Udder hygiene in milking. Wood wool instead of paper – a time-saving of about 15 minutes per day.
Published:October 8, 2015
By:Wildberger Thomas
Faster, higher, stronger. The motto of the Olympic Games has always applied to all types of competition – in particular commercial competition concerning the measurable and therefore comparable benefits of a product on the market.
In our case the product is called wood wool with the registered trade mark, agroclean®. The only place in Europe where this is manufactured is in Wattwil by the Lindner Suisse Company. The market consists of agricultural operations with their dairy herds. And what is the name of the discipline? Milking.
Twice now scientists have investigated which advantages are apparent in the dust-free, splinter-free "wood wool for cleaning udders prior to milking livestock". Prof. Dr. Michael Hässig and Med. vet. Roman Ruf from the University of Zürich, together with Dr. Dipl. Ing. Agr. ETH Roger Bolt from the Canton of Zurich Agricultural College, recently published the results of their study.
Source: Klauentierpraxis 3/2015. Klauentierpraxis [Cloven-hoofed animal practice] (KTP) is a scientific, practice-oriented professional journal for large animal practitioners.
In this it is stated, "The majority of the parameters collected displayed no significant difference between wood wool and udder cloth" used in the customary manner.
However, from the results of the culturally investigated milk trials it emerges that wood wool performs better than conventional cloth with respect to bacterial pathogens, known as gram-positive cocci and rod cells.
And the milker can work more quickly as well: "On average it was possible to identify total milking time per cow and milking run (cleaning time + duration of milking), which was five seconds shorter, as a consequence of the use of wood wool." The reason lies in the hormones. Using wood wool to clean the udder stimulates the animal, oxytocin is released and the milking process is accelerated.
And, as the veterinary surgeons involved forecast, this, can be well worthwhile: "In this study the farmer was milking about 100 animals in his operation. This results in a time-saving of about 15 minutes per day."
