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Madison Co. Virginia | My prep routine --
Dip
Strip
Dip
Wait 1.5 - 2 minutes
Clean with microfiber
Attach
After milking, dip again.
All the dip I use is the same. It's a generic 1% iodine dip. The advantages of this procedure, is it flows neatly. The first pass, I'm only carrying a dip cup. I can strip with one hand, and dip with the other, or I can set the cup down, and strip with both hands. The second pass, my hands stay clean, and never touch the teat. The only things touching the teat on the second pass, are the microfiber cloth and the milker inflation.
The quickest thing you can do right now, is run a CMT test. Locate the test solution tomorrow, and by tomorrow evening, you'll know the scope of the problem. With counts that high, don't worry about slight congealing in the paddle. You're looking for smoking guns here. There's likely several quarters in the herd that turn the paddle into a jelly solution. Keep those quarters out of the tank immediately.
A couple of those cows are likely close to, or past, their dryoff date. Dry treat them, use teat sealant, and kick them out the door.
On other cows with a single very bad quarter, milk 3 quarters into the tank, then reattach the milker on all 4 quarters, to milk that last quarter into the bucket. This will immediately drop your tank scc, at the expense of overmilking those specific cows. Within a day or two, you should have found a quarter milker, and can use that to avoid overmilking, while still separating the high quarters.
On any cows with 2 or more high quarters, milk them into a bucket.
Retest with the CMT in 2 days. Any quarters that were very gelled on either test get sampled and sent for analysis. Depending on your lab, you should have the results within two days of then.
Any results that show staph aureus need to stop milking immediately. If a staph cow is within her first or second lactation, and is within two months of dryoff, dry her off. Otherwise, sell her.
Use udder liniment on the the cows that tested positive for environmental streps. Keep separating the bad quarters, and keep retesting every few days with the CMT.
DHI is fine, and probably advised, but it won't help right now. CMT is dirt cheap, and for a smaller herd, is relatively easy to administer. It also has the advantages of giving you results immediately, instead of waiting a week.
Call your field rep tomorrow, and tell her what steps you're taking. Every couple of days, text her with updates. Likely as not, if you haven't heard from her yet, she's preparing to visit to find out why your slacking. Be proactive in contacting her, and she'll have a lot more faith in your attempt to lower the scc. | |
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SCC what re you doing to lower yours?
