Milk Replacer
I was told today that in Holland calves were fed ONLY milk replacer and this greatly reduced the incidence of m.bovis. So here it is being recommended for calf rearers to use milk replacer, the government has alerted manufacturers to increase production to keep up with demand, however then milk powder prices go through the roof, making it a difficult decision for calf rearers not to use cheaper excess colostrum/discard milk. If the government is serious about eradication why are they not enforcing a cap on milk powder prices or subsidising milk powder for calf rearers until they have eradicated m.bovis?
You can add Citric Acid to calf milk, which kills Mycoplasma Bovis.
Thanks, but that isn’t as simple as it sounds. You have to add 5.5kgs of citric acid per 1,000 litres (I used 150,000 ltrs milk last season). The milk has to be kept below ph5 for 8 hours to kill m.bovis. If it goes below ph4 it is unpalatable for the calves. Milk below ph5 separates but if you stir it too much it coagulates and will block pipes/teats. To top it off, if I happen to pick up milk from a farm that is later identified as infected MPI are still going to treat me as a trace property, put me under Notice of Direction and do testing, making me unable to move calves etc.
Haha, yip been there done that, just about did my head in, we did milk powder on both farms in Australia, yes the cost went up with milk powder, order now buy in bulk.
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