CategoriesDairy Farm Lifestyle Tips & Tricks
by 0

Top 4 Tips to improve Barn Hygiene

When it comes to dealing with the health and comfort of your barn living, you’ll always want to make the best of your job possible. That’s right, regardless of what lives in your barn, it is necessary to keep up with hygienic standards to stay clean and healthy. In fact, if a barn is unkempt, bacteria and viruses can be spread, resulting in sickening your dear animals.

Barns is a shelter provided for livestock such as cattle, horses and many other animals. As a Barn handler or frequent visitors, you are well aware of after effects of detrimental unhygienic culture. Those without proper care and regular tending are more prone to get sick and eventually leading to loss of life. A clean and tidy environment is the key source for robust life. So as to say, here are some of the highly recommended tips for your barners’ well-being.

Clean barn

The first and foremost thing in controlling disease break out is cleaning. Clean means free of dirt and organic matter such as manure. This means the removal of all manure and feed, followed by washing, scrubbing and rinsing, or pressure washing, all surfaces with hot water and detergent. Studies have shown that over 90% of bacteria are removed from surfaces that are thoroughly cleaned first. Thorough cleaning will remove most of the contamination and allow disinfectants to penetrate surfaces and kill microorganisms. This is followed by the use of a disinfectant according to label directions (included in the Compendium of Veterinary Products, available in your veterinarian’s office).

Disinfectant

A disinfectant is a chemical or substance that kills microorganisms and is applied to objects.  Follow the label directions before using, the “Active Ingredients” section on the container of disinfectant will identify the type of product. The product label will often state a dilution rate when being used either as a germicidal cleaner (killing microorganisms) or as a sanitizer (reducing the number of microorganisms). The minimum contact time (mentioned in label) is the time required to kill microorganisms. The kill time (10-15minutes) is affected by the presence of organic matter like bedding blood and pus, temperature, pH, hardness of water and concentration of disinfectant. So be sure of cleaning up before using disinfectants.

             It’s important not to simply focus on disinfecting surfaces in barns and barn areas (walls, doors, paddocks, fences, and gates) to curb disease spread; be sure to address hand tools and other farm equipment, vehicles, and trailers, too. Before you get started, relocate animals from the area you’re about to clean and disinfect. You might also need to remove all bedding. 

Make sure the area where you are working has adequate ventilation and turn off the power supply before soaking walls with water. Many disinfectants can be extremely irritating to human skin, eyes, and respiratory tracts. Always wear protective clothing, eye protection, and gloves when using any disinfectant product.

***Never mix different disinfectants together. Every approved disinfectant in the United States has a safety data sheet, available from the manufacturer and contains valuable information.

Personal Hygiene

The means of preventing the disease to spread by individual self-care is often termed as Personal Hygiene. Possibly barn handlers can be a reservoir or source of the disease agent while moving around from one barn to another; by carrying the agent on their clothing and shoes or animals themselves. The “shower in and shower out” followed in swine and poultry industries shows some pretty results.

In care, handlers should be dedicated with boots and clothing only used for the barn. If that is not possible, boots should be cleaned prior to entering the premises and freshly laundered clothing should be worn. A freshly laundered pair of coveralls would also suffice. Handlers should learn not to wear the same outfit outside anywhere, as there is the potential for them to carry the problem back.

Hand Washing

Hand washing should be facilitated around the barn/farm to encourage the frequent washing of hands. Research has shown that, as the access to a hand-washing facility increased, the hand-washing compliance increased (1). Thorough hand washing with soap is adequate in most cases. Antiseptic soaps (e.g., chlorhexidine) or iodophor shampoo/washes (e.g., Betadine scrub) or alcohol based hand gel may also be used and should be located at the sink in an easy dispensing container.

         Dispensers can be preferably attached to handlers’ belts or outside the doorway for easy access and frequent use before working for another barn, as they only require 15 seconds to dry. Hand washing is also important to prevent chemical contamination of the workplace when feeding medicines.

* Choose a product that doesn’t dry out the skin or cause skin irritation.In this stressful pandemic situation caused by Coronavirus, it’s always better to have knowledge at your tips to make the lives around much safer and healthier. It’s always that prevention is better than cure, take in interest towards a healthy living and strive through it.

CategoriesCoco Coir Bedding Reptile Bedding Tips & Tricks
by 0

User Guide for Coco Coir Bedding

Completely natural, nontoxic and a cost effective product that can improve your pets’ habitant is Coir bedding. Coco coir reptile bedding offers a number of benefits to both reptiles and their owners. They are present in 2 major categories of coco bedding in the market right now, one is fine blend and other is course blend. Fine blends are compressed coco peat packed up for small reptiles like bearded dragons, guinea pigs, turtles, tortoises, iguanas, scorpions, hermit crabs and also used by worm breeders. Course blends are the coco husk chips for adult reptiles like snakes and a vast variety of lizards.

         They are sold either loose or in a lightweight, compressed block, they can either be used directly as dry substrate or hydrated for better use. 

Small Reptiles

Reptiles are more or less a species that tend to be in its own comforts, that’s via placing them in terrariums. Coir provides them with cushion land-fills by entertaining the pets that digs and can be used to change landscaping inside the terrarium. They are more safe, comfortable spots for nesting and borrowing. Once used in your terrarium, it gives off a pleasant, clean and clear look, and their absorbance can help to reduce odor inside.

 To hydrate it for use with your reptile, simply put coir in a clean container and add a gallon of fresh water. Allow the coir to soak in water for an hour so it can expand fully. Next, mix the coir by hand, spreading the moisture evenly and breaking apart any remaining clumps. You might also want to wring out excess water. 

