Old Gaskets on Milker Lids
While on farm on Tuesday, September 13th, I checked the resident bacteria levels on milking equipment used to collect colostrum.
The stainless steel milker buckets were just fine. Nice low bacteria counts on the clean inside surfaces.
The lids were another matter. The flat stainless steel surfaces that were easy to brush had low bacteria counts. When I swabbed the inside of the two tubes to which the vacuum and claw hoses are attached to the lid the bacteria count went up a little.Then I added swabbing at the edge where the gasket came together with the inside of the lid - the count went up a lot. I did add lifting the edge of the gasket and the bacteria count skyrocketed up.
The herdsman and I examined the gaskets closely. They were checked and had small cracks along all surfaces. Time to replace them.
Moral of the story? Take a close look at milker lid gaskets. If there are any signs of aging, let's replace them and stay ahead of bacteria buildup.
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