Mastitis & Liner Selection Including Troubleshooting
As a dairy technician or professional, what you do on a daily basis may directly affect every cow in every herd for which you are involved. This is an important responsibility and often farmers will unfairly target milking machinery as the primary cause of mastitis when this is not necessarily the case. It is important that technicians can understand the various factors involved in mastitis, so that the appropriate assistance can be provided in mastitis detection, resolution and prevention.
This course is run Regionally.
Course Overview
This course will help further develop a technician's skills so that they can critically look at other factors beyond the milking machine that may be causing mastitis. This includes farmer's cup handling technique, cow flow into and out of the farm dairy, general milking technique and the effect of milk flow on vacuum levels in the milking machine as well as testing and evaluating milking machine function during milking.The liner is where the milking machine meets the cow and while they appear to be very simple this is completely misleading. Liner design must take in to account the milking machine components and vacuum, the cleaning system and the herd that the liner will be sued to milk. Liner choice is not, and never will be, a black and white decision as there are many interacting factors that must be understood. Participants on this course will gain a greater knowledge of liner function and will learn how to use decision making tools so they can offer farmers a range of liner choices for optimum performance.
This course will allow participants to talk to farmers more knowledgeably, troubleshoot more effectively and point farmers toward potential solutions with more confidence.
Course Content
This three-day course is made up of the following components:- Liner features and measurement – 4 hours
- Liner selection – 3 hours
- Mastitis and mastitis management – I day
- Milking management – 1/2 day
- In-milking testing – 1/2 day
This course is designed to give participants an understanding of mastitis and identifying the different types of mastitis, leading to confidence in advising on mastitis causes, resolving mastitis and mastitis prevention. The DairyNZ SmartSAMM Mastitis Investigation Kit is used as a tool to analyse mastitis issues. Participants will gain a far better understanding of the milking process in regards to how milking machinery actually functions during milking.
As the range of liners is continually changing it is important to understand and identify the correct liner to suit various herd requirements. Participants will gain knowledge of the benefits of correct liner selection for optimum performance including features of different liners, liner compatibility to different shells, liner measurement, liner compatibility with cows, liner selection diagnosis, troubleshooting and recommendations.
Throughout the training participants will be tested on their understanding of the material taught.
Note: This course does not cover areas that require input from Veterinarians such as specific antibiotic treatments
This course is delivered for MPTA by Quality Consultants NZ Ltd (QCONZ) - a NZQA approved Private Training Establishment.
Participants who successfully complete this course will receive a NZMPTA Certificate of Achievement in Mastitis & Liner selection including Troubleshooting.
