Many farmers change the product they are using when a different salesperson arrives in the yard offering a deal on bulk purchase or payment terms.

There is no national list of all teat sprays in use and no database showing the products used in manufacturing teat sprays.

There are a large number of teat sprays on the market and in Table 1 above we list the products some of the farmers were using in our survey. It is by no means a conclusive list of all sprays on the market.

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We include the price paid for products purchased in 2012 and the active ingredient in the teat sprays used as best as we can determine.

Some teat spray products don’t even say, or at least leave it very vague as to what is the main ingredient used in the teat spray.

The three main active ingredients are iodine, chlorohexidine and lactic acid in teat sprays. Iodine has traditionally been the most popular and is described by most milk quality experts as being very good at killing bacteria and the various different bugs on cows’ teats.

Some farmers buy teat spray ‘ready-made’ or ‘ready for use’, but more will buy a concentrate and make up the dilution based on manufacturer’s guidelines.

Both work fine if dilution is completed properly and concentrate products come out slightly cheaper than ready-made teat dips purchased.

The trend is, when farmers buy larger containers, they get better value for money. Large containers need to be handled properly and some farms will have space issues storing large containers.

The trend to spray cows before attaching clusters has increased over the last number of years.

If doing this to reduce the potential contagious bacteria on the teats, Teagasc advise that it is best to rub off the spray before attaching the clusters.

Some teat dip manufacturers specifically state that their product can be used as a pre-spray before milking and, more specifically, state it is a post-milking spray only, with no mention of pre-spraying.

In our survey of 17 products above, five are listed as post-sprays with no mention of using them as pre-sprays.

Teagasc and AHI advice is to spray 15ml per cow post-milking to protect teats all year round. This means 30ml per cow per day, so it’s 2.4 litres per day for a farmer with 80 cows or almost 17 litres of teat spray per week when cows are milking.

If cows are milking for 40 weeks (280 days), that’s 680 litres of teat spray.