Goats Guru's, I need help!

[Oakshire_Farm]

How do you treat mastis???

The history of the Goat...

We got "Marge" about 3 years ago, we got her from the pound. Some -----hole(sorry if that offends anyone) tied her up and left her for dead! By the time that AC found her she was to weak to stand They took her back to the shelter and fattened her up, but tey were not set up for goats os she spent the day teathered and the night in a dog kennel. They could not find anyone that would take her so they called me! I could not say no and so her she is! after we got her I was taling to a goaty person at the fair and they came out to tell me what they could about her. She is a Lamancha, aprox 6-8 years old (that was 3 years ago) she had a bad case of untreated mastis, one side of her bag was badly damaged with scar tissue, they recomended that I didn't breed her. Last summer the damaged side of the bag swelled up and hot, so I had the vet out, she had mastits again. They gave me a 4 day course on injectable meds, I do not know what it was?? She was fine after that.
About a month ago she started bagging up like she was going to to kid, my hubby started asking me if I had snuck her away and got her bred. I called the vet out to check her out, he said that she was in full milk producation, I could either milk her or just leave her and the swelling will go away. So tonight I could not stand it any longer and I milked her out, (I have Jersey cows so I am famillar with the process) I got about a liter of milk + what got kicked out of the bucket I do not know if she has ever been milked? She had mastitis in both sides, not the stringy stuff, chunks.

I have 2 questions for anyone that can help me, I plan on calling out the vet in the next day or two to check her out.

1) What can I use to treat mastis???

2) Can I use a cow milking machine to milk her out??? If I was to plug the 2 front inflations and then held the machine up??? My hands got so cramped out milking her

Thanks for any advice.

[AnnaS]

First, she may be ok. It's not unusual for milky, unbred goats to bag up and try to start milking in the spring/early summer. I have had open kids from 3 to 15 months bag up. They're not bred, just out of milky lines. Abnormalities like flakes, chucks, or even clear "milk" could be from precocious/unbred milking and not a pathogen.

BUT with a mastitis scarred udder, she may always have pathenogenic remmnants and sometimes have active mastitis. Best way to find out is to take a sample of the milk from each teat and send it to a DHIA/Province lab and have the sample cultured to find out the bacteria you need to fight.

After the sample is taken, you can treat with cow mastitis tubes- Today, Pirsue, etc. You can switch treatments if the lab results show a resistance to whatever antibiotic you are using. Your vet can recommend a treatment.

You can milk her with whatever cow milker you have. Milk the doe last and *thoughoughly* disinfect everything. Sharing unclean milkers is a great way to spread mastitis. Don't feed unpasteurized milk from this doe to heifer calves or doelings, until you know if & what mastitis you are managing. If you start milking her regularly, you will need to manage for that too.

BTW, these rescue does can turn out to be super goats!

[DairyGoatSlave]

also a hot compress should help ease milking her a bit, we use the teat injectable mastitis treatment stuff, its called Today

[Ezekiel's Garde]

Originally Posted by Oakshire_Farm

How do you treat mastis???

The history of the Goat...

We got "Marge" about 3 years ago, we got her from the pound. Some -----hole(sorry if that offends anyone) tied her up and left her for dead! By the time that AC found her she was to weak to stand They took her back to the shelter and fattened her up, but tey were not set up for goats os she spent the day teathered and the night in a dog kennel. They could not find anyone that would take her so they called me! I could not say no and so her she is! after we got her I was taling to a goaty person at the fair and they came out to tell me what they could about her. She is a Lamancha, aprox 6-8 years old (that was 3 years ago) she had a bad case of untreated mastis, one side of her bag was badly damaged with scar tissue, they recomended that I didn't breed her. Last summer the damaged side of the bag swelled up and hot, so I had the vet out, she had mastits again. They gave me a 4 day course on injectable meds, I do not know what it was?? She was fine after that.
About a month ago she started bagging up like she was going to to kid, my hubby started asking me if I had snuck her away and got her bred. I called the vet out to check her out, he said that she was in full milk producation, I could either milk her or just leave her and the swelling will go away. So tonight I could not stand it any longer and I milked her out, (I have Jersey cows so I am famillar with the process) I got about a liter of milk + what got kicked out of the bucket I do not know if she has ever been milked? She had mastitis in both sides, not the stringy stuff, chunks.

I have 2 questions for anyone that can help me, I plan on calling out the vet in the next day or two to check her out.

1) What can I use to treat mastis???

2) Can I use a cow milking machine to milk her out??? If I was to plug the 2 front inflations and then held the machine up??? My hands got so cramped out milking her

Thanks for any advice.

Get your doe's milk cultured. Go to dairygoatinfo.com, under goatkeeping 101, and look up the address and phone number for the LSU mastitis clinic. It is usually free (unless they do sensitivities), except for the cost of overnighting it via UPS. It worked for us. Then, after you get the specific pathogen, report back here and ask for help. This should take about 1 1/2 weeks or so.

I am currently in the middle of treating my herd (aka, 2 milkers), and I got a lot of help off of here. But, first I had to know which specific pathogen I was dealing with.