Analysis of The Effect of Region, Province and Breed on Somatic Cell Count in Dairy Cattle in Turkey By Regression Tree Method

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the effect of various environmental factors on the somatic cell count (SCC) in cow’s milk. The material of the study consisted of an SCC analysis result obtained from 207.614 raw milk samples collected from 65.288 head cattle had different breeds, ages, lactation number, and lactation length between May and December in 2019. They were raised on 6,305 dairy farms that are members of the Cattle Breeders Association (CBAT). In order to determine the effect of region, city, and cattle breed on SCC in raw milk of cattle, a regression tree was created using the Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) algorithm, a Data Mining (DM) method. Accordingly, the mean SCC value of all enterprises was determined as 201.253 cells/mL. In this study, it was found that the region, city and breed groups with the highest average somatic cell counts were CAR, MSR, MR and SAR region group (285.430 cells/mL); C09, C45, C20, C64, C48, C43 city group (266.744 cells/mL); and HF, MC, and BS breed group (295.705 cells/mL). As a result of this study, the variables affecting SCC were determined as region, city, and breed respectively, in order of importance. Keywords: CHAID; Dairy cattle; Somatic cell count