Lactation Characteristics in Alpine and Nera di Verzasca Goats in Northern Italy: A Statistical Bayesian Approach
, Giulio Curone 1,*, Massimo Faustini 1, Susanna Draghi 1, Gabriele Brecchia 1, Daniele Vigo 1, Maria Teresa Manfredi 1, Sergio Aurelio Zanzani 1, Luisa Pulinas 2, Majlind Sulce 3, Albana Munga 3, Marta Castrica 4 and Laura Menchetti 5Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This work is submitted to a special issue “Safety and Quality of Food of Animal Origin”. The work discusses the differences in the lactation properties (milk yield, fat%, protein %, lactose%, and somatic cell count) of two different goat breeds (Alpine and Nera di Verzasca) in Italy, which fits the special issue. The authors indicated that the composition of milk was similar in both breeds except the daily yield as well as the somatic cell count. It is a good work with strong findings and valuable to be published. The authors need to work on the grammatical errors and address the following comments:
Abstract:
The authors may mention the values of daily yield and SCC of both goats in the abstract to show the differences to the reader.
Introduction:
Line 40: add “,” after “history”
Line 40-42: the authors need to rewrite this sentence “During contemporary……….in 2019.
Line 61: not scientific to mention as “can’t” should be “cannot”
Line 69” remove “,” after “and”
Line 76: you can start a new sentence from “In Italy,….”
Material and methods:
Line 102-104: rewrite these two sentences, do not start with numbers “71”, remove “of” from “They were of..”
Line 105: mention the full definition of “m.s.l” and “ha”? to make it easy for the normal reader
Line 108: add “,” after “November”
Line 145: Table 1: why you mentioned 31-50 twice in the DIM of Verzasca? Where is the 0-30 DIM in that breed?
Results:
Line 213: add “,” after “while in the middle of it”
Line 221: space “log10SCC”
Line 222: no space after “breeds”
Line 227: Figure 1 needs to be replaced with high quality picture
Discussion:
Line 273: not scientific to mention “hasn’t” in abbreviation
Line 274: check it
Any abbreviation in the tables e.g., SCC (Table 3) should be mentioned the full name of SCC in the notation
The table’s title should represent everything
Line 313-316: not clear
References:
Reference #2: Write the full bio
Author Response
Dear editor,
We believe that these reviewer's suggestions have been very helpful in improving the manuscript. We thank the reviewers and provide detailed answers to each specific comment.
REVIEWER 1
Comment: This work is submitted to a special issue “Safety and Quality of Food of Animal Origin”. The work discusses the differences in the lactation properties (milk yield, fat%, protein %, lactose%, and somatic cell count) of two different goat breeds (Alpine and Nera di Verzasca) in Italy, which fits the special issue. The authors indicated that the composition of milk was similar in both breeds except the daily yield as well as the somatic cell count. It is a good work with strong findings and valuable to be published. The authors need to work on the grammatical errors and address the following comments.
Response: we thank the Reviewer for its appreciation for our work and the topic here dealt. We also appreciate all the comments and will look carefully for the suggestions.
Comment: Abstract: The authors may mention the values of daily yield and SCC of both goats in the abstract to show the differences to the reader.
Response: as suggested, we added the daily milk yield and SCC mean values ± SD for both breeds.
Comment: Line 40: add “,” after “history”
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 40-42: the authors need to rewrite this sentence “During contemporary……….in 2019.
Response: as suggested, we reformulated the sentence.
Comment: Line 61: not scientific to mention as “can’t” should be “cannot”
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 69” remove “,” after “and”
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 76: you can start a new sentence from “In Italy,….”
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 102-104: rewrite these two sentences, do not start with numbers “71”, remove “of” from “They were of..”
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 105: mention the full definition of “m.s.l” and “ha”? to make it easy for the normal reader
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 108: add “,” after “November”
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 145: Table 1: why you mentioned 31-50 twice in the DIM of Verzasca? Where is the 0-30 DIM in that breed?
Response: There was a refuse in the table. Now it is correct.
Comment: Line 213: add “,” after “while in the middle of it”
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 221: space “log10SCC”
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 222: no space after “breeds”
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 227: Figure 1 needs to be replaced with high quality picture
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 273: not scientific to mention “hasn’t” in abbreviation
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 274: check it
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Any abbreviation in the tables e.g., SCC (Table 3) should be mentioned the full name of SCC in the notation. The table’s title should represent everything
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: Line 313-316: not clear
Response: as suggested, we clarified the sentences.
