Tips on teat cleaning – for calf feeding equipment

Feeding milk to calves through a teat meets the calf’s biological need to suckle, but excellent standards of hygiene are needed to avoid digestive upsets and disease spread.

Daily cleaning, disinfection and maintenance prevent teats and tubes from perishing, clogging up, or building up a biofilm.

See also: How to group calves for successful social rearing

In a Farmers Weekly poll, 68% of dairy and dairy beef calf rearers said they were now feeding calves on teats and just 32% fed milk in buckets.

Commenting on the result, vet and youngstock consultant Kat Hart, of the George Veterinary Group, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, says it shows the influence, over the past 15 years, of automatic machine feeding systems.

Kat reckons some 25-33% of dairy farms she sees would now use machine feeding, particularly larger businesses, or those with high throughputs of calves.

However, she thinks more calf rearers are understanding the benefits of teat feeding, whether attached to machines, single buckets or bottles, multi-compartment feeders hung over gates, or trailed multi-teat feeders.

Bucket feeding

“It takes skill and time to train a calf to drink from a bucket and they do it extremely quickly, so when the traditional farmer had 20 calves to feed, they could get onto the next job – and buckets just needed a relatively quick wash,” says Kat.

Drinking speed, however, is one of the major downsides of bucket feeding, as calves gulp their milk, she points out.

She explains that feeding through a teat mimics nature, stimulating the calf’s natural reflexes to close the oesophageal groove and prevent milk from entering the undeveloped rumen.

Instead, it is sent into the abomasum, where it is digested, while saliva produced from sucking on a teat helps buffer stomach acids.

When milk accidentally enters the rumen (from speedy drinking), it ferments and can cause bloat and digestive problems.

Teats need to deliver milk as a slow drip – like hand-milking a cow – which slows down drinking, says Kat.

Cross-sucking

“A teat also encourages and satisfies the natural sucking reflex, which then normally reduces navel sucking among calves.

“Cross-sucking in groups is hard to stop – even if calves are then moved back to teat feeding.

“It ends up being a learned behaviour and the problem starts when one calf will allow itself to be sucked,” she explains, adding that while nose plates or environment enrichment (hanging ropes and buoys to encourage play behaviour) can help, they do not solve the problem – prevention is best.

Even a feeding system that satisfies natural instincts still needs managing well for best results.

For instance, Kat says that sharing teats in group systems can spread mycoplasma, which often presents as an inner ear infection (droopy ear) or pneumonia.

This is often a problem where calves are from different farms, so ensuring good teat hygiene is key to break the link in the cycle.

Teat feeding takes longer, it is harder to clean and soft or leaky teats result in a calf gulping milk.

Before buying a calf teat-feeding system, there are many areas to consider, from group size to age spread.

Kat says it is important to be aware of practical cleaning methods and equipment such as specialised brushes.

In addition, teat types, shape and size, and lifespan vary according to brand.

Unlike rubber liners on milking plant, teats are not under the same consistent pressure, as every calf will suck differently, she says.

Change teats monthly

“You probably need to swap them more frequently than you realise – a medium-sized herd may need to change their batch of teats monthly, and block-calving herds will need a minimum of a fresh set every season.”

Checking teat condition at cleaning identifies damaged or worn teats, which will harbour bacteria and disrupt milk flow.

Kat says a teat needs to be firm with enough resistance so that calves have to suck to access milk. “Swap any teat that is soft and leaky,” she adds.

Some machines have been designed for automatic cleaning, either using spray (inside and out), or UV light, on an hourly or calf basis to clean and disinfect teats.

“Milk tubes need looking after too: good hygiene is a habit to start straight away, as well as checking the water and milk powder supplies and concentration.

“Have twice the number of teats, rotate them every 12 hours and disinfect in hypochlorite solution.

“They will last twice as long and often help in breaking disease cycles and build-up,” she says.

In manual systems, where the youngest calves are fed first, drinkers do not need washing between groups unless there is a disease outbreak.

But at the end of feeding, thorough cleaning is vital and requires warm water, detergent and elbow grease, with disinfectant for good measure.

Cleaning protocol

A hot water supply is needed in the calf kitchen, but Kat stresses the water needs to be lukewarm for the first wash, otherwise it cooks fats and minerals onto the equipment and makes a biofilm.

The detergent wash should be with 60C water to remove fat and protein deposits.

“If you think how important the bulk tank wash is to milk cleanliness, this is the same.

“A cold swill is not enough,” she says.

Teats should be removed to be cleaned inside and out, with brushes and milk lines fully cleaned.

Both teats and vessels should be spread out (not stacked) and inverted to drain and dry (bacteria need moisture to grow).

Research is showing the advantages of paired and group housing of calves on social eating and drinking, resulting in faster growth rates, says Kat.

Satiety is being examined, as calves drinking at speed tend to feel hungry again more quickly.

Farms that accommodate natural behaviour in calf rearing help “switch on” the calf’s signals to develop its metabolism and influence lifetime productivity, but they also address welfare concerns.

“Consumer perception is that they like to see groups of calves in wide-open straw pens and teats are part of the idea of naturalness.

“However, it is important to think about how we control disease and hygiene in these systems,” says Kat.