Bactoscan tips

[William Mellor]

Mine are always round to 30-60 mark, but has been rising since I house the milkers at night. Cows are wiped with a clean paper towel before milking, would pre dipping help? Line is washed out with peracitic acid at night with cold water and hot water and hypochloride in a morning. Is there anything else I can do to lower it?

 

[Princess Pooper]

checked your tank wash recently? Best thing is to get a proper detailed test done that can help identify where the problem is.

 

[Cows 'n grass]

I think I'd want to use more than just hypo with the hot wash. I think the caustic powders do a better job than the liquids.

As pp said you can get a test done to see if the bugs are from the cows, the plant or the tank. Whoever sells you chemicals should be able to organise it.

Whenever we have issues it's always the tank.

 

[peclova]

Mine are always round to 30-60 mark, but has been rising since I house the milkers at night. Cows are wiped with a clean paper towel before milking, would pre dipping help? Line is washed out with peracitic acid at night with cold water and hot water and hypochloride in a morning. Is there anything else I can do to lower it?

It may be worth noting: hypo only sanitizes it does not clean.

 

[jade35]

I think I'd want to use more than just hypo with the hot wash. I think the caustic powders do a better job than the liquids.

As pp said you can get a test done to see if the bugs are from the cows, the plant or the tank. Whoever sells you chemicals should be able to organise it.

Whenever we have issues it's always the tank.

Or NML / NMR if they test milk samples for your milk buyer https://www.nmr.co.uk/health/microbiology

Parlour Hygiene Suite Service
What is it?

This involves a traditional culture technique whereby any live microbes in the milk are grown under a range of conditions. We then count the number of microbial colonies to determine the level and presence of:

• Psychrotrophs
• Thermodurics
• Coliforms
• A Total Variable Count (TVC)

Why should you do it?

If your Bactoscan levels are rising, this can be caused by bacteria most commonly related to the milking parlour and cleanliness of the milking plant. This service will help pinpoint specific areas that could be causing high Bactoscan results such as the bulk tank cleaning, plant cleaning or contamination from dirty udders.

 

[Headless chicken]

Hypo is no good in a hot wash. You need a chemical that will pick up the fats and carry it out with it.

What do you use in the tank?

 

[Splitpin]

Predipping will help yes. Its worth about 10 points to me. I only Pre dip when I need to as I'm only interested in getting in the top bands and most of the time I can manage it without doing it

 

[Penmoel]

We are having a few problems and as I have put on another thread are currently looking at the tank wash which I noted today only got to 37 degrees, is that hot enough?? Meuller DX tank.

Another thought is the Ambic milk filter , how do any of you wash this at present as the dairy engineer said we leave it in for the wash cycle, should it not be in some solution or other all day as we used to 30 years ago? Or should we bin it and use a sock filter???

 

[jimmer]

We are having a few problems and as I have put on another thread are currently looking at the tank wash which I noted today only got to 37 degrees, is that hot enough?? Meuller DX tank.

Another thought is the Ambic milk filter , how do any of you wash this at present as the dairy engineer said we leave it in for the wash cycle, should it not be in some solution or other all day as we used to 30 years ago? Or should we bin it and use a sock filter???

i would go sock filter personally
i rinse off before wash goes around , then leave in for wash , i make a sock do three or four milking at least

 

[jimmer]

my tank wash water is usaually 50-52
you can get a 48 hr timer so as to only heat it again up a few hours before tanker comes

 

[TheRanger]

We are having a few problems and as I have put on another thread are currently looking at the tank wash which I noted today only got to 37 degrees, is that hot enough?? Meuller DX tank.

Should be above 50 degrees. But check the actual temperature of the water coming out rather than going with the display on the tank.

 

[jimmer]

Mine are always round to 30-60 mark, but has been rising since I house the milkers at night. Cows are wiped with a clean paper towel before milking, would pre dipping help? Line is washed out with peracitic acid at night with cold water and hot water and hypochloride in a morning. Is there anything else I can do to lower it?

get a hose pipe and run water up one of the liners on each cluster to flush out any deposits , do it for a couple of milkings and it will tell you if you are cleaning teats well enough

 

[jimmer]

 

[William Mellor]

I think I'd want to use more than just hypo with the hot wash. I think the caustic powders do a better job than the liquids.

