Dairying

We've taken to storing it in 2 litre bottles like coke bottles etc in the freezer. So for anything that calves outside of milking times we feed the calf with the frozen colostrum, then we save the first milking again in bottles at the next milking.
Do the same here, use 1 litre bottles as well, they can defrost faster. Some online shop are selling bags it think, they may be faster. Vaccinate everything with rotavec as well
 
Anybody here using a portable milking machine. Looking for something to plug in and bring to a pen to get a drop of beestings for a calf. Was going to use our old machine and mount it in the shed but was told it would cost more to get it up and running as a new one. I see clippers direct have one but looking 950e I think for it
I use a old milking bucket with a pulsator on it have a garden hose ran from the vacuum line in the parlour to the calving shed .great job
 
Ya I get you. I want a yoke no matter what time you can get a drop of milk for the calf. I hate standing beside a cow milking by hand so soon after calving in case she ended on top of me or one of the lads
I assume you have a calving gate to tie her up when hand milking?
 
Are many of ye vaccinating for rotavirus?
We had issues with it 3 years ago, vaccinated the last 2 and while the severity of the virus was slightly reduced I don’t know was it worth the €10 per cow.
Do any of ye feed the soya and oats mix pre calving to improve colostrum quality? What rate of each and for how long pre calving? This is the route we have decided to take this year, that and a lot of power washing and extra cleaning etc, time will tell if this is right or wrong but you’d buy a nice bit of soya and oats for the €10 per cow.
1 kg soya and 1 kg mm .and do the last 50 cows with the cheap version of rotavac
 
I vaccinated the last 40 cows last year with rotovac Corona as that was where we always ran into problems and it definitely reduced the amount of problems with calf scour.
 
I’m old fashioned but I just leave it in a bucket in the dairy with a cover over it. It’s usually stuff from that day morning or evening milking. When I need it I put it in a bottle and drop it into a bucket of hot water to heat it up.
We do the same.👍
Also have some in the freezer but very rarely need it,just make sure you label it in the freezer,once thawed some out to find it was turkey soup.😂
 
Are many of ye vaccinating for rotavirus?
We had issues with it 3 years ago, vaccinated the last 2 and while the severity of the virus was slightly reduced I don’t know was it worth the €10 per cow.
Do any of ye feed the soya and oats mix pre calving to improve colostrum quality? What rate of each and for how long pre calving? This is the route we have decided to take this year, that and a lot of power washing and extra cleaning etc, time will tell if this is right or wrong but you’d buy a nice bit of soya and oats for the €10 per cow.
Didn't vaccinate for rotavirus in year 1 and had a fair bit of scour even though sheds never had calves in them before. Vaccinated with Rotavec last year. Priced around, got it for €8.30 per cow. Very few scour problems and a much smaller vet bill. Can't be sure the vaccination was the difference but we did it again this year.
 
I use a old milking bucket with a pulsator on it have a garden hose ran from the vacuum line in the parlour to the calving shed .great job
Used to be able to do it when we were in the old parlour. But the bucket has more holes in it then a land drainage pipe now
 
Does it take long to defrost? A good few lads around here refrigerate some colostrum during peak calving, always have a supply on hand ready to go.
Could be 40 minutes in hot water from the water tank in the parlour to be fair. Its great if you're on your own though and have no one to help get the cow out the pen to the parlour.
 
Could be 40 minutes in hot water from the water tank in the parlour to be fair. Its great if you're on your own though and have no one to help get the cow out the pen to the parlour.
why hot water, persume you mean water at body temp, as with hot your destroying the proteins and antibodies
 
I use ziplock freezer bags that you get in the supermarket. Depending on size of bag either 1/
2 or 1 litre a bag. Lay them down flat on a baking tray when freezing them. They thaw down alot quicker than bottles as greater surface area. When peak calving have buckets of fresh biestings in dairy. Use bovigen scour vaccine last couple years, rotavec before that..... most important thing that we do each winter, cuts out so much f#$king hassle with sick calves. 3 years ago we got bad dose of flu and didnt vaccinate the cows until february, but paid the price. We now do the earlier calvers before xmas and the rest in jan. Last year i bought electrolytes in jan to have in stock in case of hassle with lockdowns, they were never opened.
On the scour vaccine do you feed that mothers milk for 14 days as recommended? We never did the scour vaccine here and had a bad run of scour later on in season last spring we had full intentions of doing it this year but heard from others that you need to feed that fresh milk for 14 days and that just isnt an option really here would add more work to the whole system although maybe theyd get some value from that colostrum anyway? Noticeable difference with the vaccine anyway?
 
On the scour vaccine do you feed that mothers milk for 14 days as recommended? We never did the scour vaccine here and had a bad run of scour later on in season last spring we had full intentions of doing it this year but heard from others that you need to feed that fresh milk for 14 days and that just isnt an option really here would add more work to the whole system although maybe theyd get some value from that colostrum anyway? Noticeable difference with the vaccine anyway?
I really doubt anyone feeds it for 14 days
 
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