Making yogurt for calves

The Cuban

I`m tinkering with the idea of going down this route next year,
Does anyone make it to feed to calves? If so how does one go about it and how much at a time can you make. Also does it hold for any length or will it have to be used up after a few days?

Deepsouthwest

The Cuban wrote: »

I`m tinkering with the idea of going down this route next year,
Does anyone make it to feed to calves? If so how does one go about it and how much at a time can you make. Also does it hold for any length or will it have to be used up after a few days?

Used it for most of this yr here, and v happy with it. Had a run of scour in most of the calves at one stage, but when switched to yogurt it cleared them all. Make it by adding one tub of natural yogurt to a bucket of warm milk and leaving over night in a warmish place, then add that bucket to a barrel of warm milk the following morning, and by that evening u should have yogurt to feed to calves. Take one bucket from that barrel and add to another barrel of warm milk and that will be the following mornings feed and continue like so. Hope u catch my drift and sorry for being so long-winded!

Sam Kade

I used yogurt milk when I was dairying. Great stuff it puts life in calves and boosts their immune system. Around the third year I used it a few calves got scour so I just gave them lectade in between feeds and it cleared them up straight away.

blue5000

Ya agree with deep sw, only difference I'd make is once a month start off with a new tub of yoghurt and clean everything in case some bad bugs start living in the yoghurt. Also milk with antibiotics and biestings is a no no.

The Cuban

Another question lads, sorry if this is a thick question (pardon the pun ) but how do you feed it to the calves ? I presume its too thick to go through a tit feeder.
Also how long will it hold good for in the barrel?

Sam Kade

The Cuban wrote: »

Another question lads, sorry if this is a thick question (pardon the pun ) but how do you feed it to the calves ? I presume its too thick to go through a tit feeder.
Also how long will it hold good for in the barrel?

Teat feeder just stir it first. If you keep adding fresh milk to a gallon of yogurt milk it will last a long time but you would be better off making a fresh batch every month. There is no need to clean out feeders either maybe clean them once a week. Yogurt milk is bacteria but it's good bacteria that's how it prevents scour.

RightTurnClyde

Sam Kade wrote: »

Teat feeder just stir it first. If you keep adding fresh milk to a gallon of yogurt milk it will last a long time but you would be better off making a fresh batch every month. There is no need to clean out feeders either maybe clean them once a week. Yogurt milk is bacteria but it's good bacteria that's how it prevents scour.

Sam is bang on. Been using it now 6 or 7 yrs. Yogurt gets fed her through milkbar teats here. Stir at every feed. I only fill the tank every 24 hrs. So one fill does 4 feeds. I find the longer you can leave it before you feed from your mix the better. Eg I feed before PM milking, the tank gets filled during the PM milking. First feed out of that tank is the following morning after AM milking, so it's well worked in at that stage. Tank and feeder gets washed maybe twice in the season. As Sam says the bacteria take over. That's what you're doing, culturing so much good bacteria that the bad bacteria doesn't get a chance, inside or outside the calf. As was said earlier, biestings and antibiotic milk are a big no no. Either will kill your yogurt.
Youll know it's working by the smell ( even the taste) , it's should have a good smell of natural yogurt

Greengrass1

Thinking of doing this for my autumn calves. Haven't fed whole milk in yrs because father kept getting scours. Will be over quota this year so need to get rid of milk somewhere.
I take it this is fed cold?
When you say barrel do you mean the 200l plastic ones?

RightTurnClyde

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Thinking of doing this for my autumn calves. Haven't fed whole milk in yrs because father kept getting scours. Will be over quota this year so need to get rid of milk somewhere.
I take it this is fed cold?
When you say barrel do you mean the 200l plastic ones?

Anything you can get it out of without contaminating it. Bucketing it out would be messy, if you had a barrel or and ibc with a tap on it l,'it would be ideal. I'm using a milkbar quad trailed tank. It's 500 litres and has 3/4 I inch valves to let out the yogi. If you are going to put a tap on a barrel make sure is 3/4 or 1 inch. The yogurt can get thick and can be slow to flow.

