Short communication: Removal of hair from the mammary gland: Recovery of bacteria from teat skin and milk

Abstract

It has been assumed that the presence of udder hair can interfere with safe milking practices and reduce the wholesomeness of milk relative to bacterial content. This study determined the effect of removal by singeing udder hair on the microflora of teat skin (total bacteria, coliform, and esculin-positive and esculin-negative streptococci) and milk (total bacteria, coliform, psychrotrophic, and thermoduric counts) as opposed to not singeing udder hair, using different pre-and postmilking disinfection (predip, postdip, or both) combinations. The 4 different pre-and postmilking disinfection combinations were predip and postdip, postdip only, predip only, and no predip and no postdip. Differences in bacterial numbers recovered from teat skin and milk in singed and not singed glands were not significantly affected by treatment. Findings of this trial do not support the concept that udder hair removal results in improved milk quality as measured by bacterial content.