Nightmare with my cow's quarter - update, sort of

[cjb]

You may remember that I have a Jersey who came to me with 3 functional quarters. She has a big scar through the 4th and I was told that she was kicked there as a young cow.

Upon first freshening with me, the cow came down with mastitis and lost another quarter. I chalked it up to my inexperience in drying her off.

This time, she lost another quarter and I was told that it was due to a cyst in that quarter. Vet told me that, likely, the udder would become hard, shrink up and maybe even sluff off.

That quarter is indeed dry (the calf never liked the pus coming out of it - go figure) but it is soft, pliable and does not have any of the symptoms that the vet described.

I assume that there's nothing that I can do to get the quarter back now but...... is there a possibility that it would come back if I bred the cow back? I have been hesitant to do so given her background.

What do you all think?

[DaleK]

If I'm following you, she's down to one quarter now?

Cull her and don't pour good money after already lost good money after bad.

She's not going to come back to be anything worth what you'll spend on her between now and then.

[gone-a-milkin]

cjb, it is heartbreaking but it is true. Ship her out and focus on the calf.

I am sorry to say it too.

[Judith]

It's really really hard but at this point she is a cull cow i know that isn't what you want to hear but even a two teater is a cull in my books. You pay a couple grand in feed per year take that money and get a really nice second or third freshner and you will be better off. You have the new baby coming up and she looks like a lovely gal

[cjb]

Yeah, yeah I know but we are the soft hearted kind. I completely understand what you're saying but we unlikely to put Violet in the freezer anytime soon. She does prob cost me about $1200 per year to feed but, out here, raw milk is $10 a gallon so, even with 1.5 to 2 gallons a day, she pays for herself. I realize that I could spend $1500 and get a cow that produces 3-4x that much... we'll see. I would expect that we will keep her at least until the calf is producing.

The question is whether to breed her back or not. It would $60 to breed her or $100 with sexed semen. I could go for the latter and get another heifer and possibly bring back that other quarter. With two quarters, I was getting over 3 gallons per day.

Sorry - tender hearted, not so focused on profit parttime farmer here

[freedomfrom4]

Sorry stupid novice question here. I am a woman who has nursed 5 kids. Breast problems hurt me, don't they hurt the cow. Your poor cow has had her share of hurt. Wouldn't it be more humane to send her to the freezer?

[topside1]

Love her as you may, I bet she's had a great life...They can't live forever...Topside

[Ronney]

Well, as a 1 titter she's a bit of a lost cause BUT it is entirely up to you. The 3rd dry quarter could well come back into milk on the next breeding but if it doesn't her ramaining teat will probably be sufficient to rear the calf keeping in mind that cows that have lost quarters often pick up the shortfall in their remaining quarters.

It's your money, not ours, that your expending on her and if you like the cow and your happy to spend the money, that's what smallholding is all about. I don't milk commercially, don't rely on it for my income and have a herd with a mixture of good and "bad" cows. "Bad" in the sense that in a commercial herd they would have gone west years ago. But I know them, I know which quarters milk out unevenly, which cups to plug so the quarter doesn't get overmilked (these are cows that have had bad mastitis in a previous life and although they produce, the production isn't up to par). They cost me money but they still pay for themselves.

Go with your instincts.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[Callieslamb]

Be tenderhearted, but get another cow to start training in as a replacement. Violet is on her last quarter....(leg, I mean).

[Madsaw]

Originally Posted by Ronney

Well, as a 1 titter she's a bit of a lost cause BUT it is entirely up to you. The 3rd dry quarter could well come back into milk on the next breeding but if it doesn't her ramaining teat will probably be sufficient to rear the calf keeping in mind that cows that have lost quarters often pick up the shortfall in their remaining quarters.

It's your money, not ours, that your expending on her and if you like the cow and your happy to spend the money, that's what smallholding is all about. I don't milk commercially, don't rely on it for my income and have a herd with a mixture of good and "bad" cows. "Bad" in the sense that in a commercial herd they would have gone west years ago. But I know them, I know which quarters milk out unevenly, which cups to plug so the quarter doesn't get overmilked (these are cows that have had bad mastitis in a previous life and although they produce, the production isn't up to par). They cost me money but they still pay for themselves.

Go with your instincts.

Cheers,
Ronnie

I am in agreence with Ronney here. We have keep a few 1 teaters over the yrs to use for brood cows. Usally this is cow that has heifers aot or has given us yrs of service.
She may pick up that quater for a time when she freashens again. We have one cow that will raise calves on 1 so its not a lost cause. Its your call.
Bob

[Lazy J]

SHIP HER.

