SCC Helping hand?

delaval

One of our goals this year is to reduce scc to <120k. To date we have been happy to be inside penalty limits. We have been taking firebrigade action for the last few years. While is ranging between 150 and 250 at the moment we reallly need to take action as this is the easy time of year to control it.

We always get a spike at clving and among heifers, it clears quickly once they settle and start to get into a routine. Having said that we rarely have a clinical case. We would however treat quarters in the spring as we CMT all cows and heifs before they join main herd.

We milk record monthly and have identified the cows causing the problems. We have taken cultures and it is staph. We know the culprits and the bacteria.

My plan is to record again on Friday and as soon as results are back we intend doing the following
1 Seperate offenders
2 Cmt to identify quarter
3 Treat offfending quarter
4 Cmt continuously throughout treatment
5 If treatment is unsuccessful ie CMT fail I will dry quarter

If I am missing any steps please fill in the blanks. All these cows will be completely seperate and milked last to avoid cross ontamination and an antibiotic cockup

Whenever we tube a cow we withold milk till it passes charm antibiotic test. As all calves are weaned and we will need to dump witheld milk I was wondering do any of you milk the other 3 quarters into the tank and only dump milk from treated quarter? Am I being too stingy here, does whole system become antibiotic pos or only the treated quarter?

Timmaay

I'm following a similar path here, however Id expect it to be more drawn out in my case, as I cannot afford to liberally cull the persistent offender's, not for now at least. Anyways, same again, milk record every month, cmt to find the bad quarter, if the yeild from that quarter isn't great, and she has had previous problems, I might try to dry off the quarter straight away, usually just milk the other 3, and only milk out the bad quarter every 3rd milking or so, if its starting to swell abit. Usually works ok, in some cases the quarter can get mastitis, but as far as I'm concerned I don't have much to lose anyways.
If the quarter is still milking well, and the cow doesn't have much history of problems, I'll tend to milk it on, and see if the scc reduces (ie less gooey in the cmt), if it doesn't then I'll try maybe a tube for 3days, usually need 2cows milk for the calves so just keep that cow for a wk or so anyways, to be sure that there are no antibiotics. But anyways, antibiotics still are the last resort, just too much risk of going into the tank, even with me being extremely careful in terms of marking the cows, and always putting a bucket on the clusterhook to remind whoever is removing the cluster not to leave it off.

And finally, yep have 3or 4 cows that I milk 3spins on, then leave back in and milk the final high scc quarter on. If I say get 15l of good milk out of the 3spins, thats what, 6euro extra worth of milk in the tank. I'd tend to only do this if I'm around 300,000 scc in the bulk tank, otherwise I'll just milk the 4 quarters at the end, and leave it all off. But that should answer your question about a cow with antibiotics in one quarter, if the milk from the other 3 is worth 6euros each milking, and it doesn't make you fail the test then its 100% worth doing, 6euro to milk one cow twice, which probably takes 1min extra on average isn't 1/2 bad, works out at 360euro/hr ha!

But it's a constant battle I'll admit, i know the neighbours scc has dropped to below 100 last few months, and he haa done nothing different, it can be hard to tell if all the effort is worth while ha!

mahoney_j

Once a cow has a tube inserted into even one quarter all her milk will be antibiotic positive.everything else your doin/proposing to do seems bang on.i would take a sample from each of infected cows and pool it and do a sensitivity test.this will tell i what tubes will and won't work.also u could use a course of tylovet over 5 days(20 cc daily) along with tubes.i had very good results using this on young cows.older cows are much harder to cure.my vet also recommends using 6 tubes in infected over 3 days..outside of that I'd look at all high scc cows and anything over say 3 lactation I'd try cure once and if a repeat offender just cull her out.

Timmaay

I don't let off the other 3 quarters when I've put a tube in one, but certainly know chaps who do regularly and get away with it. I also know a chap who accidentally let off a jar of milk with antibiotics in it, like definitely should have been positive, only gave her the tube the previous milking, he tested his tank and it was all clear ha. He said the bloody tubes must have been a placebo or something ha!

delaval

mahoney_j wrote: »

Once a cow has a tube inserted into even one quarter all her milk will be antibiotic positive.everything else your doin/proposing to do seems bang on.i would take a sample from each of infected cows and pool it and do a sensitivity test.this will tell i what tubes will and won't work.also u could use a course of tylovet over 5 days(20 cc daily) along with tubes.i had very good results using this on young cows.older cows are much harder to cure.my vet also recommends using 6 tubes in infected over 3 days..outside of that I'd look at all high scc cows and anything over say 3 lactation I'd try cure once and if a repeat offender just cull her out.

