How Clean is Your Colostrum Pasteurizer?
Pasteurizers can be a great tool in any calf program, but they still require spot on management to be successful. There are many things to look at when deciding if a colostrum pasteurizer is the right tool for your farm. Today we are going to discuss a common issue I see with water bath pasteurizers.
If your pasteurizer is the type of system that reuses the water, you may have noticed that every time you put a bag or cartridge into the water bath, it gets more and more dirty. That may not seem like a pressing issue, the colostrum never touches that water.
The thing you many not consider though, is what is touching that bag or cartridge could easily end up on the tuber, in the colostrum, and even into your newborn calf.
We have found a cheap, easy, and effective solution to this common problem, to keep bags and cartridges clean, keep the water clean, and keep you calves from ingesting harmful bacteria. Here’s how!
We were changing water out 2x per week. In a 22 gallon warming machine, that water can add up quickly. We were getting sick of having to scrub the warmer out regularly, just to have it get slimy in two or three days.
On top of having dirty water, there was also the worry of transferring bacteria from dirty water to the calves.
The ColoQuick warming system is made of stainless steel, so it is both durable and safe to use Dk-ll at low levels. We started by adding just .25oz of DK-ll per gallon of water (5oz DK-II into our 22 gallon ColoQuick warming machine. This can also be applied to DairyTech systems). We thought we may have to bump it up, but we wanted to see what the absolute minimum was to keep the water fresh for as long as possible.
To our surprise (not really), the .25oz/gallon of DK-II keep the water clean for 14 DAYS!
Guess what else?!
Every time we would send the cartridges through, they would get cleaner, and cleaner. Now, even after 10 YEARS of using these cartridges, they look brand new. You can not tell the difference between the 10 year old cartridges and the 6 month old ones that we recently added to the bunch.
As you can see, the addition of DK-II to the warmer is a 3 fold solution.
It keeps the water clean, to help prevent the spread of bacteria.
It keeps the cartridges looking like the day they came out of the box.
It keeps the water fresh for 5x the amount of time, saving you both water, energy to heat said water, and your time.
If you are tired of constantly dumping water and cleaning out your pasteurizer, or worried about bacteria transfer, consider testing out this method that has saved us time, energy, and water!