Keeping her isa waste of money and resources that can de used on a cow that is poducing on all four quarters.

Jim

[KSALguy]

if you dont want to cull her thats fine, thats a personal judgment call, but also consider the fact that her track reccord is giveing the very good possibility that if you breed her again she may or may not have the use of the third quarter for one, but also there is a very real possibility that the FOURTH quarter could come up with some problem and then you will a cow with a calf and no way to feed it, that would pretty much decide for you what her future is going to be,

[cjb]

Ksal - yeah, I have given that thought too so not sure what I'm going to do. I definitely will NOT keep a cow on the property that is giving absolutely nothing.

I am glad that I got a heifer this time so we can look forward to getting some decent production out of her later.

[Dairymaid]

Being a soft hearted person myself, I would say keep the cow if you are really attached to her (and don't blame you one bit...I love my cows too) and pray for heifers. We do that quite often on our small dairy. But keep in mind that mastitis, depending upon the severity and the bacteria that is causing the problem, can be contagious. Keeping Violet around may be an udder health hazard to your heifer. Besides Violet and her calf, do you have any other cows in the same pen with them? Jersey's are prone to sucking on each other, causing mastitis long before they begin milking. If there are other cows in the pen, keep an eye out for any sucking action, and nip it in the bud.
If you want to give Violet one more chance, there are two products that we have had luck with in healing our cows from mastitis. One is Vitamin C injections. If you are lucky enough to find some without getting a veterinary prescription (which is required in some states), give her 10 cc just under the skin, once a day. It's best not to do it in the same place twice, but if you have too, it won't kill her. You can continue this as long as you feel necessary. We usually started giving it to the cows the day of freshening, just to give their immune system a boost while they are adjusting to the new surroundings of the milk barn, and discontinued as soon as the CMT test was clear. This could be 2 days or 2 months. Sometimes the cow did not clear up and we were forced to sell her.
Secondly, Frank Lamply has some excellent natural feed supplements. If you are serious about healing her, you have to feed her a bit of grain plus this additive up to 6 times a day for a few weeks or more. We have healed a few cows this way if we treated early enough. My guess is for Violet, you may get 1 quarters back, but any more than that would be a miracle.
Don't blame yourself for the cows health problems. Cows can have flare up for no apparent reasons sometimes. Usually it is caused by stress you can't control, such as weather changes, moving, or even calving. We never have good luck with cows we bring to the farm, but heifers from those cows always do so much better. Concentrate on the heifer...I'm sure she will do much better.
Best wishes!
-Dairymaid

[arabian knight]

Originally Posted by Lazy J

SHIP HER.

Keeping her isa waste of money and resources that can de used on a cow that is poducing on all four quarters.

Jim

You got that right. It is not humane at all to keep a cow in this condition JUST to get some milk for Pete's Sake.

[cjb]

Originally Posted by arabian knight

You got that right. It is not humane at all to keep a cow in this condition JUST to get some milk for Pete's Sake.

In what condition? She does not have mastitis - she has one milking quarter. I'm not sure exactly what you think is inhumane about that. You mean that it is inhumane to keep a cow that has had a history of mastitis because it may occur again?

[cjb]

Originally Posted by Dairymaid

Being a soft hearted person myself, I would say keep the cow if you are really attached to her (and don't blame you one bit...I love my cows too) and pray for heifers. We do that quite often on our small dairy. But keep in mind that mastitis, depending upon the severity and the bacteria that is causing the problem, can be contagious. Keeping Violet around may be an udder health hazard to your heifer. Besides Violet and her calf, do you have any other cows in the same pen with them? Jersey's are prone to sucking on each other, causing mastitis long before they begin milking. If there are other cows in the pen, keep an eye out for any sucking action, and nip it in the bud.
If you want to give Violet one more chance, there are two products that we have had luck with in healing our cows from mastitis. One is Vitamin C injections. If you are lucky enough to find some without getting a veterinary prescription (which is required in some states), give her 10 cc just under the skin, once a day. It's best not to do it in the same place twice, but if you have too, it won't kill her. You can continue this as long as you feel necessary. We usually started giving it to the cows the day of freshening, just to give their immune system a boost while they are adjusting to the new surroundings of the milk barn, and discontinued as soon as the CMT test was clear. This could be 2 days or 2 months. Sometimes the cow did not clear up and we were forced to sell her.
Secondly, Frank Lamply has some excellent natural feed supplements. If you are serious about healing her, you have to feed her a bit of grain plus this additive up to 6 times a day for a few weeks or more. We have healed a few cows this way if we treated early enough. My guess is for Violet, you may get 1 quarters back, but any more than that would be a miracle.
Don't blame yourself for the cows health problems. Cows can have flare up for no apparent reasons sometimes. Usually it is caused by stress you can't control, such as weather changes, moving, or even calving. We never have good luck with cows we bring to the farm, but heifers from those cows always do so much better. Concentrate on the heifer...I'm sure she will do much better.
Best wishes!
-Dairymaid

