Post by amylou on Aug 17, 2009 23:53:16 GMT -5
Hey y'all.
I'm worried about my Lily. I've spoken with my vet several times, but I guess I am second guessing and want your opinions. She calved back in January, her calf has been weaned and she has been a nurse cow for two young calves up until about 2 weeks ago.
I noticed her on August 5, stumbling around in the pasture. I went to look at her more closely and realized that her udder was swollen in the back right quarter. I was able to squeeze some milk out and it was mastitic- the goo and clumps present. I worked on her a little then, but also noticed how very thin she had gotten. I'm ashamed to say that we had been preoccupied with our other girl, a first-calf heifer who wasnt standing to let her calf nurse and Lily hadnt gotten the attention she needed. This is about the time that we had about 2 weeks of hot weather- in the upper 90's to 105 range--not our normal in Western Washington. During that 'heat wave' our pasture also was shot---Before this hot time, her condition was better, not great-she is hard to keep weight on, but she was looking pretty good.
So anyway, when I did find her she was stumbling around, obviously mastitic and not eating, very dull acting, ears down nose down, cold ears. She laid down in the field and we couldnt get her up for anything. I went ahead and gave her a penicillin shot and a today infusion because I was afraid of her condition. Next day, I continued the today, penicillin and I gave her vit B shot. I also offered her molasses water and she took some, not much and mostly just nosed at her food. She was down more than up and I could still milk off a lot of goo from that quarter. The other quarters were mostly empty during this time.
Day 3 she got up and was grazing (YIPPEE) and eating and drinking with gusto. I went in to the vet's office, thinking I would take a sample to them (not knowing it wouldnt do any good since I had already given antibiotics) and was actually able to talk to the vet (It's a 2 man office and one was on vacation so the one left behind was too busy to come out). He told me to stop the penicillin and Today, he gave me spectramast infusion and instructed me to use dextramethasone. I was able to still milk some goo from that quarter, but not much. My neighbor was helping me so much, we put hot compresses on her and massaged her but could not tell that it was working much.
Day 4-5-6 to present- day 12(!) Still eating, drinking good--she is and has since been eating and drinking well and in good spirits, looks when I talk to her, holds her ears up etc. She is still waaaay too skinny, but her bag is just as hard and seems to be getting harder. The fluid I get out is now more clear than anything, there are few clumps. The fluid has been orangish, brownish and even a little bloody, but now mostly clear. I can hardly get anything out. I called and spoke to the other vet (they are both dairy specialty vets) and he said to treat her with supportive care, as long as she was eating and drinking, that was good. He said her quarter would probably get bigger, but it would be this way for up to 2 weeks or more and probably the quarter would abscess before I was done.
I'm just concerned. She has been having horrible diarrhea, but I read on another thread that maybe I did that with the beet pulp in an effort to put some padding back on her. So, I backed off on that. She is on pasture, (our pasture is coming back after a week of rain) some alfalfa hay, sweet cob 7lbs/day, calf manna, 1-2lbs/day, and pat coleby's mineral mix. I've been giving her 1T crushed vit c (1000mg) and 1T Dolomite. I've been reading every thread about mastitis that I could find and been doing other research online. Best I can tell, it is coliform mastitis which is not responsive to antibiotics. The vet said to milk her out only 2x/day. Is that really enough? I feel like I make no headway at all. Everytime I go out it seems to be bigger and bigger still. I have been using lard/cayenne to rub on her udder and then the olive oil, peppermint oil, tea tree oil mixture that was suggested in another thread. And still. She is huge and hard, I cant really tell if it is hotter than normal. Tonight it was reddish/almost purple color in one spot-but it is now rubbing against the inside of her leg. Other than that, it doesnt look real bad. Sometimes the teat looks near to being white, other times, it looks normal.
Is there anything else I can do? Do I really just keep going with seemingly no progress? The thing that keeps me going is that she is eating/drinking normally, she is engaged, she still takes interest in her babies--no nursing them tho- oh and her milk is coming back in the other quarters.
These pictures are from this morning:
from the back, the hardness goes down the midsection between the left and right quarters all the way from under the tail section to between the front quarters:
Here, I hope you can see the swelling between front and back quarter, the front quarter is almost seeming to be affected, but the milk looks good and clear and the front quarter is soft on the front, but hard on the back by the back quarter-so maybe it is just the back quarter spreading?
Here is a picture from underneath. You can see how swollen it is- this is after I had worked on it for an hour or so:
Here you can see how thin she is
and another view of her poor condition:
I'm just scared that first of all, I dont know what I'm doing and second of all that she is going to take a turn for the worse. I dont really want to lose that quarter, but I would rather lose the quarter than the cow. She's wonderful and I want to give her the best chance I can.
Please let me know what you think. I hope I covered everything, I'm feeling pretty scattered right now.