I find Tylo good in young cows looks likr i'll have to throw out milk. Never used 6 tubes in 3 days

6480

i use a teat dip here that has chinese mint oil in it and my scc is always around 70-80 k , it smells like the paste that you use on cows with swollen quarters and when sprayed on your hands you kind of get a cold feeling , i ll get the proper name of the barrel in de morning

Bactidiaryl

delaval wrote: »

I find Tylo good in young cows looks likr i'll have to throw out milk. Never used 6 tubes in 3 days

Dump the milk. It's not worth the risk with antibiotics. As for high cell count quarters you can get a mini test/ beastings bucket that milks one quarter into it and the rest to tank. Same system as the bigger bucket but just fits onto one cluster.

Timmaay

http://www.magentadirect.ie/proddetail.php?prod=MDH0057&cat=13 these are the mini test buckets. I thought about getting one, but had an old stainless dump bucket here, from some sort of parlour 50yrs ago, put on two pipes on it similar to the quartermilker above. I used it for afew weeks, but to be honest I found it a pain in the hole, having to pull off the liner pipe on the cluster, then put on the other two pipes, it was hard to get the cluster to sit right with some cows that had udders dragging on the ground (hmmm yes, and I wonder why I have SCC issues...). Anyways, point being I found it easier in the end just to draft the bloody cow around and milk the 4th quarter at the end. Anyone else use the quarter milker though and find it useful?

TEAT SQUEEZER

delaval wrote: »

One of our goals this year is to reduce scc to <120k. To date we have been happy to be inside penalty limits. We have been taking firebrigade action for the last few years. While is ranging between 150 and 250 at the moment we reallly need to take action as this is the easy time of year to control it.

We always get a spike at clving and among heifers, it clears quickly once they settle and start to get into a routine. Having said that we rarely have a clinical case. We would however treat quarters in the spring as we CMT all cows and heifs before they join main herd.

We milk record monthly and have identified the cows causing the problems. We have taken cultures and it is staph. We know the culprits and the bacteria.

My plan is to record again on Friday and as soon as results are back we intend doing the following
1 Seperate offenders
2 Cmt to identify quarter
3 Treat offfending quarter
4 Cmt continuously throughout treatment
5 If treatment is unsuccessful ie CMT fail I will dry quarter

If I am missing any steps please fill in the blanks. All these cows will be completely seperate and milked last to avoid cross ontamination and an antibiotic cockup

Whenever we tube a cow we withold milk till it passes charm antibiotic test. As all calves are weaned and we will need to dump witheld milk I was wondering do any of you milk the other 3 quarters into the tank and only dump milk from treated quarter? Am I being too stingy here, does whole system become antibiotic pos or only the treated quarter?

dump the milk period. least of your probs... you surely dont need the next recording to identify your worst 5 % on scc ie they`re persistant offenders no doubt and should be gone..

they are a reservoir of infection .your heifers calve down clean and lack of attention to preventing cross contamination is just recycling your probs...

some issues.........

no acrs .. over milking?
do u dip between cows with peracetic acid?
pre dip?
forestrip?
how many diff people milk the cows?...are they capable?

you source cows from diff farms and its my opinion that its a mine field for scc... different strains of bacteria and diff antibiotic resistance....

anyways some of that is hindsight and more is for future consideration ... your immediate need is to create that sub group and show little mercy with anything thats not rapidly responding...

you need a strategy on better identification and limiting cross contamination which will involve more time in the parlour cos all preps and dips etc add up but what ure doin aint working so its nessecary imo

i know all this from bitter experience btw so a little attention to detail is well worth it .....

delaval

TEAT SQUEEZER wrote: »

dump the milk period. least of your probs... you surely dont need the next recording to identify your worst 5 % on scc ie they`re persistant offenders no doubt and should be gone..

they are a reservoir of infection .your heifers calve down clean and lack of attention to preventing cross contamination is just recycling your probs...

some issues.........

no acrs .. over milking?
do u dip between cows with peracetic acid?
pre dip?
forestrip?
how many diff people milk the cows?...are they capable?

you source cows from diff farms and its my opinion that its a mine field for scc... different strains of bacteria and diff antibiotic resistance....

anyways some of that is hindsight and more is for future consideration ... your immediate need is to create that sub group and show little mercy with anything thats not rapidly responding...

you need a strategy on better identification and limiting cross contamination which will involve more time in the parlour cos all preps and dips etc add up but what ure doin aint working so its nessecary imo

i know all this from bitter experience btw so a little attention to detail is well worth it .....