Spread coir in the desired area of the tank or terrarium with a thickness of at least 1-2 inches. You’ll need approximately 1.5 pounds of coir block to spread it at the recommended thickness across the bottom of a 40-gallon tank.

When using coir with reptiles that prefer less humid climates, the dry blocks can be very difficult to break apart. Moisten the coir brick just enough to break it. Then lay the coir out to dry thoroughly before using it in your pet’s terrarium.

Store any coir you’re not using immediately for later use. Store extra coco coir reptile bedding in a sealed container to keep it fresh and prevent unwanted species to spoil them out.

Adult Reptiles

Preferentially as for adult reptile breeders’ choice, coco husk chip provides humid temperature and a husky-comfy feeling for reptiles. Because coco coir absorbs and retains water so efficiently, adding moist coco coir to the reptile’s habitat helps maintain proper humidity naturally. This is paramount for species that live in tropical climates. Since the key is to maintain health and longevity, putting much eco-friendly bedding for your reptiles’ world is the best option.    

Take a clean tub, fill in with a fresh water lesser than that of recommended in product instruction. To make the process much faster, prefer using lukewarm water for dipping. Sink the whole bedding block or as much as you wish into water. Press along the sides of the block for optimal soaking, leave it for some time. As time lapse, it eventually gets expanded.

After totally submerging on one side, flip it over for thorough soaking. Don’t over soak it, as the block may fall apart causing hassle for the handler to skim it. Also in the middle of a few inches, there remain little patches of un-soaked that you may have to dip them once more. Soaking each side requires a maximum of 3-4 minutes later put the block back in the container and let it be there for a few more minutes to expand completely. Start splitting from the corner of the block as they will be more futile than core. And let it dry for a while since it holds up an incredible amount of moisture that may lead to potential mold formation.  

Once the crumbs of chip husks are ready, start preparing to lay a new bedding. First, scoop out the previously laid mattress and clean with a vacuum cleaner. Once all clean, disinfect the entire enclosure with veterinary disinfectant such as F10 SC. In the proportion of 1:500 mix 10ml of it with water into a squirt bottle and spray along all the corners and entire space.

         Now lay down the bedding evenly over the space. Husk fills pretty deep into the tray, looking really good, handful, won’t get depleted easily. Even if bedding gets dirtier at some point, it can be taken out while the remaining maintain the same volume. Place a non-spill bowl away from the hotspot; where your pet moves around more often.

Changing of bedding is left to user convenience probably once per month, they can even recur the cost of bedding by reselling the manured mattress to compost manufacturers. This way users are ensured of win-win situations, without much of a loss. Knowing the more acceptable way of bedding rather than simply laying them down randomly is the most efficient way of improving oneself, and that’s what all seek for. Hope you all enjoyed reading it and make the best out of it from now on.

CategoriesCoco Coir Bedding Reptile Bedding Tips & Tricks
by 0

Coco Coir Bedding- A sustainable bedding Choice

The very existence of Coco bedding for barn livings surpasses a few decades, they are the preferential by many of early barn owners for their in-cost and easy availability and are presently in use as evergreen bedding style. In turn to voice their beneficiary facts, it’s more suitable to go as barn care-takers’ view, so let’s explore Our Coco Bedding Privileges and some of their hidden meanings.

Coconut Husk or Chip Bedding are the naturally derived products from coconut Coir; which in turn, is an extracted layer from coconut shell. Coir are the fibrous husk found beneath harder outer shells, that are the versatile, flexible and user friendly natural extract.

Advantages

With Coir as basis, we can make out much of Coco bedding usages, as to mention:

Coco beddings are the far better bedding option than the traditional Stray lay-outs or Wooden shavings and sawdust. Coco bedding stands out as EASY USE, DUST-FREE, ANTI-ALLERGEN, PEST/ ROT CONTROL, ECO-FRIENDLY, SUPER ABSORBENT, TOTALLY STATIC FREE, HIGHLY RESILIENT, LOW DECOMPOSITION RATE and available at RELIABLE COST among all existing bedding means.

By the course of Soaking, Retting and Drying, the preliminary coir husk is made acceptable for bedding making, by which dust and airborne impurities are washed out, during that time remnant microorganisms’ breaks down, the loose fiber end ensues high elastic tensile strength. This entrapped air gives rise to the pronounced springiness (resilience) of the fiber, its buoyancy in water, increases the time water takes to penetrate the fibers, significantly a supreme absorbance and less prone to wrinkle and crush because of the air-filled cavities.

It is one of the most lignin-rich natural fibers, and can withstand exposure to all kinds of weather; they possess high weather resistance due to higher amounts of lignin as a durable product. They appeal as a bio-insulator because it has high mechanical strength and it is resistant to insect and rot in aiding hygienic and healthy being and relatively waterproof and is the only natural fiber resistant to damage by salt water.

In addition, these fibers can be much more stretched beyond their elastic limit without failure due to the helical arrangement of microfibrils at 45° to the extent of 5-10 times of the weight when soaked. Because of slow breaking down of lignin, it exhibits the lowest decomposition rate ever yielding as compost fertilizer for vegetation growth (after primary bedding use).

Furthermore, if bedding is well rendered after use, can be of potential use for biogas production. And as wall insulation in tropical climatic regions to enhance energy efficiency and thermal optimal in residential dwelling. And rolled into stack for time and space saving.

Last but not the least, it’s economically feasible for all range of users.

In concern of the well-being of you and your surrounding environment, we suggest Coco bedding as a better bedding option for barn inhabitants and for safer, gentle, cheerful you.