Pre-Use Rinse Does Work!

Here are the data (RLU's - see below for explanation):

                                    August     September        October

 Nursing Bottle               191           3136                1

 Nursing Nipple            1010             256                0

The farm uses an upper threshold for calf feeding equipment of 100.

I am using the Hygiena SystemSure Plus unit to do adenosine triphosphate (ATP) monitoring. The ATP test is a process of rapidly measuring actively growing microorganisms through the detection of adenosine triphosphate. An ATP monitoring system can detect the amount of microbial contamination that remains after cleaning a surface (for example, calf feeding equipment). 

Thresholds used in the food processing industry are less than10 RLU for direct food contact surfaces and less than 50 RLU for environmental surfaces. I have been using a reading of 100 RLU as realistic on-farm upper threshold for calf feeding equipment

After the elevated readings in August and September the calf manager decided to add a "pre-use" rinse to their feeding routine. Starting at the beginning of October before starting the feeding this bottle is filled with warm water and health splash of household bleach - he shakes it and dumps out the rinse water. Then it goes into the feeding cart just in case it is needed. 

The bottle is only used when a young calf fails to drink her milk. The bottle was not used the morning I swabbed the bottle and nipple.

What was the problem back in August and September?  Several days may pass with the bottle not being used - yes, you are correct - this was an issue with bacteria regrowth following cleaning.

Now it is rinsed before each feeding just in case it will be needed. 

What is "Normal" Calf Starter Intake?

A research team fed calves three different levels of milk replacer and measured the amount of calf starter grain consumed.

The milk feeding program was: (milk was 11.6% dry matter, 3.2 fat, 3.0 protein)

Conventional (CONV)           = 4.2 quarts daily until day 53, then 2.1 quarts for 3 days.

Step-down only (SDWN)      = 6.3 quarts until 29 days, 4.2 quarts days 30-45, 2.1 quarts on days 46-56.

Step-up, step down (SUSD)  = 6.3 quarts until day 5, 8.5 quarts days 6-14, 10.6 quarts days 7-35, 8.5 quarts days 36-42, 6.3 quarts days 43-48, 4.2 quarts days 49-52, 2.1 quarts days 53-56.

Starter intakes: (for many calf starters one pound is close to one quart volume, percent dry matter 90)

Total "As Fed"            CONV   SDWN   SUSD
(Average Pounds/Day)
Days 1-56 (preweaned)     1.2         1.0         1.6

Days 57-70 (Weaned)       4.7         4.9         4.4

Many of my clients report similar volumes of calf starter grain intake shortly after weaning - in the range of 4 to 5 pounds (quart).

I was interested in their feed efficiency for these groups. For the full 70 days of the trial the values reported were: (pounds of body weight gain/pound of dry matter intake)

CONV     = 54%     [average daily gain = 1.1 pounds/day]
SDWN    = 63%     [average daily gain = 1.4 pounds/day]
SUSD     = 64%     [average daily gain = 1.7 pounds/day]

Reference: H. Omidi-Mirzaei and Others, "Effects of the step-up/step-down and step-up milk feeding procedures on the performance, structural growth, and blood metabolites of Holstein dairy calves." Journal of Dairy Science 98:7975-7981 (2015).

Nursing Nipple Contamination

I had an opportunity to meet with nearly 200 calf care persons last week (October 13-15, 2015) in Wisconsin.

One of the activities we did together was to check nursing nipple contamination levels. Many of the folks brought calf feeding equipment to the meetings. We  used a Hygiena luminometer to check for contamination levels. 

We used the Hygiena SystemSure Plus unit to do adenosine triphosphate (ATP) monitoring. The ATP test is a process of rapidly measuring actively growing microorganisms through the detection of adenosine triphosphate. An ATP monitoring system can detect the amount of microbial contamination that remains after cleaning a surface (for example, calf feeding equipment). 

Thresholds used in the food processing industry are less than10 RLU for direct food contact surfaces and less than 50 RLU for environmental surfaces. I have been using a reading of 100 RLU as realistic on-farm upper threshold for calf feeding equipment.

What was the range we found on nipples? They came from both nursing bottles and automatic feeders. 

The lowest value was Zero! Yes, a few of them tested "0." They were used nipples that had been scrubbed really really clean. 

The highest value was slightly over 2,000. Other values were scatter between 2,000 and 0 with the majority of them between 100 and 500. 

It was great to have these numbers - they sparked some great discussion about cleaning procedures. The most common barrier to adequate cleaning was the lack of a brush that would fit up into the nipple. Virtually all of the "clean" nipples were from folks that had such a brush.

So, I guess the moral of the story is that if you don't have a brush that will fit  up into your nursing bottle nipples you need to buy one. 

I'm off to another calf connection workshop tomorrow so will report on that one later this week. 

Putting Some Numbers to "Doing Better"

At a farm visit last week we talked about "doing better" with the calf enterprise. It was my first visit to the dairy. 

"So," I asked, "What can you tell me about calves dying or sick calves?"

The answers were disappointingly vague. "Well, we don't lose very many calves. We do have to treat some calves for pneumonia, but not very many."

When calves die their number is written on a calendar. Unfortunately, they stay there and are not added up.

When calves are treated for pneumonia the treatment is recorded in a spiral notebook. These treatments are not summarized.

"I see," I replied. "How well are the calves growing, are they doubling their weight by the time you wean them?"

Since we were standing in the calf barn the calf care person responded, "Well, they look okay, don't they?" It turns out they don't even own a heart girth tape to estimate calf weights. 

How do you help someone who does not know where they are now and does not have measurable goals for where they want to be in the future?

So, we agreed that the next step in our mutual search for "doing better" would be to take the calendar for 2014 and 2015 and list the calves that had died. Further, she was going to go through the spiral notebook for the same time and make a list of all the calves treated for pneumonia and treatment dates.

I left a kit with her (five sterile sample bottles and instructions for sampling) for collecting "as-fed" samples of colostrum. Since a national study showed that 40 percent of all colostrum samples contained over 100,000cfu/ml bacteria there is a pretty good chance she will have one or more badly contaminated samples out of the five. 

These lab data will give us a good starting place to see if improvements are needed in her colostrum management program. 

I also arranged to have her vet draw blood on all the calves between 2 and 7 days of age for blood serum total protein testing. This will give us some quantitative estimates about how well the process of getting mom's antibodies into her calf is working. 

I'm looking forward to our next visit later in October. At that time we will go over our summarized mortality and morbidity facts. And, we will have some lab data on colostrum bacteria counts and passive transfer effectiveness. I think it would be good for us to go through the "Calf Risk Assessment Checklist" [check HERE to access the checklist], too. That will help identify possible areas where improvement might be made for the calf enterprise. 

Video from UK Dairy Board

"First 24 Hours"

For a British-flavor presentation dealing with caring for the newborn calf you may want to try this short video from a webinar by the DairyCo part of the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB):

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMgY0b-FFvw

The content is dividing to sections:

• The newborn
• Colostrum management
• Hygiene
• Quality of stockmanship - this is a part we in US often overlook
• Targets

You may have heard the story before but often a slightly different cultural perspective will give you insights that you have missed previously. 

One small reservation - the narrator comments on bacteria "destroying" antibodies - I don't know of any published data to support that statement. We do know that high bacteria counts in colostrum do lower the rates of antibody absorption. Therefore, the final conclusion is the same - clean colostrum is always better than contaminated colostrum.

Enjoy.