From CountDown DownUnder

A special milking routine for fresh cow

Treating and managing cases of mastitis in a freshly-calved herd can be a nightmare - especially when there is no way of telling if the first few cases represent only the tip of the iceberg. To avoid being overwhelmed with mastitis at calving, it pays to put energy into prevention.  A good starting point is to give fresh cows a little extra TLC (tender loving care) when they come into the milking shed the first few times.

Cows are subject to many pressures around calving. Their teats have not been cleaned, disinfected or looked after in any way for the 6 to 8 weeks spent in the dry paddock. When they come into the shed, their udders are probably dirty from the calving pad or paddock. As well, their teats will be slightly swollen with fresh milk and tender to touch.

Any actions that reduce the number of bacteria near the teat end at milking and improve teat health will minimise the risk of new mastitis infections occurring. Having a special routine for fresh cows can help to make this happen.

This routine should include:
  • Drafting fresh cows and milking them first;
  • Preparing their teats before every milking for the first 8 milkings; and
  • Checking foremilk from each quarter for at least the first 8 milkings.

The main advantage of handling fresh cows as a separate mob is that they can be milked before the main herd when the equipment is at its cleanest. A separate mob also makes it possible to take a bit of extra time when bringing the cows into the shed, so they become familiar with the routine and are calm and ready to let-down milk by the time the cups go on. This practice especially benefits young cows coming into the shed for the first time, when both the facilities and milking routine are unfamiliar.

Washing and drying teats before the first few milkings helps to ease cows back into the milking routine. More importantly, it ensures that teat skin is clean at this time, when the udder is highly vulnerable to infection.

Foremilk stripping all quarters of all cows in the colostrum mob is highly recommended by Countdown Downunder because it helps detect and treat early cases of clinical mastitis. A cow has clinical mastitis if the foremilk has clots, wateriness or discolouration that persists for 3 or more squirts.

To give fresh cows that extra attention they need, why not allocate extra staff time in the milking shed for the first few milkings?

Are your machines ready to milk fresh cows?

When freshly-calved cows first come into the shed their teats are no longer soft and supple and accustomed to being milked. If there was ever a time for taking extra care to ensure the milking machine is not doing damage, this is it.

It can take a few milkings for teats to re-acclimatise to the milking machine after calving. During this time, it is important to keep machine comfort factors high, including keeping the vacuum strength to a minimum.

Things to look for are:

Poor condition of teatcup liners.
  • Make sure that teatcup liners are not nearing the end of their effective life (2500 cow milkings for rubber liners). It is NOT good policy to use older liners that have been "worn in" on heifers. All liners develop very small cracks over time, even if they are not obvious. These cracks can harbour bacteria - including the bacteria that cause mastitis.

     

Effective pulsation from the milking machine.
  • Make sure that the machine has been recently serviced. Then you can be confident that the tight, tender teats of freshly-calved cows are being massaged effectively by pulsation during milking.

     

Appropriate height for test buckets for those who have high-line sheds and use test buckets on fresh cows.
  • If the test bucket is used at or below the height of the claw, there is a risk of damaging teat health because the extra vacuum needed to lift milk into the milk-line will be operating at the cluster. This issue can be avoided by milking the fresh cows as a separate group through the normal milking system and diverting the milk from the vat.


Healthy teats rely on the good operation and use of milking machines. The daily and weekly checks of machine function listed in the Countdown Downunder Farm Guidelines for Mastitis Control will alert you to emerging problems.

This article has been modified from the Countdown Downunder Farm Guidelines.



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