4 costs of calf milk pasteurisation to consider
- 31 Aug 2022
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With rising costs of production, including energy, water and milk replacers, farmers may be tempted to look for potential savings when it comes to feeding calves. Whether finding yourself in the position of considering moving from milk replacer to whole milk, or rethinking how you feed whole milk, pasteurisation must be explored.
What is pasteurisation?
Pasteurisation was first developed by Louis Pasteur who proved that microbes responsible for food spoilage could be avoided by elevating the temperature to 63°C (145°F) for 30 minutes or 72°C (162°F) for 15 seconds. This heating process improved food safety and lengthened the shelf life of food with no changes in product quality and only minimal changes to vitamin content.
Under ideal conditions, pasteurisation reduces the bacteria population by 99.999%. In other words, if one started with 100,000 bacteria, pasteurisation would reduce this population to just 1 bacterium. As a result, pasteurisation rapidly became standard practice, even law, in the food systems of many countries.
What and when to pasteurise?
Pasteurisation has gained traction in the dairy industry with several pasteurisers on the market to reduce bacteria levels in waste and whole milk fed to calves. Many farms have nonsaleable milk or waste milk in the form of transition milk, mastitis milk, and antibiotic-containing milk. The use of this milk as a source of milk feeding for calves can be a cost-effective way for farms to utilise otherwise unsaleable milk.
However, raw waste milk may have very high bacterial populations depending on a number of factors:
- Animal from which the milk was produced
- Cleanliness of how the milk was harvested
- Time and conditions under which it was stored
- Studies show that raw milk waste fed to calves has highly variable bacteria counts of up to a billion bacterial colonies per mL.
High bacterial populations have been linked to poor calf health such as diarrhoea and low weight gains in calves. With proper pasteurisation and handling of liquid feed, calf exposure to high bacterial populations is greatly reduced, resulting in lower rates of illness and death with improved weight gains before placing blame on the pasteuriser for not operating properly, it is important to review the entire processing procedure from collection of raw waste milk to delivery of the pasteurised milk to the calves.
Pasteurising a poor product will not make it better and is not a good feed option for calves.
The 4 costs to consider
1. Machines
As discussed earlier, several machines are available. Which machine to choose will mostly be dependent on how much milk you want to pasteurise at a time. The most popular models are available in 100, 150, 260 & 400L capacities. These will feed 20-80 calves in one batch. A rough guide to purchasing costs would be £6,200 - £10,500. A few grants are available throughout the year which often have pasteurisers on.
2. Colostrum
Having made the decision to pasteurise, it makes sense that all milk which a calf receives is pasteurised.
What is the difference between milk and colostrum?
Colostrum is higher in fat than whole milk, and cannot be batch pasteurised directly against the element as whole milk can. A separate machine may be needed to safely pasteurise colostrum to avoid destroying antibodies.
3. Time
Labour and timings need to be considered. Pasteurisers need to be empty, clean, and disinfected by the end of milking, ready to start the pasteurisation cycle.
The total cycle time for 100L to get to temperature, pasteurise, and cool to feeding temperature is 2 hours 30 minutes. Consider when your calves will be fed, bacteria will double every 20 minutes at room temperature.
4. Electricity
For 100L pasteurised
The heating time of the 2 hours 30 min cycle is 75 minutes.
The average cost of electricity per kWh (April 22) £0.28
28p/60mins= 0.0043p/min x75 mins = 32.5p / kW
Assuming 5kW pasteuriser.
Cost= 32.5px5
(Estimated June 2022)
Ultimately, clean, warm, pasteurised whole milk is the gold standard of feeding for calves, however, there are several 100% dairy protein milk replacers which will match this level of nutrition for calves.
If cost saving is your motivation for feeding whole milk, the price of pasteurisation should be factored in. Saving money by feeding whole milk unpasteurised is risky, and costly in the long run.
