When it comes to the milking parlor of a dairy farm, sanitation is essential. Achieving the level of sanitation and safety that a milking parlor requires calls for careful maintenance.
There are three practices that every dairy farmer should be incorporating into his or her floor maintenance routines in order to ensure that the milking parlor is a safe and sanitary place.
Wash it regularly
One of the many requirements of maintaining a Grade A dairy status involves keeping clean floors. This calls for regular floor cleanings in the milking parlor.
These washes should be frequent and much more invasive than a quick once over with cold water from a standard hose. Proper cleanings should involve hot water and strong chemicals that will kill the most resilient and dangerous microorganisms.
Keep it smooth and level
There are two reasons your dairy farm floor needs to be smooth and level. The first is for sanitation. If your floor is rough, or it has cracks and crevices, bacteria will seep in. Even your most intense cleaning sessions won't reach the bacteria to stop it.
Similarly, dips in your floor will result in liquids puddling. Puddles throughout your dairy farm floors are concerning from a cleanliness standpoint, and they could even cause corrosion.
The other reason to keep your floors smooth is for safety reasons. A rough floor could injure your cows by wearing down your cows' hooves and eventually causing them to go lame. Rough floors are not the way to prevent slippage because the practice of roughening floors up will cause more harm than good.
So, what do you do? This brings us to our final maintenance tip.
Coat it
Coating your concrete floor creates traction. As we just mentioned, you don't want to rough up your floors at the risk of injuring your cows, but you don't want them to slip either. Coating your concrete floor solves this dilemma by making it slip-resistant.
Not only is a coated concrete floor safer, but it is the only way your floor will last in a milking parlor. Concrete floor coatings protect your floor and make it durable. Unless your dairy farm floor is coated with some kind of surface protector, it will not hold up. Between the hoof traffic and frequent intense washes, unprotected concrete floors would quickly chip away and deteriorate.
If you need a floor coating for your dairy farm's milking parlor, contact CPC Floor Coatings today. We offer a variety of speciality coatings that will lengthen the lifespan of your floor, even in the toughest environments. Reach us through our website, or give us a call at (864) 855-0600.
