Welcome to the Milking and Mastitis Management Online Program

This program is designed to support you to develop the practical skills and knowledge for successfully and safely milking cows.

Make sure you know who your on-farm coach is, and speak to your manager if you do not know who this is.

It is strongly recommended to complete the program over 5 days. Whilst you can complete it in a shorter period (e.g. one session each milking) you will get less out of the learning experience.

There are five individual tasks involved in the milking process that you will learn about. These include:

• Bringing the cows in for milking

• Putting cups on

• Taking cups off

• Post milking teat disinfection and

• Detecting clinical mastitis

You will progress to the more difficult tasks such as putting cups on and detecting clinical mastitis.

The program involves the following activities:

At the end of this program, you will be able to:

Here are some activities to further prepare you for your first day on-farm

Let's learn more about the milking process and considerations for managing mastitis:

The milking process involves:

1. Bringing the cows into the dairy from the paddock/feeding area

1. Putting the cups on clean, dry and plump teats

1. Removing the cups and applying teat disinfectant to decrease risk of mastitis infection

1. The cows leaving the dairy

1. Washing the plant ready for the next milking

Now that we understand more about the milking process, here are some steps we can take during milking to prevent the spread of COVID-19:

We can reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading by:

• Maintaining at least 1.5m distance (or 3 bails) between individuals, preferably working on opposite sides of the pit or bridge.

• Wearing gloves throughout the entire milking process - put them on when entering the dairy, and take them off when leaving the dairy.

• Spraying teat disinfectant on milking gloves - at the end of each row in a herringbone, or every half turn on a rotary.

• Wiping down or spraying disinfectant on jointly-used pieces of milking equipment post-milking.

Resources and tools for this program

The mastitis section on the Dairy Australia website houses several resources that will support you in your learning experience. You can either download the resources in electronic format, or order hard copies via the links below.

Resources include:

• Countdown Farm Guidelines for Mastitis Control
  Essential guidelines for everyone who milks cows, providing advice on all aspects of mastitis control and milk quality and covers best practices at each stage of the cow’s lactation.

• Countdown Shed Guides
  The Shed Guides are designed to be used by milkers and farm managers as visual guides for prevention, monitoring and treatment of mastitis. These practical step-by-step Shed Guides are water resistant and can be hung up in the dairy shed for easy reference. People ordering a hard copy of the Shed Guides will also receive a bonus high quality Dairy Australia milking apron.

• Countdown videos
  A series of videos on treatment of clinical mastitis, rapid mastitis testing, pre-milking teat preparation and dry cow treatment.

• Mastitis workshops
  There are several other courses, workshops and discussion groups to assist milkers and farm managers with preventing udder issues including mastitis and developing approaches for optimising milk quality. These are all run through Dairy Australia’s Regional Development Programs.

The other key document you will need to access during the program is your guide to the on-farm learning:

Participants guide to on-farm learning activities