Dairy Focus Blog
Teat spray nozzles can lead a hard life!
The plastic ends do not cope well with concrete in dairies, they can wear rapidly, and replacement spray guns are not cheap!
A simple method of protecting nozzles with rubber from an old used liner can save the nozzle from the ravages of life in a dairy, significantly extending their lifespan.
Spring calving has started and calving is a critical time for mastitis control.
It is a really busy time, but here are two easy-to-implement hints that come at almost zero cost, yet they are likely to have a significant impact!
Read more: Two hints to reduce the risk of mastitis at calving
There are a few places left at a Cups On Cups Off course arranged by the Dairy Focus team to run on November 29th & 30th at Tallygaroopna in Nth Vic.
This is a great opportunity to attend a Cups On Cups Off course trained by Rod Dyson with Rob Moyle present to answer all your machine queries.
Contact the Dairy Focus office on 03 5859 0706 or NCDEA/GoTafe if you are interested in this last course before the end of the year.
In early 2010, Dairy Focus was asked to assist a farm in northern Victoria which had experienced a rapidly increasing Bulk Milk Cell Count to the point where it reached over 2,000,000 cells/ml at one stage!
Milk cultures quickly established that the herd was experiencing an explosive outbreak of Strep agalactiae (Strep ag) mastitis - urgent action was needed as supply of milk with a BMCC at this level could not continue.
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| Leon McCabe at work in the dairy |
At Yarramundee, on the bank of the Murray River, there is always a focus on mastitis.
Day-to-day mastitis management for the 1100 cow herd rests with herd manager, Leon McCabe - and Leon just does not want the hassle of dealing with mastitis!
"We haven't had a clinical case for 6 weeks" - Leon McCabe, Yarramundee, Murray Region, 1100 cows
The herd has been using the Dairy Focus Mastitis Control System for several years now, and the success has been obvious, with the herd consistently below all the Countdown Downunder mastitis triggers.In particular, the level of clinical mastitis is very low - commonly only one or two cows being treated, and sometimes none at all.
In fact Leon now says, "If I get to five cases of mastitis, I'm stressed - REALLY stressed!"
The heart of the Dairy Focus Mastitis Control System for Yarramundee has been to make the farm "low risk for mastitis", particularly in the dairy shed operation.In fact, Leon and the milk harvesting team have now achieved a new record low score on their regular Dairy Focus Mastitis Risk Assessment of only 8 points out of 60 - a truly low risk result!
Dairy Focus has been quick to congratulate Leon and the team on this remarkably low score, "It is several points lower in risk than any other farm we have assessed - a fantastic result", said Rod Dyson.
Leon's response to this result was simple, "Next time I want us to score 7 or even less", he said.
Farm manager Scott Bray has estimated that receiving premium milk payments returns about $71,000 per year - with an additional $50,000 per year saved from having reduced the level of clinical cases from what it once was.
Scott says the not-so-obvious bonus benefit has been in staff morale - Yarramundee has an extremely low staff turnover."Treating a lot of cows with mastitis is stressful, and thankfully, our staff don't have that stress these days", said Scott.
For more information, call the Dairy Focus office on (03) 58590706 or follow the links below -