By Liz Bawden, NODPA Board Co-President
A cow was four days fresh after calving out twins; she acts “tired and slow”, has a fluctuating low grade fever, and isn’t eating as much as she should. Two vets agreed that it sounded like a retained placenta and the general symptoms that go with it. It was recommended to put in 4 iodine pills at around day 3 to 7, pull out remaining cleaning at day 5 (longer if it was twins or a hard calving). If it has progressed to metritis, the following protocol was suggested: infuse one liter of 50% dextrose once a day for three days. If the cow is off-feed, administer a bottle of Hypertonic Saline IV with a bottle of Vitamin C. B vitamins are good appetite stimulators; and be sure to test for ketosis. It was also suggested to give garlic tincture in a bottle of Dextrose IV (or garlic cloves in a gel capsule), Bovi-calc bolus and/or IV CMPK. Another vet offered his protocol for metritis: Mix 1 part 7% iodine in 10 parts Dextrose, infuse 90 ml of the solution twice weekly.
Who suspects that your clean microfiber dairy towels would be a big source of bacteria? One farm purchased brand new micro-fiber towels. The towels were quite bulky and were holding onto some debris after laundering so the amount of chlorinated detergent was doubled. Then the farm sent a towel sample to Quality Milk Production Services and the culture result was almost 53,000 CFU of bacteria so 32% hydrogen peroxide was then added as an additional sanitizer. Another microfiber towel was sent for culture and the count was 9111 CFU—still too high. About half of the new microfiber towels were replaced with the farm's older ,more worn microfiber and cotton towels. With the wash protocol left the same, the culture results on the washed towels showed lowered bacteria for the new microfiber towels (2109) but considerably more reduction for the worn microfiber towels (287 DFU) and even less CFUs for the cotton towels (133). The farm then bought new 100% cotton terry towels, keeping the wash protocol the same. With only cotton terry towels run through the washer, the culture results came back ZERO.
Posted: to Recent O-Dairy Discussion on Thu, Dec 9, 2021
Updated: Thu, Dec 9, 2021
