Use of Chlorine Dioxide on goat colostrum sanitation

Abstract

Goat importance around the world have increased significantly over the last decades. In the case of Europe, the dairy goat farms are of special interest nowadays. The early intake of colostrum is vital for newborn goat kids to ensure a proper passive immunity transfer which is crucial to improve the survival rates and disease resistance. To minimise the risk of pathogens transmission through colostrum, several sanitation treatments have been studied, such as heat treatments, SDS addition, among others. In this study, the efficacy of treating colostrum with chlorine dioxide (ClO2) at two different doses has been evaluated as an alternative to conventional sanitisation methods. The aim was to know the ClO2 effect on bacterial growth and IgG concentration in goat colostrum. For this purpose, 15 samples of colostrum from Majorera goats were divided into four aliquots, each one receiving different treatments, as follows: colostrum without treatment, colostrum heated at 56°C for 1 hour, colostrum treated with chlorine dioxide at 400 µg/L and colostrum treated with chlorine dioxide at 800 µg/L. Analyses of the main bacterial groups and IgG were determined. Heat treatment (56ºC for 1 hour) significantly reduced bacterial population, whereas the bacterial counts between untreated colostrum and colostrum treated with chlorine dioxide at any of the doses tested were similar. Conversely, all treatments assayed reduced IgG concentration, compared to untreated samples. The findings show that the addition of 400 or 800 µg/L of chlorine dioxide to goat colostrum is not efficient in reducing bacterial population neither maintaining an optimal IgG concentration