dealing with others problems, mastitis

[bethlaf]

i have a nubian doe, who i purchased, in kid , fully aware that she had had a previous case of severe mastitis, ok , the kids are on the ground, one boy , and one doeling, doeling is doing well, buckling was disposed of

her udder on the bad side is rock hard, and i cant get anything out,her udder and teat ar hard and swollen , you can not compress the teat like for normal milking
, it wont go anywhere, shes letting me massage it, but wont stand for hot packs or anything of that sort, she stand fine for handmilking the "good" side
would a cannula , like they use for cows help her ? just to drain and relieve some of the pressure?her "good side" cant produce much , cause the swelling in the bad side .

im more interested in relieving pain, ive given her pennicillin , so i know she shouldnt get the infection again , different hygine , and all that .....

but i guess what im asking is , how do i use the cannula, and should i just dry her off , or try to milk her ...
ive never had a goat with mastitis in all my time with them , so this is something new, and i need some help here, even cow advice would help in this case i think...
if it ends up i should dry her, i guess she will go in the freezer, and i will hold onto my hopes for the doe kid
i cant see putting her though this pain again just for more kids from her

[rainedaze]

I bought a goat several months ago that was supposed to have been recovered from mastitis. She wouldn't let us milk her much the first couple of days and end up with exactly what you are talking about, hard and swollen. Her udder was very hot.
It was a costly venture when I had already paid enough for the goat. My vet prescribed an antibiotic that I injected into her left shoulder twice a day. I was also prescribed the injectable mastitis cream. This was injected into her udder once a day. It did take approximately 10 days for her to recover and then we waited another two weeks before using her milk. She has not had it since (knock on wood). Good luck.

[daisymae joanie]

hi, sorry no ideas on the mastitis.what do you mean you disposed of the buck kid?

[susanne]

Originally Posted by daisymae joanie

hi, sorry no ideas on the mastitis.what do you mean you disposed of the buck kid?

i would like to know too. i heard that some people are drowning them in the waterbucket right after birth.
susanne

[bethlaf]

actually, no, i dont like the water bucket idea, i think thats kind of nasty, a quick chop , and the head comes off .
water bucket, has anyone ever nearly drown when swimming ?, not a pleasent thing, and its not quick either, so i prefer the axe .

[daisymae joanie]

well,i must say i am very sadened by your answer but i guess i should not ask questions,if i'm not ready for the answer.lol. i just could never do this.there are plenty other things you could do with the little guy.raise him up for meat,find him a pet home,give him to a petting zoo and on and on with alteratives.please don't think i'm bashing you,i guess you have your own reasoning.just take a few minutes and think about the other options, please. i wish you lived close to me cause i would take the doe and give her a forever home with no breeding.would even give you a few bucks as well,to keep her from being killed.i understand everything can't live but this just seems really unfare to me. not mad or trying to be rude just trying to understand and not having much luck.

[trickham]

[QUOTE=bethlaf would a cannula , like they use for cows help her ? just to drain and relieve some of the pressure?her "good side" cant produce much , cause the swelling in the bad side .

im more interested in relieving pain, ive given her pennicillin , so i know she shouldnt get the infection again , different hygine , and all that .....

but i guess what im asking is , how do i use the cannula, and should i just dry her off , or try to milk her ...
[/QUOTE]


My best doe (3/4 Boer, 1/4 Nubian) puts out a relatively large amount of milk for a meat goat. This past spring she kidded triplets. She bagged pretty heavily and the small kids had a little trouble nursing. They concentrated on one side and left the other one alone. As soon as I noticed this, since I didn't want her developing mastitis, I tried to milk out the full side. It had already gotten to the point of being pretty tender, which I guess is one reason the kids weren't nursing it at that point. She wouldn't let me touch that side. So while my dad held her head I managed to stick a cannula in that teat. She allowed that, and I drained that side completely. After that she was fine. The up side is that I got a litre of colostrum for emergencies.

Hope that helps.

Nick

[Stacy Adams]

Originally Posted by daisymae joanie

there are plenty other things you could do with the little guy.raise him up for meat

?? and the differance between that and taking his head off at birth is...
I know a few people that put their unwanted bucklings in the freezer as newborns.. kinda like a big rabbit..

Originally Posted by Trickham

The up side is that I got a litre of colostrum for emergencies. Nick

Glad you thought of saving it!! that's quite a bit for one side!

