Help! Java has a large sore on her teat

[LettucePatch]

Java is our FF who had twins on March 22nd. We are milk sharing with her kids, we are milking in the morning and the kids are getting the rest of the days milk. We seperate the kids at night.

The problems began a few weeks ago when she had a couple of small cuts on her teat and above it on the udder. We are not sure of the cause of the cuts. They got larger and larger, the scabs would peel off and her kids would make the sores much worse.

Yesterday morning we noticed that she had a staph infection and we began treating it with the blue teat dip.

This morning the wound had pus in it. When we milked the teat, pus came out of the wound once. She was very sore and did not like us to touch that teat but we did manage to milk her out.

Here is a picture of her teat and udder area. Does anyone know what she has?


We are treating with the blue teat dip and tea tree oil. Is this the right way to treat this? How often should we be treating her each day?

[andabigmac]

Pickles just had the same thing. Her babies were just tearing her up and it created a small abscess in the same spot as Java. It was uncomfortable for her to be milked too. I washed her udder down really well with udder wash and slathered my gloved hand with coconut oil to try to soften the scab as I milked. That seemed to help. I also drained the abscess whenever pus built up in it. I used blu-kote and a salve I make on it. I wiped the salve off after a few minutes so dirt wouldn't adhere to it. If she keeps filling the wound up with pus, runs a fever, or the pus starts smelling really putrid you can start her on some antibiotics but they'll usually do fine if you just drain the abscess a few times.
They will build a pretty impressive scab to protect the wound. Pickles' scab was bigger than a silver dollar and when I worked it off to drain it the actual sore was the size of a pencil eraser.
That's how I dealt with hers and it healed right up. I'm sure you'll get a lot of other great ideas. Those babies sure can be stinkers.

[andabigmac]

Oh, and I treated twice a day on the stand and I would check it when I went out and checked the goats. If the scab had cracked and blood or pus was oozing out through the blu-kote I would re-spray that spot.

[Cyngbaeld]

I'd pull the kids and bottle feed.