More Mastitis Questions..

[cjb]

Sorry about the newbieness...

So this cow is now 9 weeks away from her delivery date so should be dried up. Out of 3 working quarters, 2 are fine and one appears to have mastitis. As I reviewed in another thread, milk tastes bad after 1 day, little bit of white chunks in it but milks out regular looking milk. Is not hot or red but the quarter is stiff/muscular.

I felt around in the bad quarter and there are hard lumps that don't move. What is that? Also, when I push on those lumps, she flinches and stamps her foot like it hurts.

So given the above and the timing here, should I dry her out completely? Dry out the other two quarters and continue to milk the one until its not stiff any longer?

I know the other option is to treat with antibiotics and I might. Taking this a day at a time...

[DaleK]

Those lumps are swellings and pus from the mastitis. She's stamping her feet because it DOES hurt and isn't getting better. Treat her. Now. The longer you pussyfoot around trying to decide organic/not organic/treat/not the better the chance it'll be too late to treat her and you'll lose the quarter no matter what. When you find a cow with mastitis, you treat her IMMEDIATELY, whether it's organic treatment or not. Organic treatments are usually even more important to do quickly. Sounds like she already might have had it when you got her so treat her today. I'd give her two tubes up the infected quarter the first time if she's been infected this long.

[Teacupliz]

I bet you lost the quarter any how-- but I agree- treat with today 3 days in a row and dry her off. see what happen next lactation. I have told you have one down to 2 quarters- i treated with everything on the quarter she stepped on the teat and the hole closed up half way. anyhow we still lost the quarter after all I did. She had the lumps and when the vet finally said to dry her off I did and one lump abcessed out kept it clean used blue coat and it cleared up nice. I am still milking her 2 good quarters and she will calve in May I will see if the other 2 come back-- I do not htink so-liz in NY

[DJ in WA]

Remember the quote I gave you in your other thread? This is what Dale is talking about:

The bacteria damage the duct system and establish deep-seated pockets of infection in the milk-secreting tissues, followed by abscess formation and walling-off of bacteria by scar tissue.

The longer you wait to treat, the more the infection can become "deep-seated" and walled off, and untreatable. Possibly she's already to that stage and that's why they sold her. You just have to treat and find out.

Of course, you could call the sellers and see if they'll admit to any history of mastitis and treatment. Being organic farmers, they should have superior morals and would be honest with you, LOL.

[Ronney]

I posted last night but lost it through logging in problems. The post was along the same lines as has been written above.

You haven't got time to take this one day at a time. While your procrastinating and fluffing around, the bacteria in her udder are multiplying in their millions and you are compromising the health of your cow. You have quite possibly lost one or both quarters by mucking around.

With calving just around the corner, she should also be dried off by now.

While I try not to use too many antibiotics etc., I am not organic and in a case such as yours, would not be taking the risk for the sake of a bit of penicillan. My advice to you would be to speak you your vet who will give you mastitis-specific antibiotics and instruct you on it's use, and start drying off the other two quarters immediately before you end up with a useless cow.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[cjb]

How do you dry off? slow the milking down by how much?

[Ronney]

If your still milking twice a day, knock it back to once a day for a couple of days, then once a day every second day for a few days and finally the last couple of milkings three days apart. You will still get milk out of her but not very much and it will dry off on it's own.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[cjb]

Ok, thanks. She's already down to one milking a day. One quarter still has alot in it. One had very little and the effected quarter has almost none.

[scorpian5]

At the farm i milk at if a cow comes in with a hard quarter they get as treated with aspirin and bluelite and most clear up if treated in time. As said if you wait for even a short period somtimes you will lose the quarter. Call a vet if you cant figure out whats wrong if you dont want to pay and are friendly with a vet a phone call will get your questioins answered in most cases. I just dont get the whole organic crap and not treating your sick cow.A paper saying there organic means very little to most people even worse one thats pre-owned. I dont recall what you paid for this cow but around me you can get some nice looking young heifers at a sweet price right now

[cjb]

So you guys sick of me yet?

I have been massaging and milking and went up tonight to show my wife. She hadn't looked at her yet but is even more of a novice then me. However, she DOES have mammary glands.

So her udder seems WAY better. Also, what felt muscular to me, my wife believes to be the middle of her bag or wall. Is there a sort of wall between quarters? or is the entire bag supposed to be completely soft? This particular quarter was not the calf's favorite so it has not had much milk in it. WHen I feel the quarter closest to me, it feels squishy. When I reach around to the possibly infected quarter, it feels hard, but I see my wife's point. Its deflated and empty. I can only get a little milk out of it.

The lumps that I felt last night are gone. The only one that I can still find is a scar, which has been there.

I milked the bad teat out and the milk looks completely normal.

The other strange this is that, previously, the bad teat was always cold and kind of wrinkled. Now it feels warm and exactly like the rest. Dare I think that milking/massaging is working? maybe? We did order the CMT so that she could any day now. We do not have dairy veterinarians around here at all. The closest is 2 hours away.

I put euclyptus oil in bag balm and massaged her with that and also fed her some grape seed oil. Will keep this up and only use antibiotics if the problem seems to come back. The quarter/idder/teat never did get hot - it was cold. I forgot to mention that before.

So I'm going to decrease milking the other two quarters and dry them out. I'll continue with the possibly infected quarter until I can test the milk. If it is clear, I'll dry that one up too, just in time.

Now she seems fine or nearly fine ?

