Seasonal Differences Of The Nutrient Content Of The Milk Of The Cows Of Fulani Pastoralist In Northern Nigeria

The Fulani are semi-nomadic pastoralist who inhabited western Sahel from Mauritania and Senegal across Mali, Burkina Faso, the Republic of Niger and Northern Nigeria to Chad. Their culture is centred around cattle and dairy products contribute substantially to the diets of Fulani children and adults. Having found in previous study that the milk fat of lactating Fulani women contained relatively low proportions of critical n-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid and the essential fatty-acid, linoleic acid, we were interested in the general issue of the nutrient quality of the milk of Fulani cows and specifically in the question of the essential fatty acid and n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid content of the milk fat they produce. Since the pasture upon which Fulani cattle graze varies markedly between the two main seasons in the western Sahel, namely the cold-dry season (November-April) and the rainy season (May-September) we collected milk samples from seven cows during April and from another four cows during the month of August and analyzed these milk specimens for their content of fatty acids, amino acids, and minerals and trace elements. We found significant season-dependent differences in the linoleic acid content of the milk lipid fraction; the proportion of linoleic acid in milk produced during the cold-dry season was 2.19% whereas that of cow milk during the rainy season was 0.65% (