Keeping Milk Feeding Equipment is Not
Really That Hard! Is It?
As part of a study about colostrum feeding a research group in Ireland collected information on cleaning feeding equipment from seasonally calving dairy herds.
Preferred METHOD of cleaning:
Percentage
Method Near beginning of Near end of
12 wk calving 12 wk calving season
Hot Water Only 41% 26%
Cold Water Only 35% 40%
Cold water + detergent 11% 11%
Hot water + detergent 13% 24%
Note: Only acceptable method is hot water with detergent when cleaning milk feeding equipment.
Did you get this? Only 13 percent of operations were using effective methods to clean milk/colostrum feeding equipment - at start of 12 week calving season.
Frequency of cleaning
Percentage
Near beginning of Near end of
12 wk calving 12 wk calving season
Daily 21% 11%
Every second day 47% 53%
Once a week 17% 28%
Every second wk 13% 4%
Once a month 2% 4%
Note: Only acceptable frequency is at least daily or more frequently as equipment is soiled.
I am not surprised that average mortality at 28 days was 6%. No data were presented on scours rates but we can guess that the rates were discouraging high.
Lots of opportunity here for improvement - anyone need a job advising Irish dairy farmers on sanitation practices?
Reference: Barry, J. and Others, "Associations between colostrum management, passive immunity, calf-related hygiene practices, and rates of mortality in preweaned dairy calves." Journal of Dairy Science 102:10266-10276 November 2019
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