Protein, casein, and noncasein protein percentages in milk with high somatic cell counts.

More than 1000 milk samples of individual cows with somatic cell counts ranging from 20,000 to 20,000,000 per ml were analyzed by amido black dye binding for total protein, whey protein, and casein. Ten classes of varying somatic cell counts were established. The mean total protein percentage for normal samples (counts less than 500,000/ml) was 3.2% and different from all the other protein class means, ranging from 3.4 to 3.9%. Total protein content increased with somatic cell count. There was no significant difference among any of the ten classes for casein values. Whey protein percentages for normal samples were different from the rest. Whey protein content increased with somatic cell count.