Post by farmertodd on Oct 15, 2008 19:36:32 GMT -5
Hello all! This is my first post, so sorry if I ramble a bit and try to get the hang of this. I have a question about our family cow. Her name is Buttercup and she is approximately 2 1/2 years old. She has had only one calf so far and recently it has been weaned. I never milked a cow before Buttercup, so I never really know what to expect. She is a 1/2 Jersey - 1/2 Holstein. About a month ago I noticed she had devoloped Mastitis in her back left quarter, if you are standing behind her facing forward. We went to our local Attwood's and picked up 8 tubes of ToDay and proceeded to treat her. It seemed to work like a charm, we waited the recommended time and then began saving the milk while we sent samples for testing. Much to our dismay, the vet said the on the growth scale she was around a 2 and he said we should do 3 more sets of treatment with ToDay and then wait about 4 days and then we could drink the milk without retesting. We followed his prescription and on the 5th day noticed there was an amber colored oily substance on the top of the milk in our milking bucket. We had no idea what it might be, but decided to keep trying to milk out until she was clear and here we are a month after this all started and still haven't begun to use the milk.
Whew! That being said, even though the milk seems to have cleared up pretty much, now we are inspecting it closer than ever and I don't know that we'll ever feel comfortable drinking her milk again. We notice little tiny specs of what appear to be a clear oily residue on the top of her milk. I ran some through a cheese cloth last night and noticed that it left a yellowish tint on the cloth after filtering. I was wondering whether the yellowish tint had something to do with the fact that she's 1/2 Jersey. Also, I was wondering if maybe we're noticing all of these changes in her milk only because the baby isn't drinking any longer. We also went from milking twice a day to once a day about 3/4 of the way through this process. Also, we have a friend's bull over here trying to get her bred back, so could that have something to do with this all??? Help! Sorry for all the questions, I'm just at a loss and don't know what to do. Thanks in advance for all of your help.
Whew! That being said, even though the milk seems to have cleared up pretty much, now we are inspecting it closer than ever and I don't know that we'll ever feel comfortable drinking her milk again. We notice little tiny specs of what appear to be a clear oily residue on the top of her milk. I ran some through a cheese cloth last night and noticed that it left a yellowish tint on the cloth after filtering. I was wondering whether the yellowish tint had something to do with the fact that she's 1/2 Jersey. Also, I was wondering if maybe we're noticing all of these changes in her milk only because the baby isn't drinking any longer. We also went from milking twice a day to once a day about 3/4 of the way through this process. Also, we have a friend's bull over here trying to get her bred back, so could that have something to do with this all??? Help! Sorry for all the questions, I'm just at a loss and don't know what to do. Thanks in advance for all of your help.