Color Communicates Well

Katie Grinstead from Wisconsin has this system of using color to communicate.

They feed different volumes of milk to their calves depending on their age. Thus, some calves are fed two quarts each feeding while others receive three quarts. 

Pink pails = two quarts

Blue pails = three quarts

The link to her presentation is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9r86l_vTp4

Another dairy, this one in central New York, has three different color pails:

Blue pails = two quarts

Yellow pails = three quarts

Red pails = calves being weaned, milk only in morning.

This is the principle of keeping routines as simple as possible - no words needed - just look at the color. 

Feeding Pasteurized Milk:

Tips for Success

This is the title of the May, 2015, issue of the calf management newsletter, Calving Ease.

The link is HERE.

The ideas covered in this issue are:

• Start with a superior product 
• Clean, clean and clean some more. 
• Post-Pasteurization Contamination is a common problem. 
• Monitoring for bacteria in “as-fed” milk is essential for quality control.

Enjoy!

Sampling Protocol for Bacteria Culturing When Feeding

Pasteurized Milk to Calves

When and where to collect samples when monitoring bacteria contamination of pasteurized milk fed to dairy calves?

To answer this question I like to start with the answers that I want after I have the culture results. They are:

1. Is the dairy starting with quality non-salable raw milk?

2. How well is the pasteurizer working to reduce the bacteria count in the raw milk?

3. How much post-pasteurization contamination is taking place between the pasteurizer and the calves?

4. How much bacteria growth is taking place between the time the milk is pasteurized and the last calf is fed?

I am going to need 4 samples.

Sample #1: Collect a raw milk sample. Results under 100,000cfu/ml (colony forming units per milliliter) are good, results over 1,000,000cfu/ml mean that we are loading the pasteurized milk with a lot of "trash" from the killed bacteria and setting ourselves up for significant post-pasteurization contamination.

Sample #2: Collect a sample directly as the milk comes out of the pasteurizer. We are looking for no growth at 48 hours of incubation. If the raw milk counts are less than or equal to 100,000cfu/ml the pasteurizer is not working well if we get any growth in the pasteurized product. If the raw milk counts are greater than 1,000,000cfu/ml the pasteurized milk may have a modest number of residual bacteria. 

I like to see coliform counts in the pasteurized milk less than 100cfu/ml and total plate counts less than 1,000cfu/ml. If counts are higher than this the fault is probably not with the pasteurizer but rather with excessively high raw milk bacteria counts. Remember, pasteurization is not sterilization!

Sample #3: Collect an "as-fed" sample for the first calf fed. Get the sample as the milk goes into either a bottle or bucket in order feed the first calf. Note that this says, "goes into" and not "from." Do not take the sample from the bottle or bucket. Take the sample as the milk goes into either one. 

These culture results tell me the extent of immediate post-pasteurization contamination of the product. If the milk going into nursing bottles is coming from the source where Sample #2 is obtained, then skip this step. However, if the milk is going into nursing bottles is from any other source then I want a sample as the first bottle is filled. If the milk is going into something to carry to the calves (for example, 5-gallon pail, transport tank) then I want the sample coming out of these as it goes into calf feeding buckets.

If the calves are being fed with mob feeders, then get the sample as the gang or mob feeder is being filled. In this case, skip the fourth sample. 

Sample #4: Collect an "as-fed" sample for the last calf fed. Collect the sample the same way as for the "first-calf-fed" sample.

If the bacteria counts are higher here than the "first calf fed" sample then I can estimate the extent to which bacteria have multiplied while the calves are being fed. Or, if these sample values are lower than the "first-calf-fed" it usually is revealed that systems that include hoses and pumps have a cleaning issue there.

Note that this 4-sample-set sampling process does not capture contamination from nursing bottles, nursing nipples and feeding buckets.

If you have culture results from samples like these you would like to share, please send them to me and I will "blog" about them. Send to smleadley@yahoo.com.

I Don't Have Brush For That

We are checking for a source of bacteria contamination of post-pasteurized milk from nursing bottles. Only the very youngest calves are fed with bottles with the remainder learning how to drink from buckets before they are a week old. 

The milk coming out of the pasteurizer is clean - all the samples that we culture have no growth at 48 hours - none, zip.

When we collect and culture "as-fed" samples from nursing bottles they are alive with bacteria. This dairy has a history of doing a good job of cleaning milk feeding equipment. Thus, these culture results are puzzling. 

Where is the contamination coming from? First, I thought that the contamination was coming from the sampling process - something like dirty hands, thumb on the inside of the sample bottle lid. Nope. Put on clean nitrile gloves when collecting samples.

Then we checked the inside surfaces of bottles - nope. Highest reading using the ATP luminometer was 6 RLU's. [For reference, the food industry standard for clean is <10 RLU's.] 

