# Assessment of Quality and Safety of Farm Level Produced Cheeses from Sheep and Goat Milk
## 4 Discussion
The quality of goat milk fat and also protein is an important factor because it defines the ability of milk to be processed and has a relevant role in the nutritional and sensory quality of the products obtained from it [61]. The pH value (Table 2) was relatively stable during the whole lactation similar to the results by [PERSON] [62]. The evidence of high milk SCC emphasizes the need to find mastitis-control programs in order to improve milk hygiene. In Slovakia, only a few studies were done to examine the SCC in sheep milk in practical conditions. One large study was done by [PERSON] et al. [63] who performed the bulk milk analysis collected in the summer season from March to August and revealed that only 7.3% of samples were in category below 500,000 cells mL\({}^{-1}\); while 49% of bulk milk samples were above 1,000,000 cells mL\({}^{-1}\). [PERSON] et al. [64], found out that the content of total protein was the lowest in milk with the highest SCC levels. However, other authors reported, that sheep milk with high SCC contains more total protein than milk with low SCC [65]. Furthermore, other authors, including us, agree that the SCC of goat milk is higher than that of cow milk, but goats may not suffer from mastitis. This observation also implies that there is not a very close relationship between the SCC of milk and the health condition of goats, contrary to cows [66]. The family of _Enterobacteriaceae_ bacteria is considered as an indicator of hygienic conditions of milk production [67]. Our results agree with the results of other authors. The study of [PERSON] et al. [68] showed the maximum value of _Enterobacteriaceae_ was 7.64 log CFU/mL in goat's milk and maximum value 5.34 log CFU/mL in ewe's milk. The count of coagul-positive staphylococci in detected sheep milk and in goat milk (Table 6) did not reach 5.00 log CFU/mL, i.e., the volume of bacteria necessary for the production of an enterotoxin which is capable of inducing food-borne intoxication [69]. The number of _L. monocytogenes_ detected in healthy sheep and goat milk is generally very low. Results correlate with other authors, [PERSON] et al. [70] in the study showed that _L. monocytogenes_ was detected only in three samples of raw milk (1.3%) (0.6% cow's milk, 3.1% goat's milk, and 4.4% sheep's milk). Dairy products are important sources of biological active compounds of particular relevance to human health such as lactic acid bacteria [71]. Lactobacilli are widely present in milk and various fermented dairy products. Their presence in raw cow, sheep, and goat milk was confirmed in the study by [PERSON] et al. [72], where the number of bacteria of the genus _Lactobacillus_ sp. was in raw cow's milk 3.8 \(\pm\) 0.1 log CFU/mL, raw sheep's milk 3.2 \(\pm\) 0.1 log CFU/mL, and in raw goat's milk 2.0 \(\pm\) 0.1 log CFU/mL. Physical and chemical properties of cheese quality (Tables 4 and 5) were affected by the months of milking and also by the ripening time of cheese. All measurements were not much different between sheep and goat cheese samples. Results of fat content, dry matter, and pH in sheep cheese samples in Table 4 is higher than in study by [PERSON] et al. [73] where the average detected fat content was 9.29 \(\pm\) 3.02%, dry matter was 21.06 \(\pm\) 5.61%, and pH value was 4.32 \(\pm\) 0.07. Our results of physical and chemical indicators of goat cheese samples (Table 5) correspondent with study of goat cheeses made from organic goat milk [74] where the value of fat content ranges from 25.3 to 32.9% and the value of pH ranges from 5.20 to 6.05. The results of dry matter in goat cheese (Table 5) were similar to results of goat's cheese in the Czech Republic where the average dry matter content was 46.83 \(\pm\) 1.57%, with the range from 44.08% to 50.05% [16]. The acidity values support the safety of sheep and goat cheeses despite the relatively high-water activity values (0.93 \(\pm\) 0.01), which is lower than the results by [PERSON] et al. [16].