Hi folks - little bit of a mystery on the farm, and I was hoping someone else could shine a little light on it.
We have a Jersey heifer, about a year old and never bred. We bought her in December from a farm where she was the only bovine, and it looked as if something had been nursing off of her. One quarter was larger than the others and appeared to be in milk, but she's never been bred. There was no milk to be found in the quarter, it was just enlarged.
Now its 6 months later, and we still have an open heifer, but this time her entire udder is engorged. Normal temp, not off her feed, everything normal except the engorgement. The vet has confirmed that she is not pregnant, and says his best guess is that the fluid is serum from a previous infection. He did take a sample and send it off to the lab but we haven't heard back from them yet. He advised us to "milk" her out twice a day to decrease the pressure.
The fluid is yellow, cloudy, and flows like milk until she's empty, when it turns the consistency of ointment. Smells like sweet cream, and the closest thing I can compare it to is colostrum.
So..... anyone dare a guess at what the heck is going on?