I asked for a nipple to check the inside surface. I swabbed up inside the nipple part, not the cap. RLU reading was 580! Oops. When I asked about brushing bottles and nipples I found out that they had a good bottle brush but nothing with which to brush up inside the nipples. 

The solution was pretty simple - I pulled a double-end brush out of my truck and the dairy was in the business of brushing the insides of the few nipples they use to feed the youngest calves.

Click HERE to see a picture of this brush.

Klebsiella spp. Bacteria in Colostrum

Last week we collected ten "as-fed" samples of colostrum on a large dairy. We cultured these colostrum samples on blood agar plates for 48 hours. 

Results? All ten samples contained colonies of Klebsiella bacteria. The lowest colony forming units/ml (cfu/ml) number was 600 cfu/ml and the highest was 7,500 cfu/ml. The farm's upper threshold for Klebsiella bacteria in colostrum is 5,000 cfu/ml. Everyone is unhappy about these results. 

The question of the day: "How is the colostrum being inoculated with this environmental bacteria?"

On a farm visit just one week before we checked both the bottles used to store the colostrum and the esophageal tube feeder used to deliver the colostrum. We used a SystemSURE Plus luminometer that reports back in relative light units (RLU). These RLU's are highly correlated with standard plate counts from bacteria cultures.

The food industry standard upper threshold for RLU's for clean food processing equipment is 10. Our tests for a storage bottle was 0. For the tube feeder the RLU was 1. So,we feel these are an unlikely source of the Klebsiella bacteria. 

That leaves teat preparation failure and the sanitation of the milking equipment as inoculation sources. This week we are planning on checking teat preparation. We have a supply of alcohol pads to wipe the "clean" teat ends before the milking unit is attached.

Also, we have put in place a "pre-milking" sanitizing rinse for the milking unit. [It may be helpful to know that the fresh cows are milked in the calving pen shortly after calving. One milking unit is used to collect all the colostrum.] Our plan is to make a two-gallon chlorine solution (500ppm chlorine) and pull it into the milking bucket through the claw just before collecting colostrum.

After a week to get the new protocols in place we will collect another set of "as-fed" samples and see if we have been successful in shutting down the Klebsiella inoculation of the colostrum.

Challenges of Warming Colostrum

Yesterday I was on a dairy that feeds colostrum from bottles stored in a refrigerator. They have to warm each bottle before it can be fed. 

As I stood at the sink in the milk house I asked the calf care person to show me how she warms colostrum. She sat a plastic container in the sink and filled it with water.

The critical piece of information here is the temperature of water in the container. She put adjusted the hot and cold water faucets to a familiar position and put her hand into the water. After a moment she turned up the hot water volume a bit. Then she said, "There, that is just right."

The water was actually close to 130 F (55C). She was correct - this is a very good temperature for warming colostrum without damaging the antibodies. You may recall that when colostrum is exposed to excessively high  temperatures (more than 140F, 60C) the antibodies are damaged and are no longer effective for preventing infections. 

I asked her, "How do the guys on the night shift warm colostrum?" The reason I asked this question is that I had just asked her about the source of the hot water in the milk house. She said it came from the same supply as the hot water for washing the milk pipeline in the milking parlor - that water is 170F (77C). 

She told me that her instructions to the night workers that warm colostrum feeding newborn calves is to run the water no hotter than they can stand to run over their hand. She was quite confident that these workers were following the warming protocol satisfactorily. 

On another farm I saw a short (8 inches or 20cm) piece of milker hose on the end of the mixer faucet in the milk house sink. The dairyman had inserted at a 30 degree angle an inexpensive rapid-read thermometer into the hose. This instrument measured the temperature of the water going through the milker hose - thus, when you wanted 130F water for warming colostrum you simply adjusted the hot and cold water faucets until the thermometer was as this temperature.

Just for review you  may want to go over the points on this Colostrum Feeding Checklist. Click HERE for this checklist.   

How to Make a Bad Situation Worse:

Dirty Calf Pails After Washing!

During a recent farm visit I took the opportunity to check out the pails they have washed. All the 10-quart plastic pails (buckets) are washed before going to the hutch for a newborn calf. 

I have recently been using the Hygiena SystemSure Plus unit to do 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 organic matter 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. For reference, on this same farm the inside surface of a grain feeding pail for a 3 week-old calf tested at 354 RLU; same pail 8 week-old calf = 366 RLU.

Now, back to the "clean" pails.

We tested the top pail in a stack of 15 "clean" pails. It was dry. The RLU value was 2925. Lots of remaining organic matter post-washing. 

We tested the bottom pail in the same stack of "clean" pails. RLU value was 5776. Ah. Stacking pails after washing appears to be an effective way to increase bacteria presence.

Thus, not only does the dairy need to do a better job of cleaning their pails but also needs to work out some way to set the pails upside down separately so they can drain and dry.

The recommended protocol for washing is found HERE.