Calving pen hygiene

just do it

Having cleaned out the calving pen this evening I was wondering what people do/ use when cleaning it out? It's a straw bed on a concrete floor.

J DEERE

Normally powerwash, disinfect with knapsack, whitewash/paint walls, lime the floor and give generous bedding with plenty of clean, dry straw

just do it

J DEERE wrote: »

Normally powerwash, disinfect with knapsack, whitewash/paint walls, lime the floor and give generous bedding with plenty of clean, dry straw

Sounds like it's sparkling when you're done . What disinfectant do you use? How many calvings between such a deep clean?

Farmer Pudsey

just do it wrote: »

Sounds like it's sparkling when you're done . What disinfectant do you use? How many calvings between such a deep clean?

Burn lime is a disinfectant in itself so if you white wash walls and spread on floors it will disinfect them, years ago we used to use sheepdip to disinfect

J DEERE

just do it wrote: »

Sounds like it's sparkling when you're done . What disinfectant do you use? How many calvings between such a deep clean?

We use just the general farm disinfectant, Iosan I think is the name of it. About 35 euros for 5L. Used liberally enough. Our calving is split between Spring and Autumn so it will get that treatment before each batch starts calving. We dont powerwash or disinfect until after calving is finished unless a problem presents itself (scour etc). Just give the pens a fair covering of lime and clean straw after each calving then maybe clean out after every 5 calvings or so.

Its probably overkill on our part but no problems with it so far so wont start doing anything different

Dunedin

just do it wrote: »

Having cleaned out the calving pen this evening I was wondering what people do/ use when cleaning it out? It's a straw bed on a concrete floor.

when you have the shed fully washed out, go back over it and and mix the disinfectant in thro' the power washer.

it will only need a quick wash but the power washer will go where the napsack won't get to.

just do it

J DEERE wrote: »

just do it wrote: »

Sounds like it's sparkling when you're done . What disinfectant do you use? How many calvings between such a deep clean?

We use just the general farm disinfectant, Iosan I think is the name of it. About 35 euros for 5L. Used liberally enough. Our calving is split between Spring and Autumn so it will get that treatment before each batch starts calving. We dont powerwash or disinfect until after calving is finished unless a problem presents itself (scour etc). Just give the pens a fair covering of lime and clean straw after each calving then maybe clean out after every 5 calvings or so.

Its probably overkill on our part but no problems with it so far so wont start doing anything different

Thanks JD, exactly what I'm at. The one difference bring I don't have a powerwash. Having said that I only need one calving pen so it's not that much extra work doing it by hand. It's on the wish list though

roran

Dunedin wrote: »

when you have the shed fully washed out, go back over it and and mix the disinfectant in thro' the power washer.

it will only need a quick wash but the power washer will go where the napsack won't get to.

+1
I was told to use a weak (not more than 2% bleach solution). Fine so far here.

whelan1

i powerwash out then use oocide disenfectant- for crytpo and coccidiosis- keep cleaning out and powerwashing and disentecting regularly during calving time

49801

Don't use lime and chemical disinfectant in parallel... They are opposite ends of the scale in terms of PH and ph is their mode of action

blue5000

Dunedin wrote: »

when you have the shed fully washed out, go back over it and and mix the disinfectant in thro' the power washer.

it will only need a quick wash but the power washer will go where the napsack won't get to.

Only problem with doing this is that the disinfectant stays in the power washer, and can taint something else being cleaned afterwards.

Dunedin

blue5000 wrote: »

Only problem with doing this is that the disinfectant stays in the power washer, and can taint something else being cleaned afterwards.

I think a fresh barrell of water would solve this afterwards.............;);)