SCC annual average 106. Seriously.

[dammit9]

The dairy where I milk runs 130 cows through a double 5 herringbone with no crowd gate and a full age range of cows. The average SCC count for 2008 was 192. The SCC for 2009 so far is 106. Yes you read that correctly. We usually hold the milk from the highest SCC cow routinely to feed for calf milk. We probably average one or two treated mastitis cows at a time. Our cells "spiked" up to 125 during the hottest part of summer but have gone back down with the cooler weather. Every variable on the dairy has remained the same except one; I started milking in January. I was working there for 7 years before I started milking full time so I know that no other variables have changed. Would someone PLEASE tell me that this is a big deal? Because my boss refuses to acknowledge it one tiny little bit.

My trick: hang the machines correctly so that gravity is working with you, and milk every cow out every milking. Even at 2 in the morning when she's holding up her side for 12 minutes. Just do it.

[cpridge]

I had very similar results in college when I was milking at a 300 cow dairy in Minnesota. When I started milking the scc was 130,000 to 150 over the next 2 months it got down to 80,000 and stayed there until I went home for the summer. The next August when school started again I resumed to milking at the same farm again, scc was over 200,000 and came down immediatly after I was back in. We always milked with 2 people, my partners always hated milking with me as being thorough added about 30 minutes to the shift. My boss never reconized me for the drop in scc but ironically he did notice the extra udder mint cream, towel usage, and time it took me to fully milk out the slow cows.

[linquenda]

I had very similar results in college when I was milking at a 300 cow dairy in Minnesota. When I started milking the scc was 130,000 to 150 over the next 2 months it got down to 80,000 and stayed there until I went home for the summer. The next August when school started again I resumed to milking at the same farm again, scc was over 200,000 and came down immediatly after I was back in. We always milked with 2 people, my partners always hated milking with me as being thorough added about 30 minutes to the shift. My boss never reconized me for the drop in scc but ironically he did notice the extra udder mint cream, towel usage, and time it took me to fully milk out the slow cows.

FUNNY when i started working in bc on a dairy as herdsman/milker, the scc ran in the 450,000 range, after taking over milking it took me a year to get the scc to 72,000....always complaints about teat dip and treatment costs.
Hey guys/girls rent a dairy, buy cows and do a good job for your selves,
you don't need a lot of money...just a lot of guts...i did it.

[MBurgess]

To be devils advocate - we have a bunch of slow milkers that I really want to cull but can't because we are understocked. So rather than letting them slow down milking or drafting them out and putting them round again, we just take the cups off when they are the last cow left in the row and let her go even if she isn't finished. My thoughts were that any with high SCC will be culled, any with normal SCC can stay We just herd tested and nearly all the slow milkers are under 50,000 SCC.

The trick with this is it only works for cows that are slow every milking. You can't do it to other cows that are slow for a one-off, as they actually may be developing mastitis or something.

Udder prep, and cup alignment are key aspects of SCC from a milking perspective. Gravity or weights are a myth.

I too used to relief milk for different farmers and often the SCC would start coming down after a few days, and the hygiene tests also improved. It's just attention to detail. Plus women are much better milkers than guys!!! I also had all the lames drafted out and put in a close paddock so they didn't have to do so much walking and standing on concrete.

[jerseyfarmer]

FUNNY when i started working in bc on a dairy as herdsman/milker, the scc ran in the 450,000 range, after taking over milking it took me a year to get the scc to 72,000....always complaints about teat dip and treatment costs.
Hey guys/girls rent a dairy, buy cows and do a good job for your selves,
you don't need a lot of money...just a lot of guts...i did it.

Huh????? In other threads you go on about trouble getting good milkers for your dairy, yet here you basically call these guys cowards because they are employees, not owners. I would think you'd be offering them a job instead?????

I'm impressed by these scc's if nobody else is. I would say you are barking up the wrong tree if you expect praise from most farmers. Not sure if my dad has ever praised me directly in all the years 've worked with/for him. Most farmers just arent the type to be lavish with praise in my experience.

If I was a big dairy I'd definitly be offering you guys a job. Hope you can just take satisfaction knowing you are doing well and keep up the good work!!

[ElJefe]

One bad apple (employee) can spoil the whole bunch.

