Post by Heidi on Feb 6, 2010 5:54:21 GMT -5
Hi,
Spot's due to calf any day now (well between now and the 19th). She must have had mastitis in her front rhs quarter at some point in the past because it did not produce any milk (I got her with her six week calf). Our ex dairy neighbour had a look at it and said not to worry about it. I milked her successfully for 6 months from her three good teats, with not a drop from the bad teat. You can feel fibrous tissue inside the quarter and the teat itself is somewhat shrivelled and shortened.
Now she is getting her udder, I can see that she is also starting to bag up in the bad quarter (well it looks that way to me). My plan is to leave well enough alone and not even touch that teat when she calves. I'm assuming hopefully that because its is totally closed off with scar tissue, that mastitis won't get in to the milk duct? She had no problems with it last lactation at all, but I wasn't there when she freshened I guess, so can't be 100% certain. Any thoughts on this? Will she just reabsorb the milk in that quarter?
Secondly, I would like to get her bred back as soon as possible to get a late spring calf. I have access to the bull across the road, but how do I arrange this if I'm share milking her? Do I just walk her over with her calf and leave her there for three days being milked only by the calf, or do I take my chances and milk her there with the bull courting her???!!!!!! (Although he does have a cattle crush etc, I could use as a stanchion) How do others go about this? I'm sure I'm not the only one. Last calf (with her previous owner) was very unexpected, and she had the calf on her 24/7 until I bought her 6 weeks later, and by that time she was bred. So this is new to me.
Any advice would be handy.
Spot's due to calf any day now (well between now and the 19th). She must have had mastitis in her front rhs quarter at some point in the past because it did not produce any milk (I got her with her six week calf). Our ex dairy neighbour had a look at it and said not to worry about it. I milked her successfully for 6 months from her three good teats, with not a drop from the bad teat. You can feel fibrous tissue inside the quarter and the teat itself is somewhat shrivelled and shortened.
Now she is getting her udder, I can see that she is also starting to bag up in the bad quarter (well it looks that way to me). My plan is to leave well enough alone and not even touch that teat when she calves. I'm assuming hopefully that because its is totally closed off with scar tissue, that mastitis won't get in to the milk duct? She had no problems with it last lactation at all, but I wasn't there when she freshened I guess, so can't be 100% certain. Any thoughts on this? Will she just reabsorb the milk in that quarter?
Secondly, I would like to get her bred back as soon as possible to get a late spring calf. I have access to the bull across the road, but how do I arrange this if I'm share milking her? Do I just walk her over with her calf and leave her there for three days being milked only by the calf, or do I take my chances and milk her there with the bull courting her???!!!!!! (Although he does have a cattle crush etc, I could use as a stanchion) How do others go about this? I'm sure I'm not the only one. Last calf (with her previous owner) was very unexpected, and she had the calf on her 24/7 until I bought her 6 weeks later, and by that time she was bred. So this is new to me.
Any advice would be handy.