6/23/2026

Cleaning and Sanitation

• Cleaning the animal, house and premises
– For better health of the animal,
– Hygienic production and human health
Basic farm operations • Natural situations – clean themselves
– Frequently changing their resting and sleeping place,
– Intermittent bathing, exposure to rain, rolling on the ground
Dr. C. Ibraheem Kutty – Rubbing on objects, licking and so on

Associate Professor & Head • Farm situation – Same place for long time
– Need for frequent cleaning of the animal and
Department of Animal Husbandry
– Sanitising the premises.
College of Agriculture, Vellayani
Kerala Agricultural University

Sanitary measures Cleaning the Animal

• Wall and flooring should be of easy to clean • To improve the cleanliness and appearance
• Provisions for easy drainage and rapid drying
• Dung and feed waste should be removed frequently • Helps better growth and appearance of hair coat
• Contamination of manger with dung to be avoided • Make the animal more friendly and co operative
• Waste accumulation in the premises to be avoided
• Increases blood circulation and make the skin healthier
• Dung pit should be far away and devoid of water logging
• Surroundings of the shed should be kept clean and dry • Enables hygienic production of milk and other products
• Minimise leakage of water, and avoid water logging floor • Facilitate early detection of diseases and correction
• Let out the animals frequently / practice loose housing
• Periodic maintenance of sheds and clean surroundings • Prevents ectoparasites and other micro pathogens

Washing Grooming
• Routine practice usually in the morning • It is a modification of brushing and is done all
and before milking over the body
• Essential activity in confinement rearing • The entire body is cleaned by brushing the
and especially for milking animals skin / hair coat
• Usually done at houses it self or at • Followed by massaging for stimulating
suitable water sources muscles and setting of hair coat
• Washing is done accompanied by • Grooming is commonly done in the case of
scrubbing the body horses and goats
• Remove dung / dirt, Also helps for • Also in the case of cattle meant for shows
cooling during summer and pet animals.

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Brushing Identification of Animals

• For cleaning the hair coat, Related • Individual identification for
– In less frequently washed animals – Scientific management of animals
activities
– Animals having long hair coat such as – More relevant as the farm size increases
• Nail clipping
dogs, cats, goats and rabbits – Requires easy and clear-cut methods
• Hoof trimming
– Mostly used as a routine and when
• Wool shearing • Purpose of identification
the dirt is minimal and dry.
• Hair cutting – Proper recording of management details
• To make the hair coat glistening
• Shampooing • Feeding
– Remove loose hairs and make the
skin more healthy • Breeding
– Usually adopted for show animals. • Body massaging • Production
– Performed gently, in the same • Scrubbing • Health care
direction of hairs • Horn trimming • Insurance
– Done for sufficient time and at suitable • Shoeing – Registration / Licensing needs
frequency – To trace back stolen / lost

Common methods for Identification Branding

• Affixing some markings on animal body.
– Traditional or natural methods – Letter, Number, Symbol
• For few animals – Device used is called branding Iron
– Artificial methods – Produces permanent damage to skin surface
• 1. Branding • Red hot Iron
– Hot branding • Caustic chemical
– Cold branding
– Advantage
» Chemical branding
» Freeze branding • Cheaper and easily available
• Leaves permanent mark
• 2. Tattooing
• 3. Tagging – Disadvantages
• Painful and cruel method
• 4. Ear notching
• Not usable in young and long haired animals
• 5. Modern methods
• Chance of spreading the chemical
– Neck collar numbers
– Micro chipping

Freeze branding Ear tagging

• Metal or plastic tags with numbers affixed
• Freeze branding on the ear lobe.
– Using liquid nitrogen • Tags usually have two pieces such as male
– De-pigmentation of hairs on the area and female tags
– Advantages • Application using tagging machine.
• Better visibility
– Most common method used for identification
• Chance of enlargement
• Comparatively less painful – Uniformity and convenience
• Skin damage minimum – Less painful, easy to use and more humane
– Disadvantages – Possibility of tag loss out of
• Difficulty to get LN2 • Improper fixation
• Not usable for light colour animals • Tearing of earl lobe
• Uniform positioning of the marking not possible

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Tattooing Other methods

• Tattooing on ears
– Letters imprinted on the inner side of ear lobe. • Ear notching
– Device used - Tattooing set – Used in pigs
– Other methods not suitable
• Tattooing machine, numbers and ink (inert chemicals /
pigments) – Cuts made on ear lobes
– Number corresponding to position of the cuts
• Principle and Practice – Convenience of making and easy to read
– Done at very young age
– Size enlargement • Wing / leg bands
– Remains life long – Used in poultry
– Metal or plastic bands are fixed on wings or legs
• Cheaper and easily done
• Chance of progressive loss of visibility, • Wing badges
• less usable in dark skinned animals

Determination of Age
Modern methods
• Birth details Age determination by dentition
• Appearance • Types of teeth
• Numbers fixed on neck collar
– Temporary & Permanent
– Used in modern dairy farms – Body size • Distinguishing features
– Plastic or fiber number tags fixed on neck belts – Hair coat – Incisor, Premolar, Molar
– Advantages – Proportion of head • Dental formula
• No cruelty involved – Angle of joints Cattle – I-0/4, C-0/0, PM-3/3, M-3/3
• Easy to apply, reuse and replace • Features to be checked for age
– Horn rings • Erruption
• Less chance of loss
– Disadvantages – Dentition • Full growth

• Inconvenience at reading
Horn rings – formed of stress • Wear
Each prominent ring on • Replacement
• Microchip insertion the horn represent calving • Wear
– Commonly used in pets, horses and show animals and helps to assess the age • Loss
– Need Microchip and reader
Limitations ?

Changes of incisors used for age determination in cattle Assessment of body weight
• Birth /1 wk Central incisors present
• 2 weeks Temp. Centro-laterals erupt To determine
• 3 weeks Temp. laterals erupt
Methods
• Growth rate,
• 4 weeks Temp. corners erupt • Weighing for actual
• 1 year Temp. centrals wear
• Feed requirement, weight,
• 1 yr 3 m Centro-laterals in wear • Stage for breeding, • Rough assessment
• 1 yr 6 m Laterals in wear • 2 yrs Permanent Centrals erupt • Assessment of meat – Subjective assessment
• 1 yr 9 m Corners in wear • 3 yrs Perm. Centro-laterals erupt value,
• 2 yrs All temp incisors in wear • 4 yrs Permanent laterals erupt • Better assessment by
• Calculation of drug
• 5 yrs Permanent Corners erupt
dosage
formulae
• 6 yrs Wear on Centrals
– different formulas available
• 7 yrs Wear on Centro laterals • Experimental purposes. – For different species and
• 8 yrs Wear on laterals
age
• 9 yrs Wear on Corners
• 10 yrs All incisors well worn

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Assessment of body weight

Body weight of cattle (in Kilograms) = L G² / 660

• Where in L is the length and G is the girth taken in inches

• Length is measured from point of shoulder to point of

buttocks - the raised points of shoulder region and
buttock region on the side of tail head
Thank you

• Girth is the circumference of chest just behind the point of

elbow, which will be the minimum value of chest girth.

• Accuracy upto 80 %, with + 10 Kg variation chances