Good Morning,

The December 2008 issue of Cowscope is now available for viewing on the Jefferson County webpage at: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cty/jefferson/ag/Cowscope08.html

If you have any questions, please contact Ken Bolton, Dairy and Livestock Agent at kenneth.bolton@ces.uwex.edu or Kim Buchholz, Administrative Secretary at kimb@co.jefferson.wi.us .

 Thank you.

Here is the October 2008 edition of Cowscope which is written by Ken Bolton, UW-Extension, Jefferson County Dairy and Livestock Agent. Please refer to our website for the newsletter at the following link:

http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cty/jefferson/ag/documents/CowscopeOct08.pdf

 Enjoy!

In this paper the collective experience and knowledge of members of the Teat Club International have been applied to

• describing effective treatments, changes in management or changes in machine settings that appear to provide successful solutions for particular teat condition problems in commercial herds;
• indicating the expected time scale - after the start of a successful treatment or management change - until improvements in teat condition should become evident;
• providing an estimate of the degree of confidence attached to each recommendation or conclusion.

Click on this link for the full paper.

http://www.uwex.edu/uwmril/pdf/MilkMachine/TeatConditionEval/07%20NMC%20TCI%20-Addressing%20teat%20condition[1].pdf

This paper reports on a study of the influenc of liners on teat end hyperkeretosis (rough and cracked teat ends). The teat canal is an important barrier against microorganism invasion of the udder. The degree of teat-end hyperkeratosis (HK) is a dynamic condition. Development of HK is influenced by many factors: some animal dependent, some dependent from seasonal condition and some from milking management. In particular milking vacuum and liner compression (LC) can influence teat-end condition. A quarter-udder experiment was performed with four liners each applied one quarter of 75 Holstein cows for a period of 3 weeks. Teat-end HK was assessed weekly. The results of this study confirm that the risk developing HK increases with liners that apply greater pressure to the teat end when closed. The risk of developing HK was highly influenced by the duration of milking and initial teat-end HK score.

For the full paper click on this link.

http://www.uwex.edu/uwmril/pdf/MilkMachine/MilkMachine/Liners/08%203798%20ASABE%20Zucali%20Liner%20Compression%20and%20HK.pdf

This paper presents a new method was developed to quantify bacteria on bovine teats prior to milking. Previous methods using swabs to recover bacteria from teat skin have shown a high degree of variability in the amount of bacteria recovered depending on the amount of pressure applied to the teat/swab interface, the variability in the surface area of the teat swabbed, and the choice of the area to swab as the entire teat surface cannot be practically swabbed. This new method uses a single towel moistened with water to recover soil and bacteria from all four teats of each individual cow. Bacteria are then recovered from the towel and suspended in a sterile water solution. This solution is then cultured and tested using direct microscopic methods. Data are presented from several case studies which were designed to detect differences between different bedding management strategies on the bacteria population on the teats of cows as they entered the milking parlor as well as to detect the efficacy of pre milking teat sanitation in both conventional and automatic (robotic) milking facilities.

Click on this link for the full Paper.

http://www.uwex.edu/uwmril/pdf/MilkMachine/MilkMachine/PerformanceTesting/083796%20ASABE%20Bade%20Method%20for%20Assessing%20Udder%20Hygiene.pdf