Mastitis and Lopsided Udder

Blossomgapfarm · #1 01/23/07, 09:45 PM

Hello All

I am new to this forum though I have been lurking a few days.

We bought 3 Alpines about a month ago. They were not guaranteed to be bred though I felt obvious kid movement on all 3 a couple of days after they got home. They were run with a buck for 3 months beginning the second week of September, the earliest possible due date Feb 7.

They are all wonderful in their own ways. Willow is beautiful and calm, a dream to lead, perfect size and very dairy. She will be 6 this spring. She is really starting to bag up and though her teat placement was too off to make her a show champion, it looks like she is going to have a beautiful udder.

Pixie will be 2 in Feb and a first freshener. She has NO bag what so ever yet.
She is a live wire, and a joy, but being smaller than the other 2, gets picked on a bit.

Molly is my "problem." She will be 7 in the spring. According to my weight tape she weighs about 215 and is huge from the pregnancy. She was not bred last year as, the owner said, he never caught her in heat to move in with the buck. I have learned that year before last she developed mastitis. She is beginning to udder up and though her udder was even a month ago, I am beginning to think that the left side may be so damaged that it does not give milk. That side looks like it did a month ago while the right is quite large. She also has some lumps in her udder that I at first thought was an abscess but now am wondering if it is damage from the mastitis.

I guess I have two questions. First, if the left side is gone, can she raise twins or more on only one teat? I had planned to let the moms raise the babies, separating them at night after the kids are a couple of weeks old, and milking in the morning. Will a larger kid prevent a smaller one from getting enough milk? Should I pull her kids and bottle them, though I really hate to do that?

Second, what are the chances that the mastitis will re-occur or is lingering though the last time she milked was over 1 1/2 years ago? I am purchasing the mastitis test tonight and am wondering if I should try to test her before the babies are even born?

This doe is wonderful, great body size and depth, dairy, personality - she has it all - except udder health! I was hoping to get some beautiful kids out of her but wish her purchase did not bring these problems. Oh well, such is life.

I am sorry I rambled a bit, thanks for "listening." I know time is precious this time of year. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Dawn

susanne · #2 01/23/07, 10:23 PM

hi dawn and welcome,
it is very possible that the udder was permanet damaged from the mastitis and nothing you can do about it. if you dam raise check the tummies from the kids to see if they get enough milk.

LMonty · #3 01/23/07, 11:02 PM

are they CAE negative? I wonder about dam raising any goat thats not CAE tested negative.

Blossomgapfarm · #4 01/24/07, 08:59 AM

The older two were tested for CAE two or three years ago (when they were 3 and 4 yrs old.) Both Neg. The younger doe has not been tested but was raised on CAE prevention in a herd with no known CAE. I say no known because I know that there is always a chance of it being brought in but all of his stock was tested a couple of years ago and they were neg. We ran into people around here who had CAE on the property and just kept the does separate. We did not buy from them.

I am worried about whether the lumps in the udder are udder damage or possible abscess and whether she could raise more than one on one side.

I have never had contact with abscesses so how fast would it grow if it were an abscess? It has been two weeks since I found the two lumps and no change. They are each about the size of a large marble. One is more deep in the udder tissue than the other. Just changes to start milk production in the next few weeks?

DocM · #5 01/24/07, 11:22 AM

Just because it's damaged doesn't mean she won't produce good milk from it, it just might mean she has an ugly udder. Not a problem if all you want is her milk. Can she raise twins? Sure. I have a big alpine (170 lbs), who, as a yearling, jumped a fence and damaged one of her teats. I can milk it out, but the kids can never latch onto it. She has successfully raised several sets of twins who only nurse from the one side while I milk the other out. The lumps you feel are not necessarily abscesses, but could just be spots of scarred tissue. This is probably a "wait and see" moment. If they were abscessed, I would predict you'd have seen a change in their size. Massage her udder every day, epecially that side. I've had good success with preventing problems with older does and kidding by using tea tree oil massages pre kidding. Be prepared to treat for congested udder when she kids - I have a stinking suspicion this has probably been her history, not mastitis - it's easy to confuse the two. Have some mentholatem on hand.

sullen · #6 01/24/07, 12:14 PM

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...f/IMG_0082.jpg

my goat Lulu. When I got her this summer she had a "distended udder" one hung down much further than the other. Vet said "malnourish" her for a while. Well it worked. 2 weeks of not much and she was fine. You can see her udders are fine.
I don't know if that's what your goat has but thought I would share.

goatkid · #7 01/24/07, 03:14 PM

I had an older Nubian doe who had gotten mastitis on one side. She developed a lumpy udder on the damaged side and did not produce much milk on that side. I only allowed her to nurse one kid and bottle fed the others. Each birth, she had two does and a buck. I pulled and bottle fed the doelings. I now have 4 nice does and a buck out of her and have culled her from my herd. She may have been able to nurse more than the one kid, but I didn't want to take the chance that all the kids wouldn't get enough to eat, nor did I want to risk further damage to her udder by having kids fight over the one good teat.