Soldiers Grove Wi. 54655 | JR B - 9/10/2020 11:52
I do 99% of the milking. My protocol is
1. wipe off excess sand or manure with my gloved hand
2. I use an udder wash diluted with water and a rag. go through each cow and wipe them again.
3. after I do one side (5 cows) i go back and use an individual towel to dry each cow.
4. strip cows 2 to 3 squirts from each quarter then attach milker. I have a highline with 10 units. No ATO's.
I do check cows with CMT paddle also have lots of cows long in DIM.
I just have to question that when you say you wash the teats off one side of 5 cows with the same "rag" with an udder wash diluted with water Do you use the same rag for every cow or throw it back in the pail with the udder wash in it? If so that's an easy way to spread mastitis.. We were using an udder wash with lamenint in it so the teats wouldn't get chapped we used a separate paper towel to wash the cow's teats , threw it in the gutter but (later into another pail as it looked sort of trashy )and dried the cow off and stripped a couple milk streams out asap and it was always no more than 2-3 minutes before we put the milking machine on the cow.. We never put a towel or rag back in the pail with your wash water in it as it's just defeating the purpose and the strength of the solution will die out quickly especially if it's cooling off quickly too, Also between each cow we dipped the milk machine in the other wash pail with the same mix in case it had any bacteria from the previous cow left in it. Washing 5 cows ahead of time is going to cause you problems if it's just you milking by yourself and you can't get them dried and the milkers on quick enough. We also used a teat dip that had lanament and a antibacterial in it that was like a rubber paste going onto the teat that dried fairly quick. It did make it a little harder to wash them off for the next milking but not to bad but at least you knew they were washed good... As far as stripping a cow after milking we never did that unless we had a cow flair up. I always had the experience if once you started it it was like massaging the udder as so many used to do and we quit that totally too.... We had BouMatic units with the auto sensors on the pipeline that started to beep and flash when the milk flow was slowed down to where the cow was done miking. I will say it took awhile to get used to doing it that way but once the cow got used to it if I needed a night off I could trust someone else to milk the cows. It really worked best on 1st calf heifers as they learned it naturally... God I wish I could have a good herd of cows to be able to milk again~ :( We rented the barn out for a few years after I had to quit milking and every once in awhile I would go down if feeling well enough and milk the cows... Now I walk in the empty barn and it's just depressing....
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SCC what re you doing to lower yours?