I agree we are only chipping away at the problem. I do know offenders and to be fair most of our culling this season has been for scc. I agree they will be no mercy shown.

Milkers excellent and over milking is not a problem Same people milking all the time in fact things improved once I left the parlour, my mind was always trying to fight the next fire! I am not allowed into the parlour when recording is going on:):)We have predipped pre sprayed again no good without removing source I know it will stop spread. We are lucky in that at this stage we don't have a large % of Scc cows but they must go.
We have almost no cases of clinical so stripping is of little benifit. We would of course fore strip during winter and calving as this is when we have clinical flaer ups. We keep good records of all cases so it's just a case of getting off our arses and doing it

Fully agree what we are doing is not working but one thing is for certain it will be solved

delaval

Timmaay wrote: »

http://www.magentadirect.ie/proddetail.php?prod=MDH0057&cat=13 these are the mini test buckets. I thought about getting one, but had an old stainless dump bucket here, from some sort of parlour 50yrs ago, put on two pipes on it similar to the quartermilker above. I used it for afew weeks, but to be honest I found it a pain in the hole, having to pull off the liner pipe on the cluster, then put on the other two pipes, it was hard to get the cluster to sit right with some cows that had udders dragging on the ground (hmmm yes, and I wonder why I have SCC issues...). Anyways, point being I found it easier in the end just to draft the bloody cow around and milk the 4th quarter at the end. Anyone else use the quarter milker though and find it useful?

I will not be using quarter milkers cows will be treated, culled or quarter dried if they do not respond. My question was about antibiotics and Mahoney has answered it.

delaval

Did any of you read NZ thread where Trixi is teat sealing all his/her heifers. I had heard of it before from other NZ farmers. Have any of you done it or would you consider it. I would consider the risk of introducing an infection to be very great..

mahoney_j

delaval wrote: »

Did any of you read NZ thread where Trixi is teat sealing all his/her heifers. I had heard of it before from other NZ farmers. Have any of you done it or would you consider it. I would consider the risk of introducing an infection to be very great..

Heard of It alright but if they are going to be lying in cubicles there is no need.scc for me is a huge problem if cows/heifers are going to be on a stand off pad.anyone I know that has cows on a pad all seem to have scc issues of various different magnitude.putting tubes in heifers seems a bit extreme but it is very common in newzealand where pads are common place.

delaval

mahoney_j wrote: »

Heard of It alright but if they are going to be lying in cubicles there is no need.scc for me is a huge problem if cows/heifers are going to be on a stand off pad.anyone I know that has cows on a pad all seem to have scc issues of various different magnitude.putting tubes in heifers seems a bit extreme but it is very common in newzealand where pads are common place.

Thinking same here ours are all on cubicles still we get a spike. I think a lot to do with numbers. We calve a large number very quickly and they are bound to be stressed. Having said that we tube none and they are all normal at second rrcording.

Pacoa

Did any of you read NZ thread where Trixi is teat sealing all his/her heifers.

I did it one year but i used a lacting tube first on them followed by the sealer tube about a week to 10 days before calving. It worked but it was difficult enough to get the heifers to stand still but i managed. Have used an outside sealer the last two years, the one that turns to rubber on the outside of the teat. Its much easier to get on them.

