Evaluation of factors associated with immunoglobulin, protein, fat and lactose concentrations in colostrum of dairy cows from Austria

Table 1 Overview on the investigated herd-level factors affecting colostrum quality. The 1,050 samples were collected from 72 dairy farmers from the federal district of Salzburg, Austria. The Brix% was evaluated in the diagnostic lab of the Clinical Centre for Ruminant and Camelid Medicine, Vienna by using a digital Brix refractometer. Additional information (herd-level factors) was gathered by an online questionnaire and an accompanying questionnaire

Herd-level Category	Factor	N total farms	N total samples	Brix ≤ 22%		Brix > 22%
Herd-level Category	Factor	N total farms	N total samples	N cows	N%	N cows	N%
Farm size	≤ 10	6	35	18	51.4%	17	48.6%
	11 to 20	23	233	113	48.5%	120	51.5%
	21 to 30	21	262	138	52.7%	124	47.3%
	31 to 40	11	220	92	41.8%	128	58.2%
	≥ 41	11	295	167	56.6%	128	43.4%
Udder cleaning before colostrum harvest	No	8	67	48	71.6%	19	28.4%
Udder cleaning before colostrum harvest	Yes	64	978	480	49.1%	498	50.9%
Districts	Tennengau	4	39	18	46.2%	21	53.8%
	Lungau	7	108	38	35.2%	70	64.8%
	Pinzgau	14	159	76	47.8%	83	52.2%
	Flachgau/SalzburgStadt	28	461	237	51.4%	224	48.6%
	Pongau	19	278	159	57.2%	119	42.8%
Production regime	Conventional	25	400	169	42.3%	231	57.8%
Production regime	Organic	47	645	359	55.7%	286	44.3%
Operation type	Full-time farmer	41	706	370	52.5%	335	47.5%
Operation type	Part-time farmer	31	339	158	46.5%	182	53.5%

ISSN: 1751-0147