On 3 November 2025, Dr James Hanks presented at the 7th Seminar on Nordic Mastitis Research, sharing insights on how UK milk recording data can be used to benchmark somatic cell count (SCC) and mastitis performance across dairy herds.

PAN has a long-established track record in SCC and mastitis research. Earlier studies by the team identified key patterns in herds with high SCC levels. An analysis of over 41 million milk samples found that 57% of all high SCC samples originated from chronic, persistently high cell count cows (Hanks and James, 2011).

Subsequent work focused on the likelihood of recovery from high SCC. Results showed that recovery probability declines when cows experience chronic high SCC. After just two consecutive high readings, the likelihood of recovery is around half (or less) of that for a new high SCC case. Factors such as late stage of lactation, higher SCC magnitude, and greater parity were also found to significantly reduce recovery chances (Archer et al., 2019).

More recent analysis of milk recording data from 195 UK Friesian/Holstein herds with at least 10 years of records revealed encouraging improvements in SCC indicators. The median herd’s average SCC has decreased by 4.5% to 170,000 cells/ml. At the same time, the proportion of milk samples with SCC ≥ 200,000 has fallen from 19.1% to 15.7%. Additionally, the proportion of cows dried-off with no SCC recordings ≥ 200,000 during a full lactation has increased from 39.7% in 2014 to 51.0% in 2023 (Taylor-Holt et al., 2025).

These findings highlight the ongoing progress within the UK dairy sector and PAN’s continuing contribution to advancing mastitis and SCC research.

To access the full version of Taylor-Holt et al., 2025, please click HERE