (REM test), which is suitable for quick mastitis monitoring of the herd of dairy cows, has been developed in our Institute. It consists of five measurement chambers, where four of them are for milk electrical conductivity measurement and the fifth, the common, is for temperature measurement. The third generation of REM test was designed and constructed in this year. It was found out in our previous experiments, that the accuracy of milk electrical conductivity measurement is crucial for mastitis indication. From this reason the measurement of accuracy and reliability has to be done. The accuracy of measurement was measured at first in laboratory conditions, and then the accuracy and reliability were evaluated in practical conditions. The results have shown the accuracy was excellent (1 % from measurement range) and the reliability was suitable for practical use. The statistical value of electrical conductivity of healthy cows was 4.8 mS/cm (sd 0.4 mS/cm) and cows with mastitis was 6.4 mS/cm (sd 0.9 mS/cm). The difference between them was significant (p 500 000. On the basis of our findings and our previous experiments we can say the using of REM test in mastitis monitoring is suitable for daily monitoring of dairy cows especially for cows on their first lactation. This research has been done with financial support "MLIEKO No. 26220220098" supported by the Operational Program Research and Development funded from the European Regional Development Fund and project APVV-0632-10 of the Slovak Research and Development Agency, Bratislava.