Results - Staph A

McDaid36 · #1 10/04/11, 07:59 AM

Posted this on another forum, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to post it here as well! The more advice the better!

I got the culture results back yesterday. Our girl Smidgeon has Staph A in 2 quarters. She is our first cow and I'm really bummed about these results. Here's some background, it's an unusual story I think - Smidgeon is a first cow heifer, due in 3 weeks. We got her about 6 weeks ago. She started producing so much milk that she was dripping milk constantly from her udder. The farmer we got her from and the vet both said to milk her out. I did, and there were clots coming from her 2 left quarters. The vet and farmer said to keep milking her out to keep the milk flowing and to work out the mastitis. We have a bucket of frozen colostrum for the calf when it comes along. The clots were gone, but a mass remained in the udder no matter what I did (peppermint oils, milking frequently, massage, etc.). So I cultured.

So now, I'm left trying to decide how to deal with this in a heifer about to give birth. I really like the idea someone on this forum gave out - penicillin mixed with DMSO infused into the udder. (the culture was sensitive to most antibiotics) But I also have the TODAY and TOMORROW products here, although the Tomorrow says it can only be used if there is more than 30 days until the birth of the calf, and I don't have that much time. And I don't know if penicillin is safe in pregnancy.

I would like this to be gone ASAP before the calf is here to spread it around to all 4 quarters. But yes, I do know Staph A seems to never truly be gone, rather it cycles, going away and coming back again and again. Hence the reason I'm bummed....

Any ideas or points back to older posts would be most helpful. The vet is coming wednesday, but to be honest, she has already shown me she doesn't know too much about cows - she told me to start feeding alfalfa now, and everything I've read in books and online has said to feed crappy hay now and the alfalfa after the birth in order to prevent milk fever (which this heifer's mother had at every freshening according to the farmer). Uggh.

Jennifer L. · #2 10/04/11, 07:38 PM

If you have a cow that gets mastitis in the dry period (or in this case a first calf heifer) and you are getting milk out of her, you have 75% of the battle won. She will probably always have two bad quarters that will give you problems, but you are dealing with edema and that combined with mastitis is just a nasty sometimes heartbreaking thing to deal with. I think you are doing well to be getting milk from those quarters. You are looking at lower milk output from those quarters for life, but it's not a total disaster if she milks from them.

As far as I'm concerned, Today and Tomorrow were garbage in my herd. Totally useless. Probably due to immunity of the bacteria that was on this farm, but I'd never use it any animal and expect great results.

Culturing was a good idea because it let's you know where you stand. Don't use a dry treatment at this point, those are oil based to hang around in the udder and you don't want to be milking it out of the cow for the next two or three weeks.

Most times the best thing you can do for a cow with mastitis is just keep her milked out as much as you can. Five, six times a day if you can manage it. The problem with the bacteria in the udder is not so much the bacteria, as the toxins they produce. So the more you keep the toxins moving out of the tissue by milking them out, the better the udder health will be.

Good luck with her. I hope you get a nice heifer calf from her.

Jennifer

McDaid36 · #3 10/04/11, 08:50 PM

Thanks so much for your kind words. I figured she would produce less in those 2 quarters, but that's fine with me as long as we can get the mastitis under control enough to also use that bit of milk that that half produces. I will try to milk her out more frequently during the day, although if the vet says the penicillin is OK during pregnancy, I think I will do a course of that before the calf comes. My worst fear is that the calf will spread it to the 2 other healthy quarters!

We are hoping for a heifer too!