Post by udderchaos on Apr 29, 2010 16:31:26 GMT -5
Okay so my heifer Rose calved Feb 22. The calf has been with momma. I separate about 8:00 pm. I milk at 7:00am. Then I turn them out together. All has been well....except yesterday I noticed blood in the bucket. (she has never had any blood, even when she calved). I isolated it to the front left teat. This morning I just milked that one into another bucket and sure enough about half way through milking there were some more squirts of blood mixed in. Now I inspected the udder. There is no sign of injury. Our pasture is pretty safe nothing she could really fall on and hurt herself. I thought maybe leaving them separated that long at night there was just too much pressure from the milk in the morning. She has a pretty decent size udder for a first timer. She only has 3 quarters though. I get 3 gallons in the morning and I know there is still some there. I have not ruled out the possibility it is maybe from the pressure. My other thought which I think might be more accurate is that Scooter her bull calf is just too rough. I don't know if anybody has ever had that happen. He butts her so hard always on that same side that he pushes her sideways. He does this repeatedly. After I use him to get 2 letdowns during the morning milking (and let him have some milk, because he thinks he's starving) I keep him locked up for about 2 hours because I thought if her udder was a little fuller than when I just got done milking that he wouldn't butt her so much when he nursed, but it didn't make a difference. I can go up to her in the pasture and start squeezing and get milk instantly, because she lets down really easy, but even after he gets a letdown like 1/2 second after he starts nursing he just butts her constantly. Does anybody think that could cause some blood vessels to break and cause blood in the milk? I hope with some ideas I can get this figured out soon. Thanks for any help! I hope I didn't make that sound too confusing....
Jennifer
Jennifer