anyone else getting trouble with their tbc tests, its been creeping up for a few weeks now and its hit 35 last week and i,ve gone through the machine but can,t find anything, but talking to other suppliers i,m hearing the same complaints from them so is it only our area ?
high tbc tests
- Thread starter humungus
- Start date
scoffcruddle
Well-Known Member
I do alternate days alkaline and acid (milk stone remover) back when we had a jar plant we would use acid once a month.
I've had 6 months of odd tests but it's one of my tanker drivers to blame,poor training means he wasn't stirring the milk before sampling he also wasn't turning on the tank washer:curse: besides leaving the dairy door open.
Got to the stage I told my milk buyer I was banning him from collecting,he's not as bad as my Polish driver from 10 years back who was throwing the milk samples in the footwell of the wagon,on cold days we'd get some interesting results because he'd have the heater on full bore.
Your also at the mercy of the milk lab as to how the samples are stored once collected,I've had spikes in the past and it's been and gone in a week,I did find we have lower bactoscan results if we use peracetic acid in the final rinse and pre spraying cows teats with teat dip will have your count but takes more time,we have to be under 30 for top band,I've never missed but been close.
bruceythom
Well-Known Member
First place to look is your tank. First question is are you the first collection for the milk lorry on his run? Check the dosing pumps are working correctly on the tank. Literally get in to your tank with a torch and scrape the walls of it with your finger nails, there should be no residue on the stainless steel. Is your water hot enough? I mean hot, not 60° but 80° hot. Is the milk cooling quickly? If you have a plate cooler, then take it apart and clean it.
Pull a few clusters apart and check them. Open the milk vessel and check that. I'd be avoiding chlorine, but you might have to run a chlorine based detergent through your plant to get it under control until you find the source.
Don't get hung up on other people's results, there's something causing the bacteria to rise in you milk. like I say, look strongly at the tank.
Pull a few clusters apart and check them. Open the milk vessel and check that. I'd be avoiding chlorine, but you might have to run a chlorine based detergent through your plant to get it under control until you find the source.
Don't get hung up on other people's results, there's something causing the bacteria to rise in you milk. like I say, look strongly at the tank.
scoffcruddle
Well-Known Member
As I've two tanks I only look if one tank is high.
not first on the run for milk tanker , have done most of what you say already except gettting into the tank (do you realise how old i am
) but i,m pretty confident its spotless inside from viewing with a good light, i may have stumbled across the problem though as one of the plastic balls in the jars had a split in it and was full of milk but i haven,t had a collection since ,one of my detergent suppliers says he,s seeing a lot of it this winter and is putting it down to very high constituents in the milk especially butterfat
bruceythom
Well-Known Member
not first on the run for milk tanker , have done most of what you say already except gettting into the tank (do you realise how old i am
Fair enough! Yea, sounds like that could be the issue, would you think milk could have entered the vacuum line??
don,t think so but have washed out the vacuum line anyway and it made no difference, i,haven,t changed my detergents but some fellas are saying that since they banned chlorine the new detergents aren,t up to the job but thats not my thinking
bruceythom
Well-Known Member
I used chlorine once ever in our new machine, milking in it 12 months now, TBC running about 3 or 4 for the year. Sodium Hydroxide in powder form is an old and great detergent.
scoffcruddle
Well-Known Member
What detergents are you lads using?
Never heard of a chlorine ban.
Never heard of a chlorine ban.
due next month but i,ll change them this week to rule them out
using sodium hydroxide (hydrosan plus is the brand name) powder in the machine and liquid form in the bulk tank , descaler once a week and grassland agro hypred once a month, glanbia don,t want chlorine used as it can be found in milk samples that are used for baby food i think but brucey will know for sure
thefarminglad
Well-Known Member
Question as regards first collection on run, how does that effect your TBC as i have had that probem during 2018 for a few months and anytime i had a high TBC i would ring guy who was collected after me and he would be high too. Both of us seem to drop and rise at same time.
bruceythom
Well-Known Member
Has been known to happen, lorry tankers equipment not clean enough. Just be very careful before suggesting it!!
kverneland es 80
Well-Known Member
I see ecolab have stopped selling hydrosan since the new yr.we used to use it here found that it was the only thing to keep the meters clean.
jpt
Well-Known Member
Dairygolds cold circulation cleaner is the same stuff.
bruceythom
Well-Known Member
Had trouble with that 10 years ago and spent ages looking for water and kept getting excessive water warnings. Turned out that we were slightly freezing the edges of the milk in the tank on first cooling and although we thought it was thawed, there was still small amounts of frosting within the milk, this drives the "water content" in the milk mad. It only ever happened at the shoulders of the year when there was small volumes of milk in the tank. Turning the tank on and off for the first milking got us out of this issue. There would want to be a substantial amount of water in the lorry's line to raise it significantly. Make sure the milk is agitated properly before the milk is collected.
nashmach
Well-Known Member
On your second last sentence, Bruce, I see Greenfields have been having issues with water in the milk too.
BasilSeal
Well-Known Member
We had a similar problem to this a few years back, i was pulling my hair out over it, spent a lot of time and money trying to solve it and had big chunks knocked off the milk cheque in quality fines because of it, what it eventually turned out to be was the driver not using an ice pack in the sample box, so the sample was warming up, being first on the collection run meant ours had longer to warm up so was the worst.
bruceythom
Well-Known Member
Its something the processors could inform suppliers of, seemingly happens quite a bit at the shoulders, its fairly obvious when you learn as the constituents in the milk will remain high but all of a sudden you've a load of water in the milk.