Hygiene! Hygiene! Hygiene!

People often underestimate the effect of hygiene on the health of our calves. Keeping your trailer, calf pens, staff gear, milk and feed clean is hugely important. Poor management of environmental risks can easily overcome good vaccination and feeding (i.e. all that money spent on your herd rotavirus vaccination is wasted!).

Disease can be spread in various ways but is most common from faeces (either calf to calf or cow to calf).

KEY AREAS TO FOCUS ON:

CLEAN MILK:

• Milk colostrum from clean teats

• Take care with storage

• Clean feeding equipment regularly

TRAILER HYGIENE:

This is hugely important, it is a major risk factor that is often over-looked

• An open navel = highway into calf for bugs

• Spray navels in paddock with spirit-based iodine (dries and disinfects) before going on trailer AND as the calves are removed from the trailer. And then once a day for next few days.

• Daily cleaning of the trailer and once weekly disinfection. Rubber matting is easily cleaned in comparison to straw which is warm but needs regular removal

• Stress has a huge impact on the immune system! Drive carefully, cover the trailer, minimise time spent in the trailer and make more trips if necessary to prevent overcrowding

STAFF HYGIENE AND PPE

• It is very important to clean your gumboots a and wet weathers between pens, especially before and after you enter the sick pen.

• ALWAYS wear gloves when handling calves – we can catch many of their diseases and they are not pretty!

CALF PENS

• Now is the best time to sort your pens! Plan which pens are going to be learner/sick/bobby calves.

• All in, all out rule: calves stay in the same pen the whole time.

• Disinfect twice weekly, sick pens daily (do not forget the outside of calf feeders + feed equipment) and between batches.

RVC has virkon, vetsan and sterigene available.