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

Hi Bethlaf, your story sounds very different than the next two stories, you aren't dealing with a congested udder from kids not nursing, you are dealing with old scar tissue and a ruined udder. There is no milk in the udder for the canula to release. The swelling is from blood, all the meat is scar tissue. I would give her high doses of chewable people vitamin C over her grain. I would leave her udder half alone, and make sure you empty the other half the kid is nursing, at least once a day, make sure you empty it after the kid has a warm belly full. Giving her penicillin is only killing more beneficial bacteria in her rumen, it is highly unlikely that there is active mastitis at this point, or the other half would become infected, and this side would be hot. A thought is to have, once she has finsihed weaning the doe kid, is to have the bad half of her udder removed, you take the whole problem away, and there are lots of goats who kid, milk and raise kids successfully with only one half. If this is chornic and this udder half becomes hot, she runs a temp, bottle the kid and put the doe down, chronic masitits never has a successful outcome...unless you want a pet, and even then unless you remove the udder, she can still fill her udder each fall when she comes into heat, which will reactive the mastitis, you will have to treat her, and it's a vicious cycle.

No comment on the buckling issue Vicki

[Michael W. Smith]

I'm not exactly in favor of killing bucklings right at birth either. However, I know exactly why you are doing it. For those who think it is awful, look up in search "The story of Elmer". 'Nuff said!

[Mrs_stuart]

I currently have my dd (12 years old) reading up on the birthing process of goats because we have 2 does about ready to kid and one of the first things she read was that if you do not want to eat goat and do not have a home for a buck...that the responsible thing to do was to dispose of it as soon as it was born and they recommend drowning it in a bucket of water. this one book also mentioned the fact that only one buck was needed per 1000 does and bucks were just not desired...why have it live if it would not be wanted and needed...it also reminded you that they were talking about unregister goats.

and with that said, i was very suprised and stunned...i do not think i could do that but i have to say that if you were trying to grow a herd and didnt want bucks, and couldnt sell them, what would you do with them but dispose of them??? I hope i dont have to find out...We will eat our "unregister" bucks and sell our "register" bucks...
I do not judge anyone who thinks that they need to do the disposal process though...I would rather that happen then have bucks out there treated horriblely all there lives.

Belinda

[daisymae joanie]

o.k. these are my ideas. the difference between killing at birth and raising up meat is- that i have several months to see if he will be breeding stock,if not then it gives me that same length of time to find him a good pet home-leaving meat my last option.just my two cents. good luck with the mastitis hope she recovers well.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

that i have several months to see if he will be breeding stock
...................

A buck is bred to be breeding stock, your best dam, who is giving you the direction in your herd (more meat, more milk, better udder attachment etc.) a buck isn't born and then turns into something that is nice looking so you decide to breed to him no matter what his dam and sire are doing. Bucks make such large impacts in your herd, he had better be the best or you are just making more mediocre goats.

With BARF (bones and raw food) you can easily skin and gut bucklings, chop them into pieces and feed or sell to those who BARF as meaty bones. Where our unsold bucklings will be going this year. I don't care who you are, nobody can sell all the bucklings as breeders off their stock, perhaps if you have a good doe year?? read the boards, there are 2003 bucklings for sale still, and most of these people with bucks for sale, have more milk and grain in them than they will ever get out of them, and all their does are bred again! I can't afford to keep unsold bucks, I refuse to make wethers and sell them into pet homes to be abused, I can't afford to keep a buckling around to drink 15$ in saleable colostrum and 75$ in saleable milk to sell him for meat at 12 weeks for 40$.

I applaud your child for reading the real facts of what dairying is. Most homesteaders have no idea how much that gallon of milk or dozen eggs is costing them to put in the fridge, 4H kids do know. It was my daughters 4H record keeping book that first showed me exactly how much that buckling was costing me that I then sold in August during breeding season for 100$ (back then I thought that was very good money for him) little did I know I was making less than 1 cent and hour Vicki

[Tracy in Idaho]

I was just making my list tonight, of what I am doing with each doe's possible produce.

Doelings are retained and evaluated. Sometimes that is a couple of months and they go, sometimes a bit longer, some I actually keep <G> That will change in a couple of years, but right now I'm still in the phase that every generation has been better than the last, so I use them as replacements.

Almost all my bucklings are meat. This is the first year that I will consider keeping one of my own bucklings, and that is honestly due to the fact that I went out and spent mucho-dollars on a buckling and doeling from a top notch breeder and bred them together. So "technically" not my breeding at all ;-) It's also the first year that I think I may have bucklings out of does nice enough to even offer for sale to local folks ... and there will only be 1 or 2 of those at best. The rest I want gone ASAP. I may keep them for a month if I have the extra milk, but girls eat first.