Comment: Reference #2: Write the full bio
Response: revised as requested.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Introduction:
Compare cow's milk with goat's milk, why? This is not the end of the paper, no reference is even made in the discussion. I would remove this.
Instead, the productive characteristics of indigenous goat breeds and their difference with the cosmopolitan ones, which have undergone selection for dairy production, should have been discussed.
Material and methods
A good point in favour of comparing two breeds in the same farm, under the same feeding and handling characteristics, an aspect that saves the low number of animals sampled.
When the rearing conditions are different, the sample of animals should be increased to avoid this effect of handling / feeding, etc.
Results
Only the percentage of fat, protein and lactose and the somatic cell count were analyzed. It would have been very useful to also analyze the number of mastitis and other pathologies, mortality, productive life ...
Figure 1 should be the degree of significance of the asterisks (* - ** - ***).
Differences between breeds are only observed in the percentage of lactose, with which, without further argument, the farmer would choose the breed with the highest milk production (Alpine breed).
The objective of the work is to compare an autochthonous breed with a cosmopolitan breed and the results of the variables analyzed point to similar characteristics except for milk production. Which reaffirms the thesis of choosing the cosmopolitan race for its greater dairy production.
"SCC showed a tendency to be less in the local breed Nera Verzasca" is it a trend or is it a statistically significant difference? As can be seen in table 1, there are no statistical differences between races, so the trends are not valid.
The authors state: “Moreover, these findings are important in the optic of biodiversity conservation; despite their lower production, local breeds could play a key role in the future, thanks to the ability to guarantee, also in marginal areas, products with a high level of quality and safety, along with a plethora of ecosystem services”. But this has not been shown, it is not shown that indigenous breeds make better use of marginal areas, it is only assumed on the basis of published studies.
Moreover, it exposes a contradiction because in similar breeding characteristics the cosmopolitan breed gives more milk.
To affirm the mentioned paragraph, it would be necessary to study the type of adaptation of the two breeds to the environment, the intake, the pathologies, different reproductive parameters, mortality, longevity, etc.
It would have been interesting and convenient to demonstrate their conclusions to analyze indicators of quality, adaptation to the environment, resistance and rusticity, to have arguments that make us opt for the local breed, despite its lower milk production.
Author Response
REVISION NOTE
Dear editor,
We believe that these reviewer's suggestions have been very helpful in improving the manuscript. We thank the reviewers and provide detailed answers to each specific comment
REVIEWER 2
Comment: Introduction: Compare cow's milk with goat's milk, why? This is not the end of the paper, no reference is even made in the discussion. I would remove this.
Instead, the productive characteristics of indigenous goat breeds and their difference with the cosmopolitan ones, which have undergone selection for dairy production, should have been discussed.
Response: we thank the reviewer for the suggestions. We have shortened the part about cow milk vs goat milk and added a description of the studies conducted until now on autochthonous goat breeds in comparison with cosmopolitan ones.
Comment: Material and methods: A good point in favour of comparing two breeds in the same farm, under the same feeding and handling characteristics, an aspect that saves the low number of animals sampled.
When the rearing conditions are different, the sample of animals should be increased to avoid this effect of handling / feeding, etc.
Response: we thank the Reviewer for this careful analysis.
Comment: Results: Only the percentage of fat, protein and lactose and the somatic cell count were analyzed. It would have been very useful to also analyze the number of mastitis and other pathologies, mortality, productive life ...
Response: We thank the Reviewer for the suggestion, but unfortunately it was not planned in the study to look for also these aspects. In the future, we will take into consideration also these parameters to improve the quality of our research.
Comment: Figure 1 should be the degree of significance of the asterisks (* - ** - ***).
Response: the asterisks to which we refer in the Figure 1 description, are the ones in the graphes. In that case, we refer to the presence of a statistically significant difference between breeds, indeed, were present, asterisks are always only one. While the degree of significance in the one reported nearby the words “Breed”, “Age” and “DIM”. In that case, the number of asterisks varies, according to the significance reported in Table 4.
Comment: Differences between breeds are only observed in the percentage of lactose, with which, without further argument, the farmer would choose the breed with the highest milk production (Alpine breed).
Response: we thank the reviewer for the suggestions. In our opinion is important to underline that the Verzasca breed, despite the lower production, presents similar milk characteristics if compared with the much more selected Alpine breed. These data are encouraging because, the actual milk characteristic of the Verzasca represents a good “starting point” for the future genetic selection of this breed, especially if associated with the good rusticity of this breed which allows breeding even in marginal areas where is much more difficult the use of the cosmopolitan breeds.