As pp said you can get a test done to see if the bugs are from the cows, the plant or the tank. Whoever sells you chemicals should be able to organise it.

Whenever we have issues it's always the tank.

Use a powder two mornings a week instead of hypochlorite but can't just think what it's called

get a hose pipe and run water up one of the liners on each cluster to flush out any deposits , do it for a couple of milkings and it will tell you if you are cleaning teats well enough

after every cow or just after the last batch of cows at the end of milking?

Hypo is no good in a hot wash. You need a chemical that will pick up the fats and carry it out with it.

What do you use in the tank?

a tank was, can't think off the top of my head what it's called but had this tank fitted in the spring (second hand but had really been well looked after by its previous owners who I may add had never had a bacto scan issue) and was recommend by the tank fitters and previous owners.

We are having a few problems and as I have put on another thread are currently looking at the tank wash which I noted today only got to 37 degrees, is that hot enough?? Meuller DX tank.

Another thought is the Ambic milk filter , how do any of you wash this at present as the dairy engineer said we leave it in for the wash cycle, should it not be in some solution or other all day as we used to 30 years ago? Or should we bin it and use a sock filter???

My tank wash has a water heater which washes out at over 80 degree(can't be attually sure of exact figure as washes at night but going on gauge on the heater). My tank I may add is a Fullwood ice bank which is 19 years old

 

[Blue.]

We are having a few problems and as I have put on another thread are currently looking at the tank wash which I noted today only got to 37 degrees, is that hot enough?? Meuller DX tank.

Another thought is the Ambic milk filter , how do any of you wash this at present as the dairy engineer said we leave it in for the wash cycle, should it not be in some solution or other all day as we used to 30 years ago? Or should we bin it and use a sock filter???

My tank wash is at about 50 and the bacto is in the teens,my ice bank tank has cold water washing using iodine and that's also in the teens.


When my neighbour gave over milking they milked three cows for the house after a week they couldn't drink the milk as it tasted so bad,they had given over storing the filters in hypo/water mix,when they started again the milk was fine.

I just use about half a cup of hypo in 3gallon of water and change every 3 weeks or so.

Try the hypo solution for a couple of weeks it's a minimal cost.

 

[jimmer]

@William Mellor
i do every cow , bacto in teens

 

[William Mellor]

@William Mellor
i do every cow , bacto in teens

Might try that tomorrow then at least I'll know if it's the cleaning of the teats then

 

[Cowwilf]

I find its normally the tank that's the problem, fullwood dx the agitator gets a visible build up every so often.
Or the vacuum line in the parlour if some milk has got in it, running a hot wash through it sorts it out.

 

[Princess Pooper]

My tank wash has a water heater which washes out at over 80 degree(can't be attually sure of exact figure as washes at night but going on gauge on the heater). My tank I may add is a Fullwood ice bank which is 19 years old

If it washes at 80 degrees then that suggests it NEEDS to be at that temperature for your system. Have you checked it recently? Something as simple as a change in pick-up time for the tanker may mean it is not reaching full heat. We had a problem with ours not reaching heat and it was a fault in the printed circuit. The other 'classic' of course, although if this has been building for a few weeks not relevant here, is not changing time clocks on water heaters when the clocks change, or for washout water as milking takes longer or less due to calving pattern or changes in routine.

Do you put the chemicals in manually, or could there be an issue with the amount of chems drawn in. Also when did you last change your liners, cracked liner can push the bactos up although probably a lot higher than yours. Lots of potential problems which is why being able to isolate to cows, plant or bulk tank at least reduces the wild goose chase element

 

[Sid]

Start with clean teats and you'll reduce the bacto loading in the first place.
We have predipped for 15 years and have bactos in the teens , we get a bonus for being so as well.
We run two tanks so its gives us an indication of if we have a plant/cow or tank issue. One ice bank one DX. I like the flexibility and the baseline for bacto issues