Weird milk from frsh cow

[janij]

Hi all,
I have a third time freshener. Her udder is pretty big and she calved 11 days ago. I have been milking her once a day by machine and have left the calf with her. I am getting very little milk out of one front quarter. I assumed this was the quarter that baby liked. however today I realized it is still more engorged than the other front one. Also, out of the other front teet, the milk looks like watered down colostrum. Ideas? The milk out f the back looks like milk. I got nothing. I have been milking for 3 yrs and I have no ideas. Thanks for any input!

[sv.maple]

Sounds like shes got ecoli mastitis. Does it smell? Does she have a temp?

[janij]

Thanks for the reply. No the milk doesn't smell weird. No strings either. And no, she doesn't have a fever and is acting normal.

[Awnry Abe]

I've got very little exposure to this, so take this for what is worth, which is probably very little. Of my 4 cows, 2 return to a soft, supple udder very quickly after calving. But the other two have rock hard edema for a couple of weeks. I could imagine an 11day old calf banging on those and making all sorts of strange things happen. Any sign of blood-tinged milk? I can't quite picture what watery colostrum looks like.

[Ronney]

Mastitis doesn't have to have to be stringy and thick and I agree with Maple. Over here I can take milk samples in to my vets to have tested for mastitis and what strain it is. I would recommend you do this if you can as you are likely to lose the production or the the full production from the affected quarter/s if it aren't treated.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[willow_girl]

I wouldn't bother having samples tested; it sounds like mastitis to me, and the quicker you treat, the better your odds of a good outcome.

Edema is normal in a fresh cow, but if you have 1 (or more) teats that are engorged while the others have returned to their normal state, that's not edema, that's mastitis.

Don't mess around with the over-the-counter products; get some Spectramast from the vet and treat at every milking until her milk looks normal.

Or you could have her milk cultured but go ahead and start treating her while you await the test results. The vet may recommend a different product once the results come back, but usually Spectramast will do the job as well as anything.