Bedding for Dairy

[Yorkshire farmer1]

Can i have some advice please people. We have 300 cows and looking at changing bedding for the coming winter. What are other people using and what are your experiences. Currently on sawdust from local supplier at the moment but last few month more and more cases of mastitis have cropped up. Not ruling sawdust out all together but maybe a higher grade or try paper?. Thanks in advance.

 

[___\0/___]

We use no bedding just mats. 100 cows and 5 treated for mastitis last year. Miby not what you wanted to hear though.

 

[Yorkshire farmer1]

thanks, interested in all responses. My old man has always been sawdust sawdust but im having my doubts at the minute

 

[coomoo]

Shepards bagged kiln dried here with lime dusted each milking. Beds also done 3 times a week with a powder called staldren.

 

[Fergieman]

Lime and local sawmill sawdust every morning.

 

[More to life]

We use no bedding just mats. 100 cows and 5 treated for mastitis last year. Miby not what you wanted to hear though.

That's interesting is your cell count ok,any other health issues ?

 

[___\0/___]

That's interesting is your cell count ok,any other health issues ?

Im going to regret saying this but not any real problems (*waits for everything to go tits up*)
Cell count sits around 150 most of the winter scrape the slats twice a day to keep things clean. We are a closed herd on a basic system in the winter with cake in the parlour and silage so cows are not pushed to hard (average around 8000 litres depending on year). We had a problem year about 8 years ago and changed our parlour routine to iodine pre dip the dry wipe and a good post dip and no problems since.

 

[Blue.]

Shepards bagged kiln dried here with lime dusted each milking. Beds also done 3 times a week with a powder called staldren.

Who sells Staldren?

How much do you use in a week?

 

[coomoo]

Get mine through feed company. Use something like 2 calf bucket fulls/100 cubicles as I say do it by hand on top of clean bedded cubicles n personally think it's brilliant stuff. Also do calving boxes whenever mucked aswell.

 

[GrassChopper]

Not ruling sawdust out all together but maybe a higher grade or try paper?. Thanks in advance.

If its paper you need saw a new one in the Gurdian advert section for kiln dried paper, think its the people who used to make envirobed now selling direct from their factory instead, same stuff just a different name of cozi-bed, alot cheaper as well

Platts do some antibac sawdust too, and think they selling bulk powderbed now too rather than bags. Always seems expensive though but some really like it.

Or oat husk and lime, farm near me uses that and seems happy, mighty dusty though and oat not much absorbancy

 

[Mr Mackay]

We us Platts mixed sawdust and Nadins on that (or before) on our mats and matresses
But in the parlour we iodine pre dip then dry wipe and a good strong thick iodine post dip too

 

[Yorkshire farmer1]

If its paper you need saw a new one in the Gurdian advert section for kiln dried paper, think its the people who used to make envirobed now selling direct from their factory instead, same stuff just a different name of cozi-bed, alot cheaper as well

Platts do some antibac sawdust too, and think they selling bulk powderbed now too rather than bags. Always seems expensive though but some really like it.

Or oat husk and lime, farm near me uses that and seems happy, mighty dusty though and oat not much absorbancy

yeah i seen that advert isnt that envirobed really expensive though ? have you used it before, i no a farm near us uses that envirobed stuff and swears by it.

 

[Yorkshire farmer1]

We us Platts mixed sawdust and Nadins on that (or before) on our mats and matresses
But in the parlour we iodine pre dip then dry wipe and a good strong thick iodine post dip too

what do you use form platts ? they have a few dont they

 

[Stinker]

Green bedding. Should be able to justify it on 300 cows.

 

[Yorkshire farmer1]

i dont like what i have seen on green bedding. some local farm to us went on it but came off within the year.

 

[coomoo]

Green bedding looks excellent but hearing E. coli's can become more of a problem.

 

[Stinker]

Green bedding looks excellent but hearing E. coli's can become more of a problem.

Not seen this. Our mastitis has halved and cell counts haven't been over 150 in the last 3 years. I do pre dip etc which I think makes a big difference with environmental mastitis.

 

[GrassChopper]

yeah i seen that advert isnt that envirobed really expensive though ? have you used it before, i no a farm near us uses that envirobed stuff and swears by it.

Yeah bit costly, but now you can buy from the factory direct sounds like it could be much more reasonably priced. Im going to ring cozi-bed for a price soon before the cows come in, see how it compares against sawdust.

 

[GrassChopper]

Green bedding looks excellent but hearing E. coli's can become more of a problem.

Something in my water says that G bedding is the sort of thing that will be banned eventually. Heard similar problems with cow health after a while on it. Bedding animals on faeces just sounds awful imho

 

[Ducati899]

platts powderbed here twice daily,stalosan F once a week sprinkled on top by hand,not going to say how many mastitis we had from october through till march as don't want to jinx it,cell count averaged 98 in that period