Thanks Dairymaid. When you speak of healing her - do you mean when/if she has another flare up? Right now, she is milking out of one quarter and the milk is completely clear. She has freshened twice with mastitis and lost a quarter each time. I didn't know what I was doing the first time and did not dry her out properly (evidently). However, the second time, I followed instructions, used the antibiotic wax plug things etc and she still freshened with either mastitis or a cyst. If I could figure out what the problem is, I would like to breed her back, watch carefully and hope that she freshens with two functional udders. With the two, I was getting 3 to 3.5 gallons per day and that was worth it to me.

Please clarify when you would give her the above treatment.

[Madsaw]

The is also a few other thigns to try also. One is a product from Pharm Aloe. It is product from aloe vera plant. I am not sure how it works but have heard of a few that used it all the time. They would by "cull" cows from teh sale barn. Take them home treat them with this and have great milk cows. A
Also if I remember correctly some used 35% hydrogen pyroxide too. They tops dressed it on the feed and help oxgenynate the cows blood and thus helped improve teh cow. Do not tyr that unless you do further research though. Some even used 2 to 3 drops in their coffee in the morn too. Yes if you think the store pyroxide burns tyr this stuff. It is also used in teh organic cheese factoies for clean up to. Pharm aloe link
http://www.pharmaloe.com/pellets.aspx

CJB,
Kind of reading between the lines here. You really want to have a answer to help you justifie what you already feel. We do the same as Dairymaid. If she was a bad case of mastitis that spreads easy she would be dead by now from it. If you have any doubt about wanting to breed her back and keep her around do it. It never hurts to try. But, if you heart is wanting to try and you ship her you will be hurting for a long time over it. To the folks who think this is stupid. Its not each of us that farm has different outlooks on how things should go. But, to some of us it more then teh money. We do our best for teh cows. By no means have I heard you say once she is suffering from this.
Bob
CJB if you want PM Topside ask him to tell you about his jersey

[Dairymaid]

You can feed her this stuff now and see if it helps. It is all natural so there is not a milk withdraw time while using it. www.franklampley.com
Do you have any testing equipment, such as a California Mastitis Test (CMT)? They aren't that expensive and if you don't have one, I highly recommend that you get one to test the quality of your milk. We use it weekly on our cows, because we are selling raw milk in big cities, and milk purity is a big issue.
You can also use the Vit C. now, and see if that helps. It's cheaper than the Lampley products, and is more effective in my opinion. Using both products at the same time would be great...but it will cost you and I cannot guarantee that it will work.
As for using the antibiotic wax plug stuff...we tried using it for a year on our cows, and it we learned we had more mastitis problems when using it, than when we quit. We believe it is because of the cannula that is inserted into the teat canal. It's a sure way to put unwanted germs in mammory system. Even if you use the alcohol pad, it doesn't kill everything. Since we are now organic, we can't use that stuff, so we just milk them until their milk production drops dramatically, and then milk once a day for about a week. Then quit all together. We have never successfully healed a cow using the dry treat (such as Tomorrow) or the lactating antibiotics (such as Today). We have healed several cows using Lamply and Vit. C. These results are just what we have experienced on our farm. I'm not making any promises you will see the same results.
What kind of food does Violet usually get. Is she 100% grass fed? What kind of grass or hay does she eat? If she gets grains do you know what is in the ration? A possible reason for mastitis may be in her diet.

[Farm 36]

I am not try to sound mean but the facts are this cow is time to hit the dusty trail . You need to spend your time and money wisely and this cow is getting to be to much .If the cow is in good flesh sell her and take the money and buy a replacement to her almost any animal that you would buy can be better than her . One day or sometime she can get another case of bad mastitis and get sick you call the vet and get a bill or she gets really sick and dies . If you want to play farmer you need to make proper judgement calls . But remember she is your cow and you get to make the calls . My opinion is to sell her