Question for Dairy people???

[JR05]

I have a 6 year old holstein with a 2 month old calf at side. We milk with a machine 2x's daily plus the calf is nursing. Yesturday and today we got blood in the back 2 quarters. Vet confimed not mastitis, just broken blood vesiles. Not the first time this has happened. Also her milk production is down. I want to take the calf off to wean. We are feeding a 12% diet and I want to increase this to 14-16%, will this help her increase milk production and prevent the blood in the milk? We can't milk by hand as both of us have arthritis in our hands, thats why we use the machine. Would it hurt her production to not milk for a few days to let her heal up, just leave the calf on her?
I know this is alot of questions but we really want to get her back on line and don't want this to end up turning into mastitis.

[topside1]

I'm far from a professional dairyman, but the saying goes what you put into your animals is what you'll get back in return. My lactating animals all get an 18% ration. My local grain mill makes this pellet just for lactating cows, goats, sheep whatever. Wish I could be more helpful with your other questions....topside

[DaleK]

Why are the blood vessels breaking? Injury? Is the calf bunting her hard enough when it's nursing? Keep milking her, she'll heal up faster if the milk is being removed and the pressure removed from her udder, but watch and see what's going on to cause this.

Increasing the ration might help, but it depends on what the test is of the other feed she's getting. If she's already getting lots of protein from good hay you'd just be wasting money.

[MARYDVM]

Some calves will prefer to nurse out of the normal quarters and leave the bloody milk. It's better to milk her out completely, because the blood makes an excellent growth medium for bacteria. Leaving her partially milked out could end up encouraging mastitis.

[JR05]

Thank you for your answers. I also think the calf is being ruff with her and possibly some of the other calves are grabbing a drink now and then. This morning she gave up a clean 1 1/2 gallons of milk, so we are probably going to remove the calves from her pasture and put them with the goats to wean. This will also get my husband to give her a better feed like I wanted.

Thanks again,

jr05