But like Vicki said, bucklings are chosen on the basis of their breeding, and their dam's merits, not their own looks per say. Bucklings out of grade does of course are not even considered as anything but meat.

I do think it is kinder to butcher them than to sell them to pet homes. Truly good homes are darn hard to find. Not saying they aren't out there, but not enough to sell all the bucklings into. I just butchered our hermaphrodite doeling because her pet home (with a vet) fell through. We'll see how we like the salami from her, and if we do, I may actually make a couple of wethers for ourselves next year.

And I think I need to add on to the barn after seeing my list....



Tracy

[daisymae joanie]

i guess i need to change my way of thinking some.i am just starting in breeding goats have bred horses for years.much different i guess.

[mpillow]

I had a doe go thru this last Spring(first freshener)....it sucked...but we did Penicillin and "today" udder infusion(2 x daily for 3 weeks). She actually ruptured as that side kept getting bigger and bigger and I just could not milk it out....not a bloody rupture mind you like cottage cheese so I sqeezed the stuff out and kept the rupture site cleaned with iodine and bag balm....AND I kept milking her on her good side...she had a buckling that was breech and died but I stuck it out and was told that her bad side would probably get gangrene and slough off....but it didnt...I have her bred(now) and if this happens again she is going into the freezer. She lost alot of weight and alot of her fur but has now recovered fur and weight and is actually one of my heavier girls. She is Nubian/toggy.

I think if I was keeping goats for my livlihood she would have been culled much sooner and buck management would be more intense. I usually keep a buck to trade out with 3 fellow goat keepers but we are not pros. I usually keep the buck from my best Nubian doe but this year I did use a cross for one of my does...hoping to get some size/faster growth rate.

[Sondra Peterson]

OK I just have to put my 2 cents in here. 1st off I agree completely with Vicki!!
My original intention was to have goats here for me to have milk and the bucklings would be food. 1st year all I had was bucklings, those darn little cute things were just toooooo cute and cuddly to go for meat, right?? Well now 4yrs later I have 2 wethers that just eat any profit I might have gained from milking for my own consumption. plus the fact that these two little spoiled rotten darlings won't stay in any fence can open 55 gal steel drums to eat on their own and I can't butcher them now as they are the grandkids pets cause they named them. ummmmmmmm maybe just maybe these obnoxious guys can find a new home in NE or something, at least as far as the grandkids are concerned.
Then this past spring the first buckling born here who I named Sausage was rescuced by the neighbors to be pets from the freezer. That is if you want to call it rescued as 2 days later after I had bottle fed these little guys for 8wks, the neighbors 6 dogs broke into their pen and ripped them apart bit by bit. Well until they had to be shot. Now which is kinder ?? us butchering or ------------

[bethlaf]

Vicki , thank you for confirming my suspicions, i knew with the kids on the ground, and because i didnt know her CAE status , i was going to bottle feed from the get go ,
i have suspected that it was just mainly scar tissue ,maybe some milk, or colostrum , but mainly old injury

for those who wondering, im leaving her bad side alone, milking her good side, its not yielding much , and still trying to figure what i want to do with her, it would be a different story if she were papered, shes not ,

On the disposal of buck kids issue ,
i know what works for me ,i will breed my goats to the best straws/ bucks i can afford /buy , and upgrade my goats ,

but i wont waste time and money on a winter buck kid , now had it been spring or summer, that would have definately been a different story on the buckling as well as if i had more does in milk, but no , my other girls are pregnant so i have to feed replacer on top of it all ....
in this case its a simple math issue

but still i would have never kept him with the thought of future breeding use, i have a SMALL herd, i have 2 alpine does, and now this nubian , and her daughter
theres no use for him here, the only does he could have been allowed to serve were relatives, and hes just a grade , so it was a no go

those are my reasons, anyone else might have made a different decision that would have worked for them and thier farm just fine too .
we are freeholders, after all, and can make our on choices in things like this

Beth

[TexasArtist]

I had one of ours starting to get mastitis and I put about three cups of apple cider vinegar in their water adn it cleared up in about two days. No problem. It also worked on the neighbors goats that had a really bad case of it. Some times they will drink it straight because they know it's good for them but you can just add it to their water and that way they are sure to get and it help get everybody clean.
good luck and merry christmas

[Sondra Peterson]

I have also heard that colidal silver helps but have never used it.
I have a doe now that was drying up when I got her but suspect she had mastitis on one side, will have to wait till she freshens this year to be sure.