Jumping the Moon Dairy - the next chapter

[Bayleaf Meadows]

If I had a dairy, I think I would follow Farmerjan's advice. A dairy has enough issues when all is going well that culling those who could be chronic health problems would give me a little more peace of mind and better sleep. Even keeping a goat that I was attached to as a non-milking pet and not bred would weigh on me, I think. Regardless, I am praying your dairy passes all the tests now that you have identified the sick goats.

 

[babsbag]

@farmerjan Thank you for the good advice. The one doe that has 1/2 an udder is leaving this weekend. She actually milks well, raised triplets even, but you are right that she is not worth keeping when it threatens my license or the health of the rest of the herd. The one with the 1/2 that is small I am waiting on the culture for one main reason...she is polled. If she isn't contagious she can stay and I don't care if I never milk her again if she gives me polled doelings. I hate disbudding with a passion and any doe that can increase polled does in my herd gets a pass as long as they aren't "typhoid Mary". Her line does milk very well too, which of course if a big plus. The one with Staph I would like to treat as she is just an all around good doe and I would love a daughter from her at some point. Last year she gave me triplet bucks.

I will be culling some does this year or building a bigger dairy. My bulk tank holds 50 gallons and my pasteurizer is only 30. I do not want to pasteurize twice a day unless I find a quicker way to cool the milk. If I am making cheese it isn't bad as it only needs to go down to 86°. But if I am bottling it needs to get down to about 45° and it just takes too long. Two batches in a day would be my undoing. I have 17 doelings to add to the milk line next year and with the ones I already have I should be way over my goal of 30 gallons a day. I only milk once a day so production is not what some people get but I have a life so I am ok with milking a few more instead of pushing them to produce. I also have a hard time emotionally pulling kids at birth so some of my does raise their kids which means I get less milk too; but I am ok with that.

 

[Baymule]

You know us too well! Plus I beat @Baymule to it.

Yes you beat me to it.

 

[farmerjan]

@babsbag ; I get the polled thing. I hate dehorning and leave it to the vet when I do bangs vaccinations.
In goats are they the same as cattle as far as the genetics for polled? If so, why not find and invest in a polled buck? Anything we breed to our angus bulls automatically have polled calves. Yes they carry the horned gene, but the first generation are all polled. Maybe you can't find the right genetics in polled. There are now several polled dairy bulls to use. The better genetics are still in some of the older families of dairy cattle; but there is that option.

I am not sure of the answer for the quicker cooling of the milk. I do know that many dairies use a plate cooler here, but that cools the milk directly from the animals to the bulk tank. There ought to be a way to incorporate that into use after the pastuerizing... it has the added benefit of pre-heating the water that goes into the water heaters, that is used in the barns and some use it to put warm water directly into a water trough for the cows. I will have to think a bit if there is anyone doing something different.

I also get the letting the does raise the kids and getting less milk.... but watch that they are not contributing to the bacteria. There is a possibility of transfer even with you cleaning and sanitizing the udders. The bacteria can move from the kids mouths, to the teat, to inside the udder, and may be a possible source.... just a thought.

I would definitely go after treating the staph mastitis and any other ones that you see, and then make decisions after that. Also, if you get a hard to clear up case or one that is chronically up & down...when you dry off, dry treat aggressively and then re-treat after a week or two. You may have to withold the milk from the tank a little longer... but sometimes it works best at dry off treating it .

 

[babsbag]

@farmerjan, polled genetics in goats are different as you don't always get polled, it is a 50/50 chance and even with two polled parents you won't always get polled. There is also a lot of debate on breeding polled x polled and hermaphrodites; however I have looked for a polled buck with good genetics and just haven't found one.

I looked at plate coolers and part of the problem of using them in the fashion that I want to use them is cleaning them. I have no CIP for the processing room so it gets complicated. Right now I have a 160 gallon chiller that pumps 37° water into the jacket of the pasteurizer but the recovery is pretty slow. The chiller sits outside and when it is 115° outside it just can't keep up. I cool the milk to about 75° with water from the well and then start using the chiller but it still struggles. We are planning on putting some more insulation around it and shade it better before next summer and hope that helps; also thinking of putting propylene glycol in the water so I can lower the temp and not have it freeze.

The lab wasn't able to get an antibiotic sensitivity for me so I am going to treat with Today and retest her. She is still milking really well and I am not quite ready to dry her off but I will keep the dry treatment in mind.