I know people complain about employees doing a poor job milking their cows, but there are plenty of ways to diagnose the problem. If you have one milker that does a poor job, it has a snowball effect. SCC stays too high because of the one guy, so why should the others do a good job? Then it will go even higher.

Once you have a staff of milkers that want to do a good job, getting them to do a good job is a matter of training. They may not know why certain parts of the procedure are done the way they are. Tell them! The why is just as important as the how. If they don't know why something is done a certain way, they are less likely to do it correctly.

My crew of milkers all came fresh from Nicaragua last February without knowing a darn thing about milking cows and already our SCC is consistently better than we have ever had before at around 110,000-130,000 milking over 400 cows.

Of course the main driving force behind all this is the $100 monthly bonus for keeping the SCC below 150,000. Money is still the main motivating tool. But is money not our main motivating tool to keep the SCC down in the form of a premium?

[bmvf]

Started the year around 170,000. The month of November 70,000. This month after 2 tests 57,000. My keys to better quality? 3x milking, proper udder prep, Orbeseal dry treatment, dry treating heifers, and culturing mastitis samples.

[linquenda]

Huh????? In other threads you go on about trouble getting good milkers for your dairy, yet here you basically call these guys cowards because they are employees, not owners. I would think you'd be offering them a job instead?????

I'm impressed by these scc's if nobody else is. I would say you are barking up the wrong tree if you expect praise from most farmers. Not sure if my dad has ever praised me directly in all the years 've worked with/for him. Most farmers just arent the type to be lavish with praise in my experience.

If I was a big dairy I'd definitly be offering you guys a job. Hope you can just take satisfaction knowing you are doing well and keep up the good work!!

The reason for not offering them a milk job, is plain and simple, they would not like to milk 6 hrs straight, 9 times a week.

[cpridge]

The trick with this is it only works for cows that are slow every milking. You can't do it to other cows that are slow for a one-off, as they actually may be developing mastitis or something.

.

Did those slow milker's production back off at all? I realize that a select cow or two will get used to it but you can't hardly afford not to put all of your milk in the tank on a daily basis as her feed intake won't change.

[MBurgess]

A couple did. Some are slow in just one quarter, others are slow all round. There are about 10 out of 480. It's not worth waiting for them or bothering drafting them around again as our milking time is already double the norm because our parlor is too small for our herd. If they are low producers this way or have high SCC or mastitis then they will be culled at the end of the season. We would have culled them already but we are short of cows this season.

[GAdairy]

That SCC level is very impressive. The national award winners for the NMC are not much lower than that. Keep up the good work. Also, slow cows are trained to be slow. So they must also be trained to milk out faster.

[dammit9]

I just remembered my question and came back to see the responses. I'm so glad I did!

Interesting about slow milking cows being trained to be slow. How do you train one to milk faster? After 7 years there I have moved on but I still have friends working at the dairy and my replacement starts on the 11th and would appreciate in information that would help.

LOL about the comments from your bosses about going through more prep materials.

Keeping the teat canal open is the reason for letting the machine hang; on a cow with forward facing teats I would adjust the arm so that it pulled the machine forward a little.

I'm at a total loss. I'm relieved to be away from the hours and cold and heat and physical pain and sick and lame cows and culling cows and losing favorites; I never toughened up. I am just not cut out for working with production animals. But I can't imagine the rest of my life without those friendly faces nudging me whenever I walk through the holding pen.

[GAdairy]

Interesting about slow milking cows being trained to be slow. How do you train one to milk faster?

Cows can be trained with routine. Choose the prep routine ( I prefer a full routine) and then everyone follow it. After that, stop milking cows on manual and let the auto detachers do their job. The equipment people may need to change some settings on the detachers, pulsator rates and ratios, and vacuum level also. Setting a maximum on-time, for example, 8-10 minutes will also encourage faster milking. Most cows will start to adapt quickly, but there is always the chance that the cow will not change and may need to be culled. Cows will eventually start having a correct oxytocin response and not "holding" their milk up to only release several minutes later.
Sorry things didn't work out with the dairy. Hope you find something you enjoy as much. And remember, it doesn't matter if you are a ditch digger, just be the best ditch digger you can be.

[Jack]

one more time, we are running in the 40s all most all of the time dipping into the high 30s every 3 or 4 months, cows milk out super fast i run 3 units and am hauling the mail to keep up with them