Hard to Clean Places in the Calf Barn - Winter Prep

Do those hard to clean places in your calf barn have you and your calves feeling low? Places like pumps, hoses, esophageal tubers, rims of buckets, and positive pressure tubes?

In our calf barns, especially in our weaned calf barns, we always try to wash everything from top to bottom once a year, ceilings, floors, and gates. We also take apart our pumps, do maintenance on our hose reels, change out our feed hoses, and change our PPT. 

What better time to do this than the fall! After harvest of course. We love doing a deep clean in the fall to help us wait out the long winter until spring cleaning time comes around. It’s also nice to get rid of all of the fly poop and other nasty things that collect over the summer. 

So where do you start?

We recommend starting with a thorough evaluation of where you need the most cleaning. 

This sanitation audit checklist is a great place to start. 

After you have decided where the most work needs to be done, the next step is to get cleaning!

I alway like to start with the big cleaning projects on nice fall days, and save the more tedious, dry, inside jobs for the cooler days. 

While there are mixed reviews on pressure washing in calf barns, we have been doing it for 30 years with success. It is an efficient, cost effective way to get large, hard to clean areas clean, and the benefits of having a clean barn FAR outweigh the downfall of having a calf barn with high disease pressure. 

All of that to say, start by removing the bulk of the manure, milk, and other organic matter from the area you are cleaning either with force (a pressure washer) or with chemicals (an alkaline detergent and brush). 

Pro Tip: If you are pressure washing or spraying water, be sure to cover electronics with a trash bag or a grocery bag including, garage door openers, outlets, thermostats, and anything else that will be wrecked if it gets water in it. Ask me how I know… 

Once the surface you are working on looks clean, don’t stop! There is one more essential step to cleaning and that is the sanitation portion of the cleaning process. 

There are many different options for sanitation products, we use DK-ll mixed at 1 oz per gallon of water for all of our calf barn sanitation needs.One reason we prefer DK-ll is because we always have animals in our barns, so we need something that is very safe and still very effective. 

Decide which sanitation product is best suited for your situation. If your calf barn is completely empty, you might be able to use something more aggressive, but if there are animals in the barn, always make sure to read the safety label and mix the chemical at the correct ppm level that is safe to use around animals and humans.

As you work your way through the sanitation audit checklist, and through the barn cleanings, make sure to make a list of repairs, parts you will need, and anything else your barn might need to get ready for winter. It’s always a lot easier to see what’s broken when it's clean!

Struggling to pinpoint what might be dirty and causing your calves issues? Reach out! We are experts at getting to the bottom of these things!

If you want to purchase DK-ll you can find it in our online shop here.