TEAT SQUEEZER

Pacoa wrote: »

I did it one year but i used a lacting tube first on them followed by the sealer tube about a week to 10 days before calving. It worked but it was difficult enough to get the heifers to stand still but i managed. Have used an outside sealer the last two years, the one that turns to rubber on the outside of the teat. Its much easier to get on them.

i cant see any need to seal cubicle housed heifers . why open the teat end and compromise the natural barrier... some of u run em through the parlour before calving to give them a feed ,im sure a teat spray would be a help then ..

delaval are your heifers getting an exposure to viruses from the cows when they join the herd for the first time and is this rising the scc temporarily in them .. i believe a sub clinical ibr/bvd combo was weakening my cows resistance cos when i started vaccinating the corner was turned bigtime and i saw a huge benefit in fertility also..

out of interest are the x-breeds more mastitas resistant as its claimed or is their an even spread among your cows........

delaval

TEAT SQUEEZER wrote: »

i cant see any need to seal cubicle housed heifers . why open the teat end and compromise the natural barrier... some of u run em through the parlour before calving to give them a feed ,im sure a teat spray would be a help then ..

delaval are your heifers getting an exposure to viruses from the cows when they join the herd for the first time and is this rising the scc temporarily in them .. i believe a sub clinical ibr/bvd combo was weakening my cows resistance cos when i started vaccinating the corner was turned bigtime and i saw a huge benefit in fertility also..

out of interest are the x-breeds more mastitas resistant as its claimed or is their an even spread among your cows........

I'd be of the same opinion re sealer and heifers, I'd be worried about opening the canal.

All animals get exactly the same vaccines. I wouid agree about IBR, I couldn't believe the change in the herd it's one we'll not be dropping. As you say fert, condition and general health improved no end. You could be on to something with exposure because they are away from dairy farm and don't join cows 'till 1 mth before calving

I have noticed no difference between xbred and non cross regarding mastitis.

delaval

Pacoa wrote: »

I did it one year but i used a lacting tube first on them followed by the sealer tube about a week to 10 days before calving. It worked but it was difficult enough to get the heifers to stand still but i managed. Have used an outside sealer the last two years, the one that turns to rubber on the outside of the teat. Its much easier to get on them.

I have never heard of this, is it difficult to apply and remove and here do you get it?

trixi2011

delaval wrote: »

One of our goals this year is to reduce scc to <120k. To date we have been happy to be inside penalty limits. We have been taking firebrigade action for the last few years. While is ranging between 150 and 250 at the moment we reallly need to take action as this is the easy time of year to control it.

We always get a spike at clving and among heifers, it clears quickly once they settle and start to get into a routine. Having said that we rarely have a clinical case. We would however treat quarters in the spring as we CMT all cows and heifs before they join main herd.

We milk record monthly and have identified the cows causing the problems. We have taken cultures and it is staph. We know the culprits and the bacteria.

My plan is to record again on Friday and as soon as results are back we intend doing the following
1 Seperate offenders
2 Cmt to identify quarter
3 Treat offfending quarter
4 Cmt continuously throughout treatment
5 If treatment is unsuccessful ie CMT fail I will dry quarter

If I am missing any steps please fill in the blanks. All these cows will be completely seperate and milked last to avoid cross ontamination and an antibiotic cockup

Whenever we tube a cow we withold milk till it passes charm antibiotic test. As all calves are weaned and we will need to dump witheld milk I was wondering do any of you milk the other 3 quarters into the tank and only dump milk from treated quarter? Am I being too stingy here, does whole system become antibiotic pos or only the treated quarter?

A few of my thoughts and queries .
~ Staph is very hard to cure and even next to impossible in older cows with a history.
~ ARE cows showing up with a high scc on cmt milk test really spreading bacteria?
I threw out the cmt paddle this year as I just seemed to be treating to many cows. I made a rule of only treating cow with signs of clinical mastitis last year. The result were pretty good with the annual scc of 100,000 for 1250 cows
~ Don't rely on the cmt test for judging when a cows infection is cleared up. It takes times for some cow scc to come back down after having an infection.
~ Pre spraying= waste of time and money. It takes at least at least 10 minutes for teat spray to kill bacteria.
~ financially does it make sense to get to a lower scc ? It costs money to treat/cull cows
I have a lot more thoughts on this but don't know if they would be well received

delaval

trixi2011 wrote: »

