Life Choices on the Dairy: Batch or Individual Meal Pasteurization

To pasteurize your colostrum or not to pasteurize your colostrum, is the question? That is a great question! While this is an important decision to make and I hope that you do plan on pasteurizing your colostrum, the next real question is when pasteurizing colostrum, is should I do large batch pasteurization (many meals in a large vat) or individual meal pasteurization (each meal all portioned out before pasteurization). This is one of the questions dairy farmers face when starting a colostrum management program and many times struggle with how to proceed. Let’s take a look at the two ways in which you can pasteurize the colostrum on your dairy farm.  

Batch Pasteurization vs. Individual Meal Pasteurization

Batch Meals: Batch Pasteurizers for colostrum heat a larger quantity of colostrum at a time. Colostrum is collected from several dams and then poured into a large vat to be heated to the appropriate temperature for the correct amount of time and then automatically cooling. It is then to be poured into containers for feeding or storage. These pasteurizers should be equipped with some type of agitator to constantly move the colostrum around to prevent it from cooking or caramelizing.

Pros:

• Calves receive pasteurized colostrum from the dams on your dairy farm which ensures that it is getting the specific antibodies to the organisms that are found on your farm.
• The colostrum is constantly stirred during the pasteurization process to promote even heating.
• Pasteurized colostrum can decrease the morbidity and mortality rates on your farm.
• Less expensive to purchase than the individual meal pasteurizers.
  

Cons:

• There is a chance that you will have to freeze then thaw out collected colostrum to have the required amount of colostrum for the batch, then refreeze for storage. Thawing and refreezing colostrum is not recommended, this can damage the colostrum and increase bacterial growth.
• The colostrum is pooled, mixed, then pasteurized meaning you can’t control the quality of colostrum each calf receives. If you have some high-quality colostrum mixed with lower-quality colostrum, then the overall batch of colostrum is of lesser quality.
• The larger the batch of colostrum, the longer it takes to pasteurize and the longer it takes to cool to feeding/storing temperatures.
• The larger the batches of colostrum can reduce the overall IgG concentrations.
• Sometimes the colostrum can thicken too much with the extended amount of time that a large batch takes to pasteurize and cool.
• The pasteurized colostrum can also be re-contaminated when pouring it into the feeding or storage containers. Especially, if proper sanitation was not maintained with these items.
• Biosecurity Issues: If one of the cows is sick, and you pour that colostrum into the batch, it will automatically contaminate the rest of the batch and the problem will spread across a large number of calves.
• They are also known to have hot and cold spots. This means that they distribute uneven heat throughout the colostrum and with the colostrum being as sensitive as it is you are really looking for trouble, because the cooler areas will let bacteria grow, and the hot areas will denature the immunity.
• The construction of the pasteurizers is what makes the difference the batch pasteurizers usually have a water jacket, but because it’s in the wall of the pasteurizer only a small percentage of the colostrum actually touches the side.  It will not heat evenly and you really have to work hard to keep the large amount melting evenly otherwise you end up with chunks.
•  On a batch pasteurizer, you have to do the bulk of the work. By pouring it into a bottle, after it’s been pasteurized and that’s really the time, that you should be feeding the calf.
  

Individual Meals: Individual Meal Pasteurizers, like the Calf Hero™ pasteurizers, heat individual bags of colostrum at a time. These machines can heat one meal to twelve meals at a time depending on the capacity of the machine. Each meal is placed in its own sterile bag and placed in a holder in the water bath. The holder then spins the bag of colostrum during the pasteurization and cooling process, to ensure even heating. Then when the process is complete, you can either feed or store each meal/bag as needed.

Pros:

• Calves receive pasteurized colostrum from the dams on your dairy farm which ensures that it is getting the specific antibodies to the organisms that are found on your farm.
• The colostrum is constantly stirred during the pasteurization process.
• Pasteurized colostrum can decrease the morbidity and mortality rates on your farm.
• Each meal is poured into a sterile bag before pasteurization, there is less chance of recontamination.
• Smaller, individual meals will take less time and have less of a chance to thicken and be unusable.
• Individual meals may have a higher IgG concentration than large batches.
• You can control the quality of each feeding by measuring it with a colostrometer or digital refractometer. Thus, ensuring that the higher quality colostrum is used for the first feedings and lesser quality colostrum is used at later feedings. The quality of colostrum can vary from cow to cow, so having an individual cow’s colostrum Brix reading from a dam that has lower quality colostrum, can be used on another older calf instead of a newborn calf that requires a higher rate of passive transfer.
•  BioSecurity: If one of the cows is sick, you are limiting your exposure to one or two calves, and as long as you write things down, you also have traceability.
• In the Calf Hero™ pasteurizers, the ratio is flipped there is a lot of water surrounding a small amount of colostrum – that way we can control the temperature better than and because the cartridge holder moves, we can agitate both the water and the colostrum inside the bag. Preventing the hot and cold spots.
• The cleanliness of an individual pasteurizer is higher than a batch pasteurizer. It will not prevent human error, it does create an additional barrier. The colostrum is stored, pasteurized, and fed from the same container, while the water in the pasteurizer might not be up to standard, the colostrum still doesn’t touch the water, it is protected by a plastic colostrum bag. It also doesn’t have to be poured anywhere else to be fed.

Cons:

• Individual Meal Pasteurizers can cost more than a Batch pasteurizer.
• Still doesn’t help prevent calf sickness if used incorrectly, not kept clean, or maintained properly.
• You may have to run the pasteurizer multiple times per day during heavy calving seasons.
• You will have to empty and clean the machine if a bag breaks during the pasteurization process, causing delays in feeding or processing.
• Bacteria growth can begin if the pasteurized colostrum sits too long in the machine without being attended to in the recommended 30-minute window.
• With the individual meal pasteurizer, you are doing more of the work upfront, but then when you are ready to feed, you just have to thaw and feed.

Recommendations:

• Use only high-quality colostrum at the first 2 feedings of each newborn calf.
• Collect and store all colostrum using sanitary measures. Make sure you have the proper hygiene protocols in place on your farm.
• Ensure that all areas on the farm, especially the maternity area and the calf pens are properly maintained to minimize sickness.
• Make sure each calf is properly fed-the proper amounts, the proper temperatures, and the proper times.
• Monitor morbidity and mortality rates.
• Routinely check colostrum samples for quality.
• Label each meal of colostrum with the Brix reading, so you know what quality of colostrum each calf is receiving at each feeding. 
• Routinely check the blood serum proteins of your calves.
• Regularly clean all equipment.
• Do the scheduled maintenance on all equipment. Make the necessary repairs as soon as possible.
• Use a pasteurizer that is specifically designed for colostrum, a waste milk pasteurizer is NOT equipped to do the job properly.

We recommend that whatever you decide is best for your dairy farm, that you feed each calf high quality pasteurized colostrum, 4L within the first 30 minutes of life and a second feeding of 2L approximately 6 hours after the first feeding for the best passive transfer results. The pasteurizer must be reliable with temperature controls for constant and consistent heating. The equipment must be cleaned and maintained according to the manufacturer’s guidelines. If your equipment isn’t up to date, the pasteurization of the colostrum may be affected. Also, remember that pasteurization doesn’t solve all of your calf health problems, some of those problems are subject to the defects in your cleaning and hygiene protocols on the farm or feeding low quality or inadequate amounts of colostrum to a newborn calf.