Holm&Laue GmbH | Calf Feeding

Healthy and performance-oriented calf rearing

H&L Milk Taxi Pasteuriser

Optional Equipment:
120 litres, 200 litres, or 250 litres
Integrated pasteuriser
Programmable cooling cycles
Battery-powered pump and dosing tap
Tank with fast-rotating agitator
Floor foil for gentle heating
Hot water-fired heating (from spring 2009)
EL-AN Locomotion Drive
Remote-controlled doser (from spring 2009)
Support frame for milk churns
Cow drenching equipment

The Standard Version
The H&L Milk Taxi is available as 120 litre, 200 litre, or 250 litre stainless steel tank. The three smaller sizes feature a travelling panel, complete with four air tyres and a parking brake, plus two large push handles for easy steering. The 250 litre Milk Taxi is designed as a trailer behind a minitractor or a riding lawnmower. Thus, large farms too can bring the milk to their calves the easy way. A lid avoids milk splashing out of the tank even when the ground is not level. The integrated thermometer allows controlling the temperature in the tank at any time.

Integrated Pasteuriser
Calves that are fed pasteurised milk are healthier and develop more consistently. This is what experience has shown in U.S. dairies, where pasteurising the milk intended for calf diets is common. And the pasteurisation of calf milk is increasingly making friends in Europe too. The process allows destroying more than 99.5% of the bacteria. It is particularly effective and reliable on pathogens that are a hazard for dairying, such as E. coli, Staphylococci, Enterococci, etc.

Dosing and Pumping the Calf Diet
Using the battery-powered pump and a dispensing tap, you can easily fi ll milk into the teat feeders. The swivelling arm is the ideal tool to dose a pre-set quantity into the feeder buckets at the touch of a button, while you move along the feed fence. The battery means mains-independent power supply. You can even continue to stir the liquid diet while you are travelling to the calf pen, thereby avoiding the dissociation of the mixed components.

Mixing a Milk Replacer Diet
When using milk powder (replacer), fast and proper mixing without agglutinations is essential. Poorly diluted milk powder may cause severe digestive disorders in calves. Optionally, the Milk Taxi features a powerful fl oor-mounted agitator that will mix any replacer into the liquid within seconds. This allows optimum mixing and, thus, is the basis of healthy calves in your herd.

Gentle Underfloor Heating
When dispensing whole milk to the calves, the milk can be warmed to the desired ration temperature by adding hot water. However, if the milk has cooled substantially, using a heating element is recommended. An infi nitely variable thermostat controls the heating element set into the bottom of the Milk Taxi. This warms the milk gently.

Drive EL-AN
When the ground is not level or when there is much milk in the tank, pushing the Milk Taxi manually may be strenuous. For 120 litre and 200 litre versions, Holm & Laue offers EL-AN, a drive system that helps with moving. The battery-powered driving axle allows comfortable locomotion of the Milk Taxi even uphill. An intuitive control handle is used to move the Milk Taxi forward and backward at various speeds. This is what truly makes calf feeding easy as ABC.

Remote-controlled doser
The optional remote control fitted to the dosing tap is especially practical. It allows easily setting the desired, individual ration quantity right in front of the calf in question and dosing this exact amount into its feeder bucket. Distances from the Milk Taxi to the calf pen as long as more than 10 metres are no difficulty because it relies on radio transmission. This extra is your tool of choice in calf barns with an irregular lay-out where it may be impossible to push the unit alongside the feed fences.

Support frame for milk churns
It is frequent that some calves have to be fed an individual ration, different from that of the rest of the herd. The practical tilt-up frame allows the transport of colostrum, electrolyte diet, or simply drinking water to the calf pen in two common milk churns. This mostly means that a second travel to the calf pen is avoided..

Cow drenching equipment
More and more dairy operators drench their cows to prevent post-calving problems. When she calves, the cows loses about 80 - 120 litres of volume and liquid within a short time. Therefore, the cow should be offered lukewarm water after calving to compensate this loss and prevent abomasal displacement. Nutrients can be added to this water to prevent milk fever and other metabolic diseases. If the cow’s water intake is below 30 - 40 litres, drenching should be used to pump liquid into her rumen. Common manual pumps, however, make it difficult to maintain the critical good view of the cow while drenching her. A combination of the pump of the Milk Taxi with a drenching fixture (hose approx. 1.5 m long with a stainless steel coil and a nostril clip) is now available. It allows administering large quantities of liquid to the cow while maintaining a good overview and control at any time.

Programmable cooling cycles
The new uninterrupted cooling feature allows keeping the milk diet cool for a prolonged period of time. To keep the calves’ milk diet fresh for 12 hours, a storage temperature of max. 15°C (59°F) is generally sufficient. If its temperature rises again, the Milk Taxi resumes cooling, depending on its parameter settings. Programming cooling and pasteurisation times enables continuous filling for several hours, which occurs, for instance, when the separated milk circuit of a robotic milker is connected to the unit.

Hot water-fired heating
When there is hot water aplenty, thanks to a heat recovery installation or a biogas fermenter, the extremely gentle electrical heating can be complemented with a new hot water-fired heating. The efficient heat exchanger coil (which doubles as a cooling coil) carries hot water (max. 70°C (158°F)) while heating is in progress. This particularly effective way of heating the milk means power consumption savings for warming the milk.