Dairy teat care products: 6 things to consider
© JackF/Adobe Stock With a huge range of teat dips available, it can be difficult to know what the best choice is for your herd. Tom Greenham offers expert advice on how to make an informed decision.
Teat skin health and hygiene are similar to human hand care.
Teat care products need to clean, disinfect and moisturise in the same way that we use soaps to clean away dirt, hand sanitisers to kill bacteria and hand creams to moisturise dry skin.
See also:Â How teat health can be used to evaluate milking performance
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1. Bactericidal chemicals
Iodine, chlorhexidine, lactic acid and chlorine dioxide are the most common teat disinfection agents, although other chemicals are commercially available.
Despite extensive trial work, there are no clear winners in terms of bacterial kill success in real-world conditions.
Different studies show conflicting results, often finding greater variation in performance between different herds on the same chemical, than between different products.
Combination preparations are often more effective than the individual chemicals.
Concentration of active ingredients can be used as an approximate guideline to bactericidal action, although modern preparations can give similar efficacy at lower concentrations.
2. Surfactants
Surfactants are the “mystery ingredients” that play a big role in the effectiveness of a dip.
These chemicals affect availability of the bactericidal agent, ability of the product to coat the teat, cleaning performance, and practical properties, such as how well a pre-dip foams, or a barrier dip forms a film.
It can be difficult to predict the performance of a product from the list of surfactants included, but generally the milking team can tell “by feel” whether the product is cleaning, foaming, or forming a barrier that they are satisfied with.
3. Skin conditioners
“Emollient” is often used as a general term for substances that promote good skin condition, but there are more technicalities to consider:
- Humectants, such as glycerol, actively draw water into the outer layer of the skin and can be vital in countering the drying effect of many bactericidal chemicals.
- Occlusives, such as lanolin, provide a barrier to prevent moisture evaporating from the skin and are very useful in wet, windy weather.
- Keratolytics, such as salicylic acid, help optimise skin condition by promoting shedding of the old, rough layer of cells and can help resolve thickened skin or rough teat ends.
Different herd situations will require different combinations of conditioners. These chemicals add cost, so match the concentration to your needs.
If skin condition is good, 3-5% emollient may be sufficient, but if teats are dry or chapped, a 5-10% concentration is advisable.
4. Pre-milking versus post-milking
Pre-milking products must be good at cleaning, kill bacteria quickly, work in the presence of organic matter and leave minimal residue.
They should have a highly available bactericidal chemical allied with a surfactant that promotes good teat coverage and improved cleaning.
High concentrations of (expensive) emollient are not needed as they are wiped off before they have time to work.
Emollient in pre-milking products can also reduce the speed of bacterial kill, increase milk residues, and leave teats greasy, causing liner slip.
Post-milking products need to promote good skin condition and provide lasting bactericidal cover, but cleaning ability and rapid action are not required, as the product will be applied to clean teats and left on for an extended duration.
They should use surfactants that remain on the teat for a prolonged period and include higher concentrations of emollient.
These conflicting requirements make “pre-post” preparations a compromise, reducing performance in pre-treatment, post-treatment, or both.
However, for some herds, the poorer performance may still be adequate and is offset by the convenience of a single product.
5. Application
Dip and wiping, spray and wiping, brushing, wet wiping, and dry wiping are the main methods of cleaning teats beforemilking.
Post-milking teat disinfection tends to be by dip or spray, although both these methods may be manual or automated.
A large body of research shows dipping tends to be the most effective way of achieving the highest bacterial kill on the greatest teat surface area.
The other extreme is dry wiping, which can be helpful at knocking loose sand or dust off the teats, but is insufficient to counteract any substantial level of bacterial challenge.
The best approach is the one that suits your farm’s situation: choose a strategy that is adequate for the hygiene and skin condition challenges your cows face, with the minimum cost and labour.
6. Additional considerations
Having chosen and paid for good products, it is important to get full value from them.
Pre-milking treatments need time to work, usually requiring at least 30 seconds before wiping off. Even the best products struggle if there is a lot of organic matter on the teats, or the bacterial load is very high.
Removal of pre-milking products from the teat is important both to avoid milk residues and to ensure the unit is not attached to wet teats – which are a key mastitis risk.
Bactericidal chemicals often degrade over time, especially if stored in bright sunlight or extremes of temperature, so bear this in mind if buying in bulk.