Cow's teat lesions alter their resistance to infections and can lead to mastitis, edema, teat congestion, bleeding, and hyperkeratosis. Even if they are caused by equipment and/or animal handling, these problems can be minimized by the use of proper milking equipment, proper sizing of the system, maintenance and constant training of the farmer.

Reafrio's milking technician Jakson Marsal Kovaleski mentions that the proper functioning of the milking equipment can prevent teat injuries and reduce mastitis. "poorly regulated milking equipment can have serious effects on the cow's teat, such as hyperkeratosis, due to the high vacuum level. Hyperkeratosis, or callus, forms at the tip of the teat and can dry out and cause cracking where bacteria reproduce," he explains.

According to him, hyperkeratosis comes not only from poorly regulated equipment but can be caused by improper handling at the time of milking. This can also cause bleeding bubbles at the ceiling end. "These lesions harbor mainly contagious bacteria from mastitis. The incidence of ceiling injuries and the speed with which they heal are also influenced by factors such as disinfection of ceilings, facilities, climate, and general hygiene," adds the technician. 

Care in the over-milking

Over-milking is full vacuum milking without milk flow. This can occur at the beginning of milking, when the cow is not properly stimulated, or at the end of milking when the whole is left in the cow after milk flow has slowed.  

Increased equipment removal time increases the risk of trauma to the teat end. In both cases, even if the injury may be caused by the equipment, it is the management practices that really cause the problems. These include misalignment of the assembly, non-withdrawal of the assembly at the correct time, and the setting of the automatic puller, which may be programmed with very long extraction delay.

"Over-milking can lead to teat damage and perhaps mastitis if combined with other problems such as inadequate pulsation, vacuum fluctuations, split taps and hoses," says Kovaleski.

According to him, in most countries with the well-developed dairy industry, the widespread use of automatic extractors has drastically reduced the problem of over milking at the end of milking. however, it is important to understand that you still need to control the puller configuration and make sure you are milking the cow quickly and completely. 

"There are two settings that have an influence: the flow rate at which sets should be removed and the delay time, that is, how long the extractor should wait to remove sets after it has detected that determined flow rate. Reports indicate that teat condition improved when the time was reduced (less milking by 30 seconds) and milk production and quality were unchanged, despite the widespread belief that incomplete milking leads to mastitis," complements.

Vacuum level adjustment 

  For a long time, it has been suspected that high vacuum levels will cause damage to the teat edge and consequently promote new cases of mastitis. However, according to researchers, controlled experiments do not necessarily support this idea. In fact, the effects of the high vacuum level on mastitis are small unless falls outside the normal range of 42 to 50 kPa. Only some milking specialists believe that more damage to the teat edge occurs when the vacuum level is too low (below normal range) by increasing the milking time (more than high vacuum with short milking times).

"Perhaps because the high vacuum level does not seem to be a risk to teat-end problems, many farm consultants have come to recommend higher vacuum levels to their customers for faster milking and milking time, is in the cow be reduced. However, another study suggests that this conventional and simple strategy of increasing the vacuum over the entire milking period has a relatively small effect on reducing the st time (compared with optimizing milk drop and set removal)," suggests the Reafrio technician.

According to kovaleski, this means that simply increasing the vacuum level without taking into account the characteristics of the teat can end up affecting the ceiling defenses against mastitis. "For each specific liner there is an optimal vacuum level and a pulse setting, and the setting that works for one-liner may not work for another," he concludes.