Hygiene in dairy production through hygienic milking practices
In this part of our guide, we will address the question of how to avoid contamination risks in dairy production in terms of animal cleanliness. In the last part of our guide, we discussed how animal health is a huge factor in dairy production hygiene, and that animals with udder disease cannot be milked for human consumption. This milk is not safe. In this part of the guide, we will take a closer look at for instance animal cleanliness as a factor of dairy production hygiene.
Animal cleanliness is a huge factor in dairy production hygiene
It is of utmost importance that the animals used in dairy production farms are kept clean at all times. The cleanliness of the animals is a major source of contamination, and thus it is important to identify the hazards and risks related to cleanliness in order to minimize them as much as possible. It is not just the animals that should be kept clean. The spaces where the animals are should also be clean. All the areas that the animals use to lie down in should have an adequate size, and they should furthermore be kept dry and clean constantly. Otherwise, it can compromise the safety of the milk that is being produced from the animals. Keeping the spaces for the animals clean means among other things keeping the passageways and access routes clean – to get rid of accumulating mud, dung and slurry as much as possible. This also means that the gateways for the animals, the fields that they use for grazing and the tracks that they walk – wherever they walk – have to be maintained and clean. It is important that mud, dung and slurry does not accumulate in the areas that we have mentioned here – the fields, the gateways and the tracks. Why? Because even accumulations of mud, dung and slurry in these places can cause a higher risk of contamination for the end product – the milk that will be used for human consumption.
How can certain types of milking practices be used to reduce the risk of contamination?
There are different ways to milk the animals, and there are different work procedures surrounding the milking of the animals. How can all of these procedures actively support the reduction of contamination risks? This is what the following section will be about.
When you identify risk points and make sure that the production in your milk farm is hygienic, it is crucial to look at the practices for milking. It is important that the milk from every single animal is analyzed to check for physical, chemical or organoleptic abnormalities. Organoleptic abnormalities are related to the aspects (of food, here milk) that we experience through our senses. This includes the taste, sight, smell (and touch) of the food. If the employees who work with milking come across any kind of abnormality, the milk has to be discarded. The employees in these sections of the production need to be carefully instructed in how to detect abnormalities in the milk – no matter what kind it is: chemical, physical or organoleptic.
Hygiene needs to be “built in” the design of the entire production, bottom-up
Careful instruction of the employees and careful implementation of the best milking practices are important when designing a hygienic dairy production. Overall, hygiene needs to be built into the design of the production facility. Even what seems to be the tiniest detail has to be hygienic – for example the machine levelling feet, the conveyor belts or the side guides for conveyor belts in the processing machinery. If hygiene is implemented into the very design of the entire production facility – and the way it works – the milk will be of great quality.
Do you want to learn more about how to minimize the risks of milk contamination? In part 4 of 5 of this practical guide, we will explain further how to design the milking practices in the most hygienic way.