[Teacupliz]

hey speaking of your wifes mammory-- I was told my a nursing mom to soak cabbage in hot water then put on the udder-
Also did you know if the dairy is organic and has to treat with antibiotics to save the cows life then they have to sell the cow- but if they do not treat and let the cow die they could be charged- this is so stupid. Antibiotics our out of the cows system in 6 milkings I have a test you can use that proves it. I think organic is crap- sorry- but I think we should be trying for all natural and optimal health for our critters and ourselves.
Liz

[DaleK]

Teacupliz the doctor who stitched up my arm last weekend was telling me of a study she had just read that day in a medical journal that looked into organic vs. conventional standards, they found that the conventional residue standards and testing in Canada (they weren't looking at US) are so high that there's absolutely no advantage to buying organic dairy products here when it comes to drug residues. It was the only food product they found that for. I agree, had a neighbour last year who milked a treated cow, discarded the milk, then milked more cows with the same milker (forgot to rinse the milker). So he MIGHT have had a cup worth of treated milk in the milker. That was enough to trigger a positive test on 5000 gallons of milk on the truck and he got to pay for the load and the fine. That's pretty sensitive testing.

[southerngurl]

If you are interested in keeping this cow in the most natural way possible, I second what another posted said in the other thread about mastitis. Julliette De Barclai Levy's (or something like that) , The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable. A lot of good information in it, but just like everything else, use sense in following her advice, a few things I wouldn't recommend, but all in all some very good and unique information.

[cjb]

I so think that the term "organic" is misleading, as is 'free range' and a few others.

I didn't buy her from an organic farm, it was a private party who had a few cows. Actually, he may have had only two. He was very forthright about other things - like the fact that one teat was injured when she was a calf and doesnt work at all, she's not halter broken etc etc. I just don't think he knew.

Anyway - I think she might be somewhat better now.

I won't hesitate to use meds if I need to but would prefer not.

I sure appreciate everyone's input and am hoping that we're pulling through this problem. For now, I'm going to continue with the GSE, euc oil, massaging and milking. IN the meantime, I'm going to dry out the other two teats and get her ready to calf in February. Hopefully, that will go smoothly and I'll be glad that I took this on.

[Ronney]

The final decision on how you treat this cow rests with you but you do need to take into account that if your having problems this late in her lactation, you are highly likely to have them when she nexts calves. Bacteria just doesn't go away because you massage her with eucaplytus oil and milk her out. It's living in an ideal situation and will rear it's ugly head again believe me. Bite the bullet and get her cleaned up before she is dried off completely.
You are making her into an un-necessarily hard done by cow. You mention your wife. Would you let her go through all of this for the sake of antibiotics - and yes, women do get mastitis and it's very painful. Not to put too fine a point on it, get real. Not only do you have a financial investment in this cow, you also have a moral investment and a long term investment. You want her to be able to calve and rear it as well as provide you and your family with a good milk/cream/butter supply. To do this you occasionally have to give something back.

If organics or the "natural" way of doing things were so bloody marvellous nobody would have gone to the trouble of creating antibiotics, pen. and the various other drugs that are now available. Most of us would be dead by the time we were 40 from something as simple as a rotten tooth. Much of our stock would be unlikely to make it past the age of two through worm burdens and disease. Cows such as yours would be eating more than they produced and would get to a stage where they were unthifty and useless. While I don't advocate the overuse of drugs, antibiotics and drenches, they do have their place in the health and welfare of our stock - which is probably why I am still milking cows that are in their teens.

As to drying off, it sounds as though she is nearly there anyway and you could have her finished by the end of the week.

And no, I'm not sick of you yet - but I will be if you don't do something positive with this cow. You've been given lots of advice by other forum members, not much of which you seem to want to take on board.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[gone-a-milkin]

I agree with Ronney that if she has mastitis now and you dont treat it, it will still be there when she freshens. Did you do the CMT?

[DJ in WA]

Originally Posted by cjb

He was very forthright about other things - like the fact that one teat was injured when she was a calf and doesnt work at all, she's not halter broken etc etc. I just don't think he knew.

Wasn't this the "forthright" guy who switched the calf and didn't tell you?

How do you know the one teat was injured as a calf?

[cjb]

If I used the antibiotics, I would have organic people saying that I didn't take their advice, right? I do appreciate all the advice, and, because I'm trying to treat her organically does not mean that I don't listen to advice or care about my cow. Her teat/udder is not hot or red, there's no blood and her milk isn't coming out looking like anything but milk. It never got chunky or flakey but there was some cream colored sediment at the bottom of the filter.

I guess i don't get it - my wife has had mastitis that cleared up with milking and so has one of my goats. Do cows ALWAYS have to have meds to clear that condition up?

Anyway, thanks as always for the advice. I will not hesitate to put her on antibiotics - I just think I jumped the gun thinking that her udder was hard or lumpy out of being paranoid.

[cjb]

Originally Posted by DJ in WA

Wasn't this the "forthright" guy who switched the calf and didn't tell you?

How do you know the one teat was injured as a calf?

Its the same guy but what happened was this: he posted the cow as for sale with "a calf on her". I asked for a picture and he sent one. I sent a note back saying "that calf looks very young" and he said "yeah, I thought you would ask about that. That's not her calf". When I met him, I found that he was one of those very quiet men - didn't say much. I didn't get the impression that he was lying about the calf - not sure what he would have had to gain in doing that.

Anyway, I was very discouraged about this cow and things are starting look up so I'm trying to be positive here. Again, I will treat her medically right away if need be. Her udder/teats/milk continue to appear to be normal today. As she doesn't show symptoms now and certainly isn't getting any worse, I plan to give her the CMT test when it arrives, anyday now.