## 1 Introduction  
There are over 6,000,000 sheep and 3,000,000 goats in Greece. The predominant type of production is dairy, with over 95% of animals in the country being milked. Many reports are available, presenting morphological characteristics of sheep and goat breeds in Greece (e.g., for sheep: [1; 2; 3; 4; 5], for goats: [6; 7]).  
A genetic background to mastitis in small ruminants has been identified [8; 9; 10; 11]. Indeed, in the study of [PERSON] et al. [12], mastitis was considered the top ranking sheep disease amenable for genetic studies. An assessment of mastitis resistance in genetic studies is usually performed by using somatic cell counts in milk; increased somatic cell counts can be employed as an indicator of infection and therefore of subclinical mastitis [13]. Depending on the breed, the herhabilities for somatic cell counts range from 0.09 to 0.30, whilst those for production traits vary between 0.30 and 0.60 [13].  
In healthy mammary glands of ewes and does, there are epithelial cells and leucocytes, which predominate. The epithelial cells originate from the mammary gland itself, whilst the origin of leucocytes is the blood. Leucocyte types in the milk of healthy animals include macrophages (40-85%), neutrophils (5-35%) and lymphocytes (10-20%) [14; 15; 16]. Leucocytes are part of the innate defences of the mammary gland and play a significant protective role against invading bacteria. Macrophages are the first among the leucocytes present in the mammary gland to counteract the invading pathogens and to initiate the defensive leucocytic response [17]. As part of the defence response of the animal during infection, leucocytes (initially neutrophils) enter into the infected mammary gland, which leads to an increase in the numbers of cell counts in the milk. Therefore, an increased number of somatic cells in the milk of individual animals reflects the presence of an inflammatory process in the mammary gland, i.e., mastitis. With regard to the bulk-tank milk, somatic cell counts are employed to indicate the existence of mastitis in the animals of the farm. In sheep, according to [PERSON] et al. [18], somatic cell counts in the bulk-tank milk indicate a mastitis prevalence of 15% in the flock. In the European Union, the current legislation does not provide an officially acceptable threshold for somatic cell counts in the raw milk of sheep and goats. In the United States of America, there is relevant legislation only for goat milk [19], allowing up to 0.75 \(\times\) 10\({}^{6}\) cells mL\({}^{-1}\) in the bulk-tank milk.  
Total bacterial counts in the bulk-tank milk express the amount of microbial contamination therein. Bacteria in bulk-tank milk can originate from within the mammary gland, from the udder and teat skin, and from the surface of equipment for milk handling and storage. Hence, total bacterial counts reflect the possible presence of mastitis, udder cleaning procedures during the milking routine and environmental contamination in the farm environment (particularly in the milking parlour). The European Union legislation has set a threshold for total bacterial counts in the bulk-tank milk of small ruminants equal to 1,500,000 colony-forming units (cfu) mL\({}^{-1}\) for milk that would undergo thermal processing and 500,000 cfu mL\({}^{-1}\) for milk that would be used for direct consumption [20].  
The objective of the work presented herein is to describe the potential associations of somatic cell counts (SCC) and total bacterial counts (TBC) in the bulk-tank milk from sheep and goat farms with breeds of these animals in Greece, with special reference to the potential role of animal breeds.