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Sunnyside, WA | You need to find out what is causing the high SCC. A tmr will not help SCC at all. Test your bulk tank for staph & myco. High SCC is an indicator that something is wrong. You have got to have multiple clinical mastitis cows to run a BTSCC that high.
You first need to get the milking equipment checked out so that you will not be affecting any more cows.
Then you need to make sure you are milking clean, dry teats. Otherwise, even with the best milking system, you will still infect cows.
Once those two steps are done, start finding the infected cows and taking milk samples. Find out if it is environmental or contagious mastitis. Environmental means take a look at what your cows lay in everyday. Keep them clean and dry. Contagious means you have a bigger mess on your hands.
Speaking of hands, I would only milk with some sort of milking glove on your hands. Its amazing the bacteria that can be transferred from cow to cow on your hands.
There are numerous other management strategies for dealing with high SCC, but we need more information to help. We took over a herd 4 years ago with a BTSCC of 700,000 with plenty of staph. I'm happy to say its down to under 200,000 today, but it took a lot of work and time. And we're still not done. | |
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dairy farmers who use tmr's to feed