Greengrass1

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

Anything you can get it out of without contaminating it. Bucketing it out would be messy, if you had a barrel or and ibc with a tap on it l,'it would be ideal. I'm using a milkbar quad trailed tank. It's 500 litres and has 3/4 I inch valves to let out the yogi. If you are going to put a tap on a barrel make sure is 3/4 or 1 inch. The yogurt can get thick and can be slow to flow.

Ye I was thinking of putting a 200l barrel in the dairy and put a 1" tap on bottom of it.
I'll be feeding 25 calves there in October so don't want a massive amount of yogurt.
Although if it works well I will get an ibc for spring calves

visatorro

Ask a silly question, is it the same feeding ratio as in one litre of milk equals one litre of yoghurt? Can it be fed once a day?

RightTurnClyde

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Ye I was thinking of putting a 200l barrel in the dairy and put a 1" tap on bottom of it.
I'll be feeding 25 calves there in October so don't want a massive amount of yogurt.
Although if it works well I will get an ibc for spring calves

A barrel will just about do 25 if your feeding 3litres/calf.
75+75+start yogurt

RightTurnClyde

visatorro wrote: »

Ask a silly question, is it the same feeding ratio as in one litre of milk equals one litre of yoghurt? Can it be fed once a day?

Ya 1:1.
Havn't fed it once a day. But I would imagine it would work fine as OAD as you could feed much higher volumes because it's curdled.

Greengrass1

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

A barrel will just about do 25 if your feeding 3litres/calf.
75+75+start yogurt

So would I want something bigger?

RightTurnClyde

Greengrass1 wrote: »

So would I want something bigger?

Only if you're going over 25 calves or 3 litres. If you go to 30 calves for example, you're in bother, but at 25 calves it's perfect size

Greengrass1

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

Only if you're going over 25 calves or 3 litres. If you go to 30 calves for example, you're in bother, but at 25 calves it's perfect size

Only feeding calves 4l here of milk replacer. So could up it to 5l if yogurt works

Sam Kade

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Only feeding calves 4l here of milk replacer. So could up it to 5l if yogurt works

Believe me yogurt milk works, having being plagued with different types of calf scour for years and vaccinating and everything the only solution that worked for my calves was yogurt milk. When I started using yogurt milk I was even able to stop vaccinating cows with rotovec

Deepsouthwest

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

Only if you're going over 25 calves or 3 litres. If you go to 30 calves for example, you're in bother, but at 25 calves it's perfect size

A 200l barrel should feed 40 calves easily, but you'll need two barrels, u must have one barrel culturing. Feed out of barrel A tonight while adding one bucket of yogurt from A to barrel B and filling with warm milk, feed out of barrel B in the morning, while taking one bucket out of B and adding to A with warm milk for the following feed. I'm sure u get it

visatorro

Will milk with high cell count culture well? What if you took off low solids cows to make the yoghurt, would that defeat the purpose?

RightTurnClyde

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

A 200l barrel should feed 40 calves easily, but you'll need two barrels, u must have one barrel culturing. Feed out of barrel A tonight while adding one bucket of yogurt from A to barrel B and filling with warm milk, feed out of barrel B in the morning, while taking one bucket out of B and adding to A with warm milk for the following feed. I'm sure u get it

My routine is to fill at evening milking, then feed in the morning, feed in the evening before milking and top backup at evening milking.
( to make it simpler I only refill every second evening, ie mix lasts 48 hrs)
I've found the longer you can leave it before feeding out of it the better the results are. ( eg after 14 hrs& 23hrs). Everyone has their own routine and what suits them best.

Sam Kade

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Thinking of doing this for my autumn calves. Haven't fed whole milk in yrs because father kept getting scours. Will be over quota this year so need to get rid of milk somewhere.
I take it this is fed cold?
When you say barrel do you mean the 200l plastic ones?

Your father kept getting scours :eek::eek::eek::D:D::D

What I used for 40 cow herd was 2 rubbish bins the old cylinder type that hold around 12 gallons.