 

[farmerjan]

@babsbag ; thanks for the info on the polled goats. I do know that in cattle, the ones with the "brahma" type horn genes, longhorns, watusi, brahmas, etc., there is not always a suppression and horns do show up. Didn't think of that until you mentioned the chances in goats. Are there any breeds of goats that are strictly polled, like angus in cattle? Are any of them dairy breeds? I just did a quick search and see where there is some concern about the offspring being hermaphrodites.... glad we don't have to deal with that in cattle although I am sure there are occasional cases, it is not from being polled. Lots of beef cattle are polled. Sorry that is such a complication in the goats.

Yeah, plate coolers have to have CIP in order to get them clean. Sorry that is not an option. I like the idea of the propylene glycol to drop the freezing point and making the water "colder"...

Ask your vet about Pirsue - a mastitis treatment like Today but can only get from the vet. Alot of my dairy farmers use it for hard to treat cases. Don't know if it is gram pos or neg but they seem to have better luck with it. We also have an over the counter one here that has either penicillin in it or gallimycin... been awhile since I used any so I can't remember but I think it is pen. I know there is talk about the resistance of germs to pen, but if you seldom use it, it will usually do a good job of knocking something out in your animal. It is when they are used repeatedly that it seems the "bugs" build up a resistance. I would also try doubling the length of time treated so that it can kill anything that might even be a little resistant. Sure it is more time out of the tank, but you can feed it to the kids instead. Triple your witholding time to be on the safe side unless you can do an antibiotic test, like the Snap test, for cattle milk.

 

[Baymule]

What in the world do organic dairies do to combat mastitis? Do they treat the animal and then sell it?

 

[farmerjan]

@Baymule ; yes, in most cases, if the approved treatments that can be used in organic dairies do not work, they will use antibiotics, and then the cow is sold. She will never be able to be "organic" again. One farmer that I used to test, his cousin was certified organic. He would wind up with some of the cows after they were treated and the milk was tested safe to go back in the tank. So this farmer would take the cow, and sometimes just milk her out until her production dropped off, and it is ALWAYS the "good cows" that get mastitis, and then ship her or if she was a good cow sometimes he actually just "bought her" and kept her in his herd.
There is a big difference in most udder treatments for witholding of milk and witholding for slaughter. So a cow that can be milked in the tank will have residue in her meat for a longer period of time. Organic dairies are great in theory, but what most people don't realize is that the cost to the farmer that it extolls when a good animal gets sick. I am not against the whole organic thing; but as I try to put it to average people who just go "nuts" over the antibiotic thing, that organic is the only way to go.... most farmers do not use it if there is an alternative that will work. But if needed, then they do. Don't forget, any antibiotic treatment means that lost production is lost income to the farmer. So it is in their best interest to NOT have to use antibiotics.
And I always say.... if your child was sick and an antibiotic would cure it , are you going to refuse it? We as much have overused antibiotics in humans if not more. But if that is what it takes to make a child well, why is an animal not allowed the same ???? I do not use many "drugs" on our cattle; but there are times that they are the quickest and most efficient way to cure a problem, and get the animal back to health. We try to breed for resistance to environmental problems, but there are things you cannot always anticipate.

This rain, wet, and mud has become a major problem for many dairy farmers. It seems that a great percentage of them are having cows come in fresh with mastitis. These are cows that are kept in pastures for their dry period, not mud up to their ears, type of lots. You can only combat so much when the environment is conspiring to cause problems.
I would not be certified organic for all the money in the world, yet I do believe in the basic principles. Sometimes, I think that common sense is what most should take into consideration. I prefer to use natural and wholistic type treatments for things, but sometimes it doesn't do what needs to be done WHEN it needs to be done.

 

[Baymule]

I totally agree. I try to not use chemicals but sometimes, organic is just not workable. The overall health of my animals comes first and if it takes a chemical wormer or antibiotics to care properly for them, then that is what I do. I prefer to keep them as chemical free as possible, but I won't let that keep me from seeing to their overall welfare.

 

[babsbag]

I feel the same even about using pesticides on plants, I try to do everything without any chemicals, be it for animal or plant. But there are times (even with being a bee keeper) that I bring out the big guns for aphid control as it is either do it or lose the entire plant and crop.

I could never afford to go organic as organic alfalfa is off the chart expensive, if I can even find it.