Colostrum Defrosting

[TheRanger]

Needing to sort something out for better colostrum management.

Currently just putting 2L frozen plastic milk bottles into a bucket of hot (probably far too hot) water.

Does anyone use the Store and Thaw system? £1400 seems excessive.

Will probably start using the zip type freezer bags instead of plastic milk bottles, should help with defrosting time. Also thinking a Shepherdess type lamb feeder with some sort of agitator fitted, could be set to 45 degrees and would defrost the colostrum and heat to the correct temp pretty quickly?

What is everyone else doing?

 

[marco]

Put pot on the oven with water and put the can in, making sure it doesn't touch the bottom by putting a fork or spoon on the bottom. Give the can a shake every so often

 

[Wellytrack]

I try to use lucozade bottle, or other similar size. Yes it’s small but 4 ‘zade bottles will thaw a lot quicker than a 2ltr block.

 

[dairyrow]

put ours in the water heater for calf milk powder son not really hot. works fine and already heated and ready to go.

 

[pellow]

someone on here before said, put it a large zip lock bag for more surface area

 

[Paddy Irish]

Needing to sort something out for better colostrum management.

Currently just putting 2L frozen plastic milk bottles into a bucket of hot (probably far too hot) water.

Does anyone use the Store and Thaw system? £1400 seems excessive.

Will probably start using the zip type freezer bags instead of plastic milk bottles, should help with defrosting time. Also thinking a Shepherdess type lamb feeder with some sort of agitator fitted, could be set to 45 degrees and would defrost the colostrum and heat to the correct temp pretty quickly?

What is everyone else doing?

It is difficult to overstate the importance of feeding high quality colostrum within an hour of the calf been born to reduce the risk of scour and respiratory diseases. Most research that I have read states that less than 50% of calves receive adequate quantities of quality colostrum.

It can be a bit tedious waiting for milk to thaw so there is always a temptation to have the water very hot, which will damage the all important IgG . The problem is worse in the night as people are understandably keen to get back to bed. Calves that are left with the cow are at higher risk of not consuming enough.

The store and thaw is not just the machinery involved, it is machinery that allows you to put a protocol in place that guarantees every calf gets high quality colostrum within 20mins of the birth been seen. NADIS estimates each case of scour costs £44, respiratory diseases probably cost more due to long term lung damage.

 

[Fergieman]

We just use one of these suspended in a big bucket of water. Keeps the water at a pre selected temperature. Use the perfect udder bags which are not cheap but calf health has improved no end since adopting the system.

We milk a cow more so than defrosting bags, with a dedicated dump bucket and cluster only for fresh calvers just need to switch on the vaccumn pumps and connect dump bucket to dedicated vaccumn line. Takes 10 mins to have fresh mothers colostrum. Do this at lunch time and night time checks if need be rather than waiting till next milking and faster than waiting on a bag to defrost.

 

[Paddy Irish]

We just use one of these suspended in a big bucket of water. Keeps the water at a pre selected temperature. Use the perfect udder bags which are not cheap but calf health has improved no end since adopting the system.

We milk a cow more so than defrosting bags, with a dedicated dump bucket and cluster only for fresh calvers just need to switch on the vaccumn pumps and connect dump bucket to dedicated vaccumn line. Takes 10 mins to have fresh mothers colostrum. Do this at lunch time and night time checks if need be rather than waiting till next milking and faster than waiting on a bag to defrost.

Sounds like you have a good consistent system in place and your results are the proof that it is working.

You are also right about how long it takes to defrost milk. Not all of the thawing devices will thaw 4 litres of colostrum and heat it to 38° in 20 minutes but also not damage the colostrum by over heating it.

 

[som farmer]

we keep all fresh cows separate, and milked last, until test clear with delva test. We save all colostrum, acidify and store, so always colostrum available. Few problems with intake/loose shite, think quality of colostrum to high ! Used to freeze, in thin poly bag, and thaw in hot water, it's the 'thin bag' that lets it thaw quickly.