A few of my thoughts and queries .
~ Staph is very hard to cure and even next to impossible in older cows with a history.
~ ARE cows showing up with a high scc on cmt milk test really spreading bacteria?
I threw out the cmt paddle this year as I just seemed to be treating to many cows. I made a rule of only treating cow with signs of clinical mastitis last year. The result were pretty good with the annual scc of 100,000 for 1250 cows
~ Don't rely on the cmt test for judging when a cows infection is cleared up. It takes times for some cow scc to come back down after having an infection.
~ Pre spraying= waste of time and money. It takes at least at least 10 minutes for teat spray to kill bacteria.
~ financially does it make sense to get to a lower scc ? It costs money to treat/cull cows
I have a lot more thoughts on this but don't know if they would be well received

Don't spare us let's hear it all, that's what I'm looking for. I made those very points at a Cell check meeting lately. Our processor is certainly putting downward pressure on limits. While its not rewarding good counts it is penalising bad numbers.
Totally agree per spray waste of time and money but I would not operate without proper post spraying. I actually find the paddle to be of great benefit, such a small investment for a lot of info.
I would have no problem drying some quarters to keep it down

jaymla627

trixi2011 wrote: »

A few of my thoughts and queries .
~ Staph is very hard to cure and even next to impossible in older cows with a history.
~ ARE cows showing up with a high scc on cmt milk test really spreading bacteria?
I threw out the cmt paddle this year as I just seemed to be treating to many cows. I made a rule of only treating cow with signs of clinical mastitis last year. The result were pretty good with the annual scc of 100,000 for 1250 cows
~ Don't rely on the cmt test for judging when a cows infection is cleared up. It takes times for some cow scc to come back down after having an infection.
~ Pre spraying= waste of time and money. It takes at least at least 10 minutes for teat spray to kill bacteria.
~ financially does it make sense to get to a lower scc ? It costs money to treat/cull cows
I have a lot more thoughts on this but don't know if they would be well received

Its like comparing apples and oranges when you try comparing a 1250 cow herd to the average 80 cow herd in Ireland, in the instance of a 80 cow herd three our four high scc cows will push up your scc by a 100,000-150,000 even more in some cases like myself this year scc was running at 400,000-500,000 in the spring, milk recorded and 3 cows came back as millionaires with sub clinical mastitis pulled these out and scc was back to 89,000 next collection, the dilution effect in large herds really masks a lot of the scc issues, remember starting work on a 750 cow herd last year in Australia scc had spiked to 300,000 my first job was to draw the cows, found 30 cows in one milking with clinical mastitis:rolleyes:

mahoney_j

jaymla627 wrote: »

Its like comparing apples and oranges when you try comparing a 1250 cow herd to the average 80 cow herd in Ireland, in the instance of a 80 cow herd three our four high scc cows will push up your scc by a 100,000-150,000 even more in some cases like myself this year scc was running at 400,000-500,000 in the spring, milk recorded and 3 cows came back as millionaires with sub clinical mastitis pulled these out and scc was back to 89,000 next collection, the dilution effect in large herds really masks a lot of the scc issues, remember starting work on a 750 cow herd last year in Australia scc had spiked to 300,000 my first job was to draw the cows, found 30 cows in one milking with clinical mastitis:rolleyes:

Was just going to make a point along those lines.seen similar in my own herd last year.pulled out 2 multi millionaires and scc dropped to 110 k from 450 k.one had clots which cleared up after treatment but the other had no obvious clots but got sample cultured and she had staph uberus and Auerus (spelling off I know).that cow was dried off instantly and culled from herd even though she was 4 months in calf.scc average this year 118 k .for most of last year I was between 250 and 450 k

delaval

jaymla627 wrote: »

Its like comparing apples and oranges when you try comparing a 1250 cow herd to the average 80 cow herd in Ireland, in the instance of a 80 cow herd three our four high scc cows will push up your scc by a 100,000-150,000 even more in some cases like myself this year scc was running at 400,000-500,000 in the spring, milk recorded and 3 cows came back as millionaires with sub clinical mastitis pulled these out and scc was back to 89,000 next collection, the dilution effect in large herds really masks a lot of the scc issues, remember starting work on a 750 cow herd last year in Australia scc had spiked to 300,000 my first job was to draw the cows, found 30 cows in one milking with clinical mastitis:rolleyes:

Am I missing something? The % is the same in your home case as your Aussi example. It illustrates how bifficult it is to mange a big herd
Is your scc at 90 consistantly?

Going forward...

