You are correct. Medical equipment, especially esophageal feeders, used to treat sick calves can become the source of exposure for other calves. In some situations, outbreaks are made worse because of contaminated equipment. The caretaker's hands and clothing can be another important source of exposure. It is a good idea to separate calf handling activities -work with healthy calves first, then treat sick calves. How to best clean up depends on the equipment. Washing in hot soapy water, then soaking 15-20 minutes in a 1:32 dilution of chlorine bleach, and drying is effective against many agents. If the bleach would be damaging, there are other useful disinfectants (read the labels carefully). Hours of bright sunlight is an effective disinfectant. All disinfectants take time to work (minutes to hours) and cleaning first is most important. A quick swirl in a disinfectant solution is not adequate.

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