 

[jerseycowsman]

It is difficult to overstate the importance of feeding high quality colostrum within an hour of the calf been born to reduce the risk of scour and respiratory diseases. Most research that I have read states that less than 50% of calves receive adequate quantities of quality colostrum.

It can be a bit tedious waiting for milk to thaw so there is always a temptation to have the water very hot, which will damage the all important IgG . The problem is worse in the night as people are understandably keen to get back to bed. Calves that are left with the cow are at higher risk of not consuming enough.

The store and thaw is not just the machinery involved, it is machinery that allows you to put a protocol in place that guarantees every calf gets high quality colostrum within 20mins of the birth been seen. NADIS estimates each case of scour costs £44, respiratory diseases probably cost more due to long term lung damage.

I think problems with scour are to do with trying to get too much milk into just 2 feeds. Since we went into ad lib, ambient temperature feeding for the first 4 weeks of their life about 15 years ago, scours is a thing of the past for us. We might get 3 or 4 mild cases out of 150 calves in a year. Pneumonia is non existent in our calves.
We leave them on the mother for 24 hours, if they haven’t sucked say within 6 hours, we will feed them then. Never going to force feed a calf within an hour, that’s just ridiculous

 

[Adam@Rumen]

The surface area improvement of a freezer/zip lock/colostrum bag will make the biggest difference over a big thick milk bottle. Bugger all extra cost too so well worth a go.

 

[som farmer]

we are constantly told, a calve needs 4 liters colostrum, in the first 6 hours, that advice is longstanding, but type of cow has changed, there used to be a 'big' question on quality of colostrum, this is very relavent to the hol cows. But, as the xbred cows increase, mainly because hols were to 'high maintainance'. Certainly a lot of colostrum is of much higher quality, in feed value. Having changed over to xbred, we have tubed very few calves, this spring, and have hit problems with intakes, we store colostrum, and the problems were to much, to rich. We haven't yet gone to group feeding, ad lib, but that will come. Disease scour, and pneumonia, are both very low occurrence. All very different to when we were hols.

 

[upnortheast]

there used to be a 'big' question on quality of colostrum,

That`s true, the vet gave us one of those tester thingys. Huge differences & not related at all to visual assesment.

 

[Buford T. Justice]

we are constantly told, a calve needs 4 liters colostrum, in the first 6 hours, that advice is longstanding, but type of cow has changed, there used to be a 'big' question on quality of colostrum, this is very relavent to the hol cows. But, as the xbred cows increase, mainly because hols were to 'high maintainance'. Certainly a lot of colostrum is of much higher quality, in feed value. Having changed over to xbred, we have tubed very few calves, this spring, and have hit problems with intakes, we store colostrum, and the problems were to much, to rich. We haven't yet gone to group feeding, ad lib, but that will come. Disease scour, and pneumonia, are both very low occurrence. All very different to when we were hols.

I'd give 4l of colostrum by stomach tube to every calf within an hour of birth or as soon as I see them on the ground. The absorption of immunoglobulins reduces hugely after 2 hours so we try to get that in as soon as possible. We went from 3l to 4l this spring as we were still getting some problems with scours but the extra liter seems to have taken much of the post birth hassle out of rearing calves for us.

 

[som farmer]

I'd give 4l of colostrum by stomach tube to every calf within an hour of birth or as soon as I see them on the ground. The absorption of immunoglobulins reduces hugely after 2 hours so we try to get that in as soon as possible. We went from 3l to 4l this spring as we were still getting some problems with scours but the extra liter seems to have taken much of the post birth hassle out of rearing calves for us.

we have found calves up and going, incredibly quick, this year, have only tubed those will a ? one hfr calved in a puddle, tubed the calf, but didn't hold any hope, but fine now, and the calves from difficult calvings, about 3 or 4. We must have got everything 'spot-on', lets hope we can repeat it in future years.