Priceless information in the SCC report of the milk recording. Scary to see the contribution % of a few high cows.

jaymla627

delaval wrote: »

Am I missing something? The % is the same in your home case as your Aussi example. It illustrates how bifficult it is to mange a big herd
Is your scc at 90 consistantly?

90,000-150,000 couple of older ladies hovering around 300,000-400,000 that are keeping it above the 100,000,we find cluster-dipping a good help have only had two clinical cases of mastitis this year so far touchwood, biggest problem here seems to be steph-ubers causing a few sub-clinical cases biggest cause of this is meant to be at drying-off time dirt getting into the teats etc, so going using teat sealers this year.
The thing I was getting at with the aussie example is that in the case of this farm it was being run like a circus no milk recording, really bad staff, rotary parlour was falling apart numerous vacuum leaks, liners/pipes hadn't being changed in 10 months before I went and got the owner to get us new liners, but still the cell count wasn't sky high like it should of been, there is a lot to be said for dilution due to numbers, remember one morning when I wasn't on milking was doing the calves came in to find the antibiotic herd had gone into the bulk tank about 25 cows, went and got the milk tested and it came back negative :eek: milk was sent on and there wasn't a word said, large herds run right where there is a good parlour and plenty of good staff at milking are a lot easier to keep milk quality right then for your average small farmer milking 50-60 cows in my opinion.

Pacoa

I have never heard of this, is it difficult to apply and remove and here do you get it?

This is the stuff im on about. Got it from my vets. You put it on with a dip cup and once it drys it turns to rubber. Just peel it off after calving if it hasn't been rubbed off already.

http://www.cleanlinefarmservices.ie/products/hygiene/MHC-teat-sealer.html

delaval

Pacoa wrote: »

This is the stuff im on about. Got it from my vets. You put it on with a dip cup and once it drys it turns to rubber. Just peel it off after calving if it hasn't been rubbed off already.

http://www.cleanlinefarmservices.ie/products/hygiene/MHC-teat-sealer.html

Did you re do 30 days prior to calving and if not had it rubbed off many?

Pacoa

I only put it on incalf heifers a week or 10 days before calving when they were springing. I guess it only came off one or two teats out of 7/8 heifers but none of them had mastitis so it worked last year and this year. Haven't done any cows with it. Prefer the boviseal and cepravin for them.

trixi2011

jaymla627 wrote: »

Its like comparing apples and oranges when you try comparing a 1250 cow herd to the average 80 cow herd in Ireland, in the instance of a 80 cow herd three our four high scc cows will push up your scc by a 100,000-150,000 even more in some cases like myself this year scc was running at 400,000-500,000 in the spring, milk recorded and 3 cows came back as millionaires with sub clinical mastitis pulled these out and scc was back to 89,000 next collection, the dilution effect in large herds really masks a lot of the scc issues, remember starting work on a 750 cow herd last year in Australia scc had spiked to 300,000 my first job was to draw the cows, found 30 cows in one milking with clinical mastitis:rolleyes:

With 1250 cows one clinical cow could cause a spike of up to 50,000. We get a cell count level every day which really helps you take action early don't know if that happens with irish coops yet .

delaval

trixi2011 wrote: »

With 1250 cows one clinical cow could cause a spike of up to 50,000. We get a cell count level every day which really helps you take action early don't know if that happens with irish coops yet .

Yes every collection which is every day at the moment

mcgyvor

delaval wrote: »

Did any of you read NZ thread where Trixi is teat sealing all his/her heifers. I had heard of it before from other NZ farmers. Have any of you done it or would you consider it. I would consider the risk of introducing an infection to be very great..

i am doing this for a few years but also use a dry cow tube as i would be afra
id of introducing infection .had a lot of mastitis in heifers a few years ago started doing this and no more problems i think its well worth it getting them off to a good start probably helps for life imo.my scc now down to 70-80k

trixi2011

jaymla627 wrote: »

90,000-150,000 couple of older ladies hovering around 300,000-400,000 that are keeping it above the 100,000,we find cluster-dipping a good help have only had two clinical cases of mastitis this year so far touchwood, biggest problem here seems to be steph-ubers causing a few sub-clinical cases biggest cause of this is meant to be at drying-off time dirt getting into the teats etc, so going using teat sealers this year.
The thing I was getting at with the aussie example is that in the case of this farm it was being run like a circus no milk recording, really bad staff, rotary parlour was falling apart numerous vacuum leaks, liners/pipes hadn't being changed in 10 months before I went and got the owner to get us new liners, but still the cell count wasn't sky high like it should of been, there is a lot to be said for dilution due to numbers, remember one morning when I wasn't on milking was doing the calves came in to find the antibiotic herd had gone into the bulk tank about 25 cows, went and got the milk tested and it came back negative :eek: milk was sent on and there wasn't a word said, large herds run right where there is a good parlour and plenty of good staff at milking are a lot easier to keep milk quality right then for your average small farmer milking 50-60 cows in my opinion.

