Clean Milk Production Practices In India

Rachana Sharma, Gurpreet Singhand Pallavi Khajuria

Department of Veterinary Physiology and Biochemistry College of veterinary Science, Rampura Phul Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana

Milk is an opaque white liquid produced by the mammary gland of mammals. It provides the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food.Milk is one of the important natural secretions released from the mammary gland. It contains fat, protein, lactose, vitamins, minerals and large quantity of water to meet the energy and other requirement of the body. These nutrients are present in a very easily digestible form so that even a neonate calf or human child could digest easily. Therefore, it has rightly been called as Balance Food.

Clean milk

Clean milk can be defined as the fresh milk which have normal composition and is free from any foreign particles (dust, hairs, bacteria etc.) and drugs residues. There can be adverse effect on its quality if proper care is not taken during production, procurement and transport. The quality of milk products like Ghee, Powder, Butter, Paneer, Curd, Buttermilk, Sweets etc. depends on process and quality of raw material. If raw milk has good quality, then finished product will have better shelf life. Clean milk can be obtained from a healthy animal by following the hygienic milking management practices. To understand the concept of clean milk production, it is essential to know the structure of the mammary gland.

Strategies for clean milk production

Education camp and training of dairy farmer should be conduct for the clean milk production. The camp of milk producers should be based on hygiene, housekeeping, sanitation, methods of milking strategies and good animal husbandry practices. 1. Awareness and training: Educational programsare help full to the importance of clean milk production.

This should be in the form of charts, posters, displayed board at village, society and milk collection centers.

Make them aware about proper handling of the milk from udder to reception dock, maintenance of clean environment, availability of clean utensils to milk cooling bulk tanks and coolers. 2. Feeding practices: Animal feeds and fodder must not contain directly or indirectly microbiological or chemical contaminants within the milk in amounts that's unacceptable to health.

Forage feed and silage should be procured from a reliable source and should be stored properly. 3. Housing management: The shed shave to be clean and easy with suitable arrangement to dispose dung, urine, feed and feed residues. There should be proper supply of uninfected water and feed. The shed must be proper clean before milking. 4. Handling of milking vessels: The milking vessel should be made of stainless steel. It should be cleaned before and after milking with hot water and certified detergents/chemicals. It should have small mouth. The milker should wear clean clothes and maintain personal hygiene. He should wash his hands before milking and should not spit or smoke. Shaving the hair of the hind legs and tail should be carried out routinely. Also, the fore milk should be discarded in a proper place. 5. Udder Hygiene: Effective milking practicesarean important parameter to produce safe and suitable milk; the microorganisms present on the skin of teat can contaminate the milk during milking or through the teat tip will penetrate the teat canal increasing the possibility of mastitis. Therefore, it is necessary to implement hygienicprophylactic measures to maintain cleanliness and udder health before

and after milking of dairy herds, with the help of disinfecting agents. 6. Health management: Animal husbandry practices including regular monitoring for disease such as mastitis should be a part of the routine work.

During milking, using teat dips, and washing of udder should be acontinuous activity of the dairy farm.

Sick cattle sheds should be far away from the milking barn and separated from healthy ones. The Healthy animals must be milked first.

7. Milk collection and transportation:

There should be a provision for bulk cooling tanks to reduce the bacteriological load in the milk immediately after collection. Other prerequisites for clean milk production include hygienic standards, good animal husbandry practices and proper handling, storage and transportation of milk are important elements to produce quality milk.

Principles of milking

Milking is defined as an important and laborious process that involves hormonal reflex. The art of milking is performed within 5-9minutes. Milking is completed twice each day. The cattle and buffaloes are kept exclusively for milk production. Although the primary purpose is to produce milk, the milk production is more in exotic breed as compared to indigenous breed. If the calf is allowed to suck the full amount of milk it can leads to digestive disturbances, enteritis, etc., usually milk is fed to calves depending upon the body weight of the calf the rate of1/10 and 1/15 of the body weight during first week and second week respectively. Though milking is a laborious process, in the present circumstances new discoveries have been made to extract the milk from the udder. They are called mechanical milkers or milking machines. The pulsation and