Comment: The objective of the work is to compare an autochthonous breed with a cosmopolitan breed and the results of the variables analyzed point to similar characteristics except for milk production. Which reaffirms the thesis of choosing the cosmopolitan race for its greater dairy production.
"SCC showed a tendency to be less in the local breed Nera Verzasca" is it a trend or is it a statistically significant difference? As can be seen in table 1, there are no statistical differences between races, so the trends are not valid.
Response: Yes, it is just a trend, and for this reason we have not mention a statistically significant difference between the two breeds. We wanted, however, to underline that if better investigated the result could be different, given by the fact that the means for SCC between the two breeds are distant, but this did not results in a statistically significant difference because of the high standard deviation.
Comment: The authors state: “Moreover, these findings are important in the optic of biodiversity conservation; despite their lower production, local breeds could play a key role in the future, thanks to the ability to guarantee, also in marginal areas, products with a high level of quality and safety, along with a plethora of ecosystem services”. But this has not been shown, it is not shown that indigenous breeds make better use of marginal areas, it is only assumed on the basis of published studies.
Moreover, it exposes a contradiction because in similar breeding characteristics the cosmopolitan breed gives more milk.
To affirm the mentioned paragraph, it would be necessary to study the type of adaptation of the two breeds to the environment, the intake, the pathologies, different reproductive parameters, mortality, longevity, etc.
It would have been interesting and convenient to demonstrate their conclusions to analyze indicators of quality, adaptation to the environment, resistance and rusticity, to have arguments that make us opt for the local breed, despite its lower milk production.
Response: we thank the reviewer for the careful suggestions. It is already in plan for future research to look for this type of parameters, in order to evaluate the higher adaptive capacity of local breeds. In the conclusions we wanted to underline the pivotal role of local breeds in marginal areas, regardless of our findings in this specific study.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript entitled Lactation characteristics in Alpine and Nera di Verzasca goats in northern Italy: a statistical Bayesian approach is interesting, and the results of this study contribute to the knowledge of Italian local goat breeds and are essential in biodiversity conservation.
The experiment was well planned and executed. The authors obtained interesting results, which were presented in a clear and transparent form.
I have a few minor objections to this study.
The introduction is slightly too long and could be shortened. Moreover, it would perhaps be more interesting for readers to describe the unique features of local (Italian) goat breeds than to compare cow and goat milk quality, which has been described frequently in other publications.
L82: How numerous are the herds of Alpine goats in Italy?
L90: How numerous are the herds of Nera di Verzasca goats in Italy?
L131: Please add more information regarding milk samples.
Did the milk come from the morning milking or the evening milking?
Was the milk obtained from hand milking?
In what containers was the milk stored and transported?
Under what conditions were it transported?
After what time was the analysis performed?
L152: In how many replicates were the parameters analyzed?
L221: “expressed as log10SCC” - should be explained in 2.2, lines 151-152
Author Response
Dear editor,
We believe that these reviewer's suggestions have been very helpful in improving the manuscript. We thank the reviewers and provide detailed answers to each specific comment.
REVIEWER 3
Comment: The manuscript entitled Lactation characteristics in Alpine and Nera di Verzasca goats in northern Italy: a statistical Bayesian approach is interesting, and the results of this study contribute to the knowledge of Italian local goat breeds and are essential in biodiversity conservation.
The experiment was well planned and executed. The authors obtained interesting results, which were presented in a clear and transparent form.
I have a few minor objections to this study.
Response: we thank the Reviewer for this careful analysis.
Comment: The introduction is slightly too long and could be shortened. Moreover, it would perhaps be more interesting for readers to describe the unique features of local (Italian) goat breeds than to compare cow and goat milk quality, which has been described frequently in other publications.
Response: we have revised as requested the introduction by adding more information about studies on local goat breeds of Italy.
Comment: L82: How numerous are the herds of Alpine goats in Italy?
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: L90: How numerous are the herds of Nera di Verzasca goats in Italy?
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: L131: Please add more information regarding milk samples.
Did the milk come from the morning milking or the evening milking?
Was the milk obtained from hand milking?
In what containers was the milk stored and transported?
Under what conditions were it transported?
After what time was the analysis performed?
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: L152: In how many replicates were the parameters analyzed?
Response: revised as requested.
Comment: L221: “expressed as log10SCC” - should be explained in 2.2, lines 151-152
Response: revised as requested.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
In my opinion, this article does not reach the level of interest and quality of the journal.
Author Response
We thank the Reviewer for the analysis