I've seen 1cow milked by mistake putting down 22000l of milk And she was not a fresh treatment but still under withhold not on my farm tho touch wood so I really don't think dilution rates matter. That farm sounds just like a farm I had little stint on a few years agok . Farmer spent 250,000 on a new scc and milk quality testers but wouldn't put new rubber ware in , joke of a place

awaywithyou

delaval wrote: »

One of our goals this year is to reduce scc to <120k. To date we have been happy to be inside penalty limits. We have been taking firebrigade action for the last few years. While is ranging between 150 and 250 at the moment we reallly need to take action as this is the easy time of year to control it.

We always get a spike at clving and among heifers, it clears quickly once they settle and start to get into a routine. Having said that we rarely have a clinical case. We would however treat quarters in the spring as we CMT all cows and heifs before they join main herd.

We milk record monthly and have identified the cows causing the problems. We have taken cultures and it is staph. We know the culprits and the bacteria.

My plan is to record again on Friday and as soon as results are back we intend doing the following
1 Seperate offenders
2 Cmt to identify quarter
3 Treat offfending quarter
4 Cmt continuously throughout treatment
5 If treatment is unsuccessful ie CMT fail I will dry quarter

If I am missing any steps please fill in the blanks. All these cows will be completely seperate and milked last to avoid cross ontamination and an antibiotic cockup

Whenever we tube a cow we withold milk till it passes charm antibiotic test. As all calves are weaned and we will need to dump witheld milk I was wondering do any of you milk the other 3 quarters into the tank and only dump milk from treated quarter? Am I being too stingy here, does whole system become antibiotic pos or only the treated quarter?

what kind of pulsation do you have in your parlour....??

im from dairymaster country.... and a load of lads have thrown out the dairymaster 4x0 pulsation system and put in delavals 2x2 and have claimed it has made the world of difference to their SCC...

delaval

awaywithyou wrote: »

what kind of pulsation do you have in your parlour....??

im from dairymaster country.... and a load of lads have thrown out the dairymaster 4x0 pulsation system and put in delavals 2x2 and have claimed it has made the world of difference to their SCC...

2x2 I think it's more attention to detail required here

delaval

Update;
Scc sitting at 130 since I started this thread. Maybe getting conscious of it switches us on more.
Some one mentioned machine both serviced and were in perfect order.
All liners and pulse tubes changed.
We recorded this pm and will review results when they return.

delaval

4 clinical cases in the last week. Nothing changed except liners.
Machine tested all well.
Scc 130 spiked to 200, bAck to 120 now. What's most frustrating is we don't know what's causing the problem.
To be fair I have not reviewed Scc report from last weeks recording as has not been sent yet. I must check ICBF to see is it up and go from there.

whelan1

would the warm ground be causing it? just a thought, ring your recording place and they will give you the highest cows . One thing against recording is the data is old hat by the time you get the results

mahoney_j

delaval wrote: »

4 clinical cases in the last week. Nothing changed except liners.
Machine tested all well.
Scc 130 spiked to 200, bAck to 120 now. What's most frustrating is we don't know what's causing the problem.
To be fair I have not reviewed Scc report from last weeks recording as has not been sent yet. I must check ICBF to see is it up and go from there.

Delaval just wondering what teat dip ur using??was talking to a friend last weekend with a 250 + cow herd who had serious scc issues last year.he changed to a 3% parceatic acid solution from silk dip and scc is averaging under 100 k this year from close to 400 last year.cow teat condition is excellent.sounds mad but seen his cows this am and teat condition is as good as he says it was.might be worth considering??

delaval

mahoney_j wrote: »

Delaval just wondering what teat dip ur using??was talking to a friend last weekend with a 250 + cow herd who had serious scc issues last year.he changed to a 3% parceatic acid solution from silk dip and scc is averaging under 100 k this year from close to 400 last year.cow teat condition is excellent.sounds mad but seen his cows this am and teat condition is as good as he says it was.might be worth considering??

