Subfertility in Buffaloes and the Association of Detected Milk Microbes

Lactogenesis is a complex physiology and an outcome of a successful reproductive cycle in mammalians. The purpose itself is to nourish the newborn with the nutrients necessary for its protection and growth a continuation from the in utero survival strategy. Thus, mammary development and physiology are intriguingly linked to the uterine changes that happen in a normal reproductive individual. Milk is a highly nutritious food that also favours the growth of microorganisms that can enter through the bloodstream or the discharge system. Briefly, the mastitis-induced release of inflammation mediators such as cytokines, interleukins, and prostaglandin F2α are established to be associated with infertility. Before breeding, mastitis can disrupt hormonal patterns (depression of estradiol production, delayed surge of luteinizing hormone) and delay ovulation. The issue of clinical mastitis is obvious but when subclinical mastitis persists for long the problem gets compounded. Thus, microbes get easily established in the mammary glands of buffaloes whose udder and teat anatomy, love for dirt, and swamp to wallow makes them more vulnerable exposing them to various kinds of pathogenic and opportunistic microbes. Buffaloes, by nature, have issues with silent heat, seasonal anestrus, more sensitive to direct radiation heat stress when faced with a pathological attack of infectious microbes in the milk chamber compromises their fertility.