Thank you so much.
Amy
I'm worried about my Lily. I've spoken with my vet several times, but I guess I am second guessing and want your opinions. She calved back in January, her calf has been weaned and she has been a nurse cow for two young calves up until about 2 weeks ago.
I noticed her on August 5, stumbling around in the pasture. I went to look at her more closely and realized that her udder was swollen in the back right quarter. I was able to squeeze some milk out and it was mastitic- the goo and clumps present. I worked on her a little then, but also noticed how very thin she had gotten. I'm ashamed to say that we had been preoccupied with our other girl, a first-calf heifer who wasnt standing to let her calf nurse and Lily hadnt gotten the attention she needed. This is about the time that we had about 2 weeks of hot weather- in the upper 90's to 105 range--not our normal in Western Washington. During that 'heat wave' our pasture also was shot---Before this hot time, her condition was better, not great-she is hard to keep weight on, but she was looking pretty good.
So anyway, when I did find her she was stumbling around, obviously mastitic and not eating, very dull acting, ears down nose down, cold ears. She laid down in the field and we couldnt get her up for anything. I went ahead and gave her a penicillin shot and a today infusion because I was afraid of her condition. Next day, I continued the today, penicillin and I gave her vit B shot. I also offered her molasses water and she took some, not much and mostly just nosed at her food. She was down more than up and I could still milk off a lot of goo from that quarter. The other quarters were mostly empty during this time.
Day 3 she got up and was grazing (YIPPEE) and eating and drinking with gusto. I went in to the vet's office, thinking I would take a sample to them (not knowing it wouldnt do any good since I had already given antibiotics) and was actually able to talk to the vet (It's a 2 man office and one was on vacation so the one left behind was too busy to come out). He told me to stop the penicillin and Today, he gave me spectramast infusion and instructed me to use dextramethasone. I was able to still milk some goo from that quarter, but not much. My neighbor was helping me so much, we put hot compresses on her and massaged her but could not tell that it was working much.
Day 4-5-6 to present- day 12(!) Still eating, drinking good--she is and has since been eating and drinking well and in good spirits, looks when I talk to her, holds her ears up etc. She is still waaaay too skinny, but her bag is just as hard and seems to be getting harder. The fluid I get out is now more clear than anything, there are few clumps. The fluid has been orangish, brownish and even a little bloody, but now mostly clear. I can hardly get anything out. I called and spoke to the other vet (they are both dairy specialty vets) and he said to treat her with supportive care, as long as she was eating and drinking, that was good. He said her quarter would probably get bigger, but it would be this way for up to 2 weeks or more and probably the quarter would abscess before I was done.
I'm just concerned. She has been having horrible diarrhea, but I read on another thread that maybe I did that with the beet pulp in an effort to put some padding back on her. So, I backed off on that. She is on pasture, (our pasture is coming back after a week of rain) some alfalfa hay, sweet cob 7lbs/day, calf manna, 1-2lbs/day, and pat coleby's mineral mix. I've been giving her 1T crushed vit c (1000mg) and 1T Dolomite. I've been reading every thread about mastitis that I could find and been doing other research online. Best I can tell, it is coliform mastitis which is not responsive to antibiotics. The vet said to milk her out only 2x/day. Is that really enough? I feel like I make no headway at all. Everytime I go out it seems to be bigger and bigger still. I have been using lard/cayenne to rub on her udder and then the olive oil, peppermint oil, tea tree oil mixture that was suggested in another thread. And still. She is huge and hard, I cant really tell if it is hotter than normal. Tonight it was reddish/almost purple color in one spot-but it is now rubbing against the inside of her leg. Other than that, it doesnt look real bad. Sometimes the teat looks near to being white, other times, it looks normal.
Is there anything else I can do? Do I really just keep going with seemingly no progress? The thing that keeps me going is that she is eating/drinking normally, she is engaged, she still takes interest in her babies--no nursing them tho- oh and her milk is coming back in the other quarters.
These pictures are from this morning:
from the back, the hardness goes down the midsection between the left and right quarters all the way from under the tail section to between the front quarters:
Here, I hope you can see the swelling between front and back quarter, the front quarter is almost seeming to be affected, but the milk looks good and clear and the front quarter is soft on the front, but hard on the back by the back quarter-so maybe it is just the back quarter spreading?
Here is a picture from underneath. You can see how swollen it is- this is after I had worked on it for an hour or so:
Here you can see how thin she is
and another view of her poor condition:
I'm just scared that first of all, I dont know what I'm doing and second of all that she is going to take a turn for the worse. I dont really want to lose that quarter, but I would rather lose the quarter than the cow. She's wonderful and I want to give her the best chance I can.
Please let me know what you think. I hope I covered everything, I'm feeling pretty scattered right now.
Thank you so much.
Amy