Starting calves off seperate from each other is by far the most ideal method. You really need to get them past that newborn to weaning stage singlely, but not every situation is ideal I realize. Not everyone has a row of hutches waiting outside.
As far as disinfecting methods, we use the cheapest way, and hopefully it seems to be the best.
While i have seen it recommended that these stalls get steam cleaned, we simply dont have that type of equipment. We pressure spray our stalls with a 50/50 water /bleach solution, we use the indutrial bleach that has a 16% chlorine content, but I don't even think thats really needed, household bleach should work fine (about 6% strength i think), and when dry we follow up with hydrated lime. spread out over the floors and walls.
but be really careful with it, it will burn your skin and eyes, especially if it gets wet while on you.
Before we put anything back into the stall, we brush the walls off and cover the floor with clean bedding, so no animals come into direct contact with the hydraded lime powder residue, which in time will dilute with the waste being dumped on it..
With our hutches, we simply turn them over, hose them off, and spray with bleach, and keep them turned over for days to let the sun help sanitize them.The move then to a new location.
Ideally, our hutch pads should have gravel under them , but very few of ours do, becuase we like to move them at least every two rotations. We bed with sand, regular lime, and then either shavings, sawdust, or poor hay on top of that, it depends on the time of year and weather. We of course bed heavily during winter months.
Now the idea of the lime is this............when we had a dairy, we bed our milk cattle on agricultural, or field lime, all the time, kept the mastitis, and squomnus cell ? counts down real low. Both agri lime and hydrated lime act as anti bacterials, but Hydrated lime is very potent stuff, and we never let it come into direct contact with us or our animals. burns! When we cleaned our barns and loafing sheds out, the lime and manure made great spread on our pastures.
Direct sunlight, and time to allow the above to disinfect the surfaces you treated is the main thing. plus make sure anything you transfer from stall to stall is clean. Don't knowingly tranfer or bring in any sick calves into a group, unless you want to treat all of them. Whne ever possible when bringing like grouped weaned calves together we try for the all in/all out method.
We learned alot of this from an unfortunate neighbor that we used to sell calves to, and he would raise them in veal barns. Dark, moist, enviroments, that would breed all kinds of pathogens, he often would loose 100% of his group to disease, because by law they are not allowed to use any antibioitcs on them.
