Avaliação da produção, composição química e indicadores de qualidade do leite de búfalas criadas no semiárido nordestino

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the production and quality of buffalo milk in the semi-arid region of the Northeast with a multivariate approach. Were used data from 13,752 observations of lactations collected from the years of 2013 to 2016 were stored in a database of production and quality control of the milk of the herd an Agro Animal Husbandry Company from Taipu, Rio Grande do Norte. In order to evaluate the quality of the milk, the chemical composition (fat fraction (GORD), protein (PROT), lactose (LAC), and total solids (ST)) were considered and somatic cell counts (CCS) as indicators of sanitary hygienic quality, and milk production (PL) evaluated by the quantity produced. The data were submitted to descriptive analysis by year and by period (dry, rainy and transition), Pearson's correlation and factorial analysis, with the purpose of describing, evaluating levels of correlation existents between the variables studied and verifying the significance of the joint effect of these variables. The year 2015 had the highest average milk production (7 liters / buffalo / day), while the lowest average (5.16) was observed in the year 2016. The chemical composition of the milk did not present great variations throughout the studied years. High and positive correlation was observed for total solids and fat (0.91), and positive correlation for protein and total solids, yield and lactose. Through Factor Analysis, were selected 4 factors that explained 88% of the total variation. The variable GORD presented greater commonality (0.98), being this the variable that best contributes to explain the variation of the data in all the factors. The first factor was considered "quality factor", the second factor as "production factor" and the third factor as "health factor". The factorial analysis was efficient in evaluating the production, chemical composition and rainfall in buffalo milk production.