Calves with Sam

Bacteria Win Again

You start with a large, well-run dairy. Pool all the colostrum every day. Separate this into four batches each day.

#1 - batch heat-treatment at 140F for 60 minutes

#2 - heat-treatment in Perfect-Udder bags at 140F for 60 minutes

#3 - freeze fresh in same bags

#4 - refrigerate fresh in same bags

Then, get the colostrum ready to feed the calves (bring to calf body temperature) and take "as-fed" samples.

Culture the samples for bacteria to get (a) total plate count and (b) coliform count.

Average total plate counts (colony forming units/ml)

#1 batch heat-treated             4,000cfu/ml

#2 bag heat-treated               16,000cfu/ml

[Anything under 50,000cfu/ml is considered okay for feeding newborn calves.]

#3 Raw frozen/thawed bag     around 500,000cfu/ml (bacteria soup)

#4 Raw refrigerated bag         over 3,000,000cfu/ml (bacteria soup)

Average coliform counts

#1 batch heat-treated                13

#2 bag heat-treated                     3

[Anything under 5,000cfu/ml is considered okay for feeding newborn calves.]

#3 Raw frozen/thawed bag       6,300cfu/ml (not good)

#4 Raw refrigerated bag          63,000cfu/ml (just plain awful)

I have not corresponded with the research time but I suspect that the colostrum was not chilled promptly post-harvest. Thus, bacteria grew rapidly before the refrigerated and frozen lots got cold enough to slow down the rate of multiplication.

A.A. Kryzer, S.M. Godden and R. Schell, " Effect of feeding colostrum that was heat-treated with Perfect Udder system on passive transfer of immunoglobulin G in neonatal Jersey calves." Proceedings of American Association of Bovine Practitioners, p 171, September 2013.