Deepsouthwest

visatorro wrote: »

Will milk with high cell count culture well? What if you took off low solids cows to make the yoghurt, would that defeat the purpose?

It's normally the cows with low protein that I dump for making yogurt, haven't noticed any issues. Not sure bout high cell cows, if they're high enough to affect the culturing then they shouldn't be kept anyway, they'll only end up infecting other cows

Deepsouthwest

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

My routine is to fill at evening milking, then feed in the morning, feed in the evening before milking and top backup at evening milking.
( to make it simpler I only refill every second evening, ie mix lasts 48 hrs)
I've found the longer you can leave it before feeding out of it the better the results are. ( eg after 14 hrs& 23hrs). Everyone has their own routine and what suits them best.

You're probably right about leaving it longer to culture properly, but if there's any specific cows u want to keep out of the tank then u might need to make a new batch every milking. Bottom line I think we'll all agree on is that yogurt is the business!

pms7

Friend of mine had it last 3 weeks in a tanker. Stirred with cordless drill. He puts all types of milk in it. Find it very handy this time of year when calves outside, I land a few barrels out with loader, does a week

visatorro

Have four calves left am gonna try yoghurt. Mixed the milk and natural yoghurt there after milking. Hopefully now in the morning it'll be lovely stuff

straight

How's it working out for you so far visatorro?

visatorro

Didn't culture for some reason. Must get another couple of tubs and try again

Deepsouthwest

visatorro wrote: »

Didn't culture for some reason. Must get another couple of tubs and try again

Did u use warm milk, and keep it warm?

Greengrass1

Got the barrel. Calving to start in two weeks.
Went looking for tap today. Biggest I could get was 3/4" too small?

RightTurnClyde

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Got the barrel. Calving to start in two weeks.
Went looking for tap today. Biggest I could get was 3/4" too small?

That's what I have. That's a grand size because it easy to get pipes to fit that size if you need a bucket. actually I've 2 of them beside each other on the tank... Can't be waiting around.

Greengrass1

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

That's what I have. That's a grand size because it easy to get pipes to fit that size if you need a bucket. actually I've 2 of them beside each other on the tank... Can't be waiting around.

That'll do. These are the plastic philmac ones

RightTurnClyde

Greengrass1 wrote: »

That'll do. These are the plastic philmac ones

Wait just checked, they're actually 1 inch. Ya have 2 of them, and they are the philmac ( the older ones)

pS, don't go smaller than that, or when it gets thick it'll be too slow

Greengrass1

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

Wait just checked, they're actually 1 inch. Ya have 2 of them, and they are the philmac ( the older ones)

pS, don't go smaller than that, or when it gets thick it'll be too slow

Can you remember where you got them ?
Looked in two places today and both only had 3/4

Greengrass1

I think my yogurt has gone wrong
Was going brilliant was getting fairly thick
I thought I had a bit too much milk in barrel so I used two days of yogurt and then put one days milk back in.
Now its gone thin and there is little luno2s in it.
Will I have to start again?

Deepsouthwest

Greengrass1 wrote: »

I think my yogurt has gone wrong
Was going brilliant was getting fairly thick
I thought I had a bit too much milk in barrel so I used two days of yogurt and then put one days milk back in.
Now its gone thin and there is little luno2s in it.
Will I have to start again?

Yes, and u better today because u'll be in Barcelona tomo!

Greengrass1

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Yes, and u better today because u'll be in Barcelona tomo!

Feck. Thanks

Greengrass1

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Yes, and u better today because u'll be in Barcelona tomo!

I presume running the yogurt down did it?
I put back any I didn't use too. That possibly did it too?

Deepsouthwest

Greengrass1 wrote: »

I presume running the yogurt down did it?
I put back any I didn't use too. That possibly did it too?

Or possibly milked a fresh or tubed cow into it. Any hint of antibiotics will kill the bacteria as well

Greengrass1

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Or possibly milked a fresh or tubed cow into it. Any hint of antibiotics will kill the bacteria as well

Ye there is a few fresh cows going into tank. All are tested before they go in though.
Would I be aswell pick out two cows for now?