Could you find out the brand name and I will try.
Tear spray we use is iodine based with an added conditioner. I was milking for wend and it was something I was watching for, all teats in good order.

Incidentally all cows responded very well to tubes and cleared CMT with 3 tubes. Again it could just extra vigilance.

I should never have gone to that bloody Cell Check meeting!!!!!!!!

Timmaay

"mahoney_j wrote: »

and scc is averaging under 100 k this year from close to 400 last year.cow teat condition is excellent

Did he notice much of an increase in milk volume as a result, which the cell check lads were saying is one of the biggest advantages of getting your scc down.

Teat condition definitely deteriorated about 2 months ago by me, I couldn't pin down what caused it. Apart from 2 or 3 mastitis cases as a result of blocked teat ends I didn't really see any changes, in average scc etc. It cleared itself up anyways, teats all perfect now.

mahoney_j

delaval wrote: »

Could you find out the brand name and I will try.
Tear spray we use is iodine based with an added conditioner. I was milking for wend and it was something I was watching for, all teats in good order.

Incidentally all cows responded very well to tubes and cleared CMT with 3 tubes. Again it could just extra vigilance.

I should never have gone to that bloody Cell Check meeting!!!!!!!!

It's just the normal par acetic acid that you use for use for cluster dipping mixed at 3% so that's 3 Ltrs in 100 Ltrs of water

TEAT SQUEEZER

peracetic acid is an oxidising agent so the solution will have turned into water and oxygen in a matter of hours so make a fresh batch between milkings..... it might make a good predip too.. i`d wonder does it have any carryover disinfection after you initally zap the teat

delaval

FFS another case this am. Going to dip units to try and break cycle.

jomoloney

mahoney_j wrote: »

It's just the normal par acetic acid that you use for use for cluster dipping mixed at 3% so that's 3 Ltrs in 100 Ltrs of water

very hard water can cause issues

we always use a ready to use dip here , otherwise (especially in this weather) we would'nt have a spin intact

Timmaay

jomoloney wrote: »

very hard water can cause issues

we always use a ready to use dip here , otherwise (especially in this weather) we would'nt have a spin intact

Hmm how does hard water effect scc? Water is very hard around here, most kettles/heating elements only last 6months here!

delaval

Me too

blue5000

I haven't milked for a few years now, but one other thing that helped was a selenium bolus to offenders at drying off. It is tied in with Vitanin E uptake/availability. Vit E is needed to repair body cells that are damaged. AFAIK there is no withdrawal period so could be used when the cow is still milking.

Mulumpy

Has anyone used the mastitis vaccination. think its supposed to be good against strep.

TEAT SQUEEZER

delaval wrote: »

FFS another case this am. Going to dip units to try and break cycle.

get the young lad on the case.. if you flush out the cluster with a water hose you can then use the little hand sprayers up the liners .. alot quicker than u think cos if u dip in a bucket after 3-4 dips the bucket will be full of sh1t.. did you get a service done lately/ due liner change?

Timmaay

That sounds like a much better idea that clusterdipping, I remember reading they recommend you throw away the peracetic acid mix after dipping 12 units, what I use to do was have one dipping bucket between 2units, say 10rows of cows, that worked out at 20dips with each mix, and the mix was pure sh*te at the finish, I probably was spreading more scc than killing it!

Delaval, another problem, that the parlour serviceman once pointed out to me last winter when I was having big problems, after you put a cluster on a cow who has cruds, some of the cruds can get stuck just inside the liner, and can be hard to remove, even during washing. Of course this will spread mastitis like crazy. I remember the serviceman looking at a random liner while explaining this to me, and just as it happened that liner had aload of cruds stuck inside it!!! This was during the middle of the day, after I'd done the usual acid wash with the machine! So might well be worth going around and giving all the liners a quick clean, there is a specific brush for it, similar to a bottlebrush.

whelan1

have you any autumn calvers near due for drying, i had been putting off drying mine off , but made a big difference to bulk tank scc when i did