Deepsouthwest

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Ye there is a few fresh cows going into tank. All are tested before they go in though.
Would I be aswell pick out two cows for now?

Probably wouldn't make a difference. I use cows that are generally low protein cows. I doubt if u have any of them with the milk results u've been posting lately. They make me wanna cry!

J.O. Farmer

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Ye there is a few fresh cows going into tank. All are tested before they go in though.
Would I be aswell pick out two cows for now?

The problem with fresh calved cows might be antibodies in the milk rather than antibiotics. If you pick a couple of cows the longer calved ones might be better.
If the milk is fit to go in the tank I presume withdrawal periods are well up and testing is precautionary. If the milk is passing the test and then being diluted further with other longer calved cows milk antibiotics shouldn't be a problem.
That said the same applies to antibodies so try a bigger amount of starter culture as leaving longer is probably not an option.

Greengrass1

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

The problem with fresh calved cows might be antibodies in the milk rather than antibiotics. If you pick a couple of cows the longer calved ones might be better.
If the milk is fit to go in the tank I presume withdrawal periods are well up and testing is precautionary. If the milk is passing the test and then being diluted further with other longer calved cows milk antibiotics shouldn't be a problem.
That said the same applies to antibodies so try a bigger amount of starter culture as leaving longer is probably not an option.

Ive been using it last 10 days no problem but then it went wrong when I added alot more milk than what was added.
I put 8 actimel into it this time

J.O. Farmer

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Ive been using it last 10 days no problem but then it went wrong when I added alot more milk than what was added.
I put 8 actimel into it this time

I think that a tub of natural yoghurt would be cheaper and will work maybe better. Just make sure it's a live culture yoghurt.

The batch of yoghurt that didn't work probably would have been fine if given enough time it's just that you diluted the starter culture too much and there wasn't enough bacteria to ferment the milk enough in the time you had. It's unlikely that you lost your entire culture.

RightTurnClyde

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

The batch of yoghurt that didn't work probably would have been fine if given enough time it's just that you diluted the starter culture too much and there wasn't enough bacteria to ferment the milk enough in the time you had. It's unlikely that you lost your entire culture.

That's more than likely it, too much out and not enough culture left in the barrel. Nights are getting colder, that would slow down the bacteria.

Greengrass1

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

I think that a tub of natural yoghurt would be cheaper and will work maybe better. Just make sure it's a live culture yoghurt.

The batch of yoghurt that didn't work probably would have been fine if given enough time it's just that you diluted the starter culture too much and there wasn't enough bacteria to ferment the milk enough in the time you had. It's unlikely that you lost your entire culture.

Yr I put a litre of natural yogi in. Was fairly thick after I added it to milk tonight. And was thickening 2 hrs later.
Should be good by morning but a wont know

J.O. Farmer

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Yr I put a litre of natural yogi in. Was fairly thick after I added it to milk tonight. And was thickening 2 hrs later.
Should be good by morning but a wont know

It should be perfect by morning. Bacteria are like grass they can be slow to start but once they get going and the conditions are right they go like hell. They'd obviously had a good start today. It's amazing what they can do in even 3-4 hours when going good. They'll be slowing down by morning though with the milk cooling and sugars getting used up.

Greengrass1

Think its gone tits up again. Very thin.

Milked out

How are the calves doing on it, much Improvement visible on last year's o more o less the same?

Greengrass1

Milked out wrote: »

How are the calves doing on it, much Improvement visible on last year's o more o less the same?

Absolutely brilliant. Other yrs they would be thin little lads this yr they have a body to them have loads if energy and eating a good sup of meal too

visatorro

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Think its gone tits up again. Very thin.

do you know what is goin wrong?
do you have to start a fresh mix now? you seem fairly happy with it otherwise, no scour, good thrive?

Greengrass1

visatorro wrote: »

do you know what is goin wrong?
do you have to start a fresh mix now? you seem fairly happy with it otherwise, no scour, good thrive?

Its very thin though. Go out in morn and there's like aload of froth on top of barrel. This leaves little lumps in it then.
Ye the heifers love it. One of the bull calves has a white dumg after it though