Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2010 21:50:43 GMT -5
Hi-
This is Brian from central VA. My wife and I are milking a registered Jersey, Emily, born in Apr 08 and first calving on June 14 10. She had a registered Jersey bull calf ater being AI'd in Sep 09 and aftr a difficult birth. The calf had to be pulled out by a vet.
She is a great cow and shares about 5 acres of okay pasture with 2 full grown Jersey steers (pets). We feed her 16 percent Sweetec feed when milked, and give her about 1/4 cup of mineral "crumbles" each day in the feed, She drinks from a spring fed creek and the calf suckles the two front teats but never ever the back two. For the first few weeks of milking, the milk we got was salty in taste and only slowly did we learn that this was not right. We got the California Mastitis Test and had the vet back a couple times (the first to see that she had passed her placenta and the second to look at her left rear quarter which is now a problem) and soon had all but the left rear milking good sweet milk and showing okay on the CMT test. Never any blood or stringiness or globs in any of the quarters.
The past couple days, after thinking we had the saly milk at least isolated in the left rear and a lot less salty in taste, we have seen the left rear quarter swell, get red, get hard in the middle, and give very little milk. The left rear teat is smaller than the others now, and will not replenish with milk when squeexed. And she seems very sensitive to the touch back there with a hard core to the quarter, much more so than the other three. We are looking at getting the vet back next week (he advised that she had sub-clinical mastitis in the left rear but suggested milking, massaging, and using Dynamint lotion all of which we have been doing, and discouraged the introduction of antibiotics because of issues with them).
So...sorry for the long-windedness, but does anyone have any tips on how to approach this left rear problem? We really do not want to permanently damage the quarter, obviously, but fear that without vet intervention we are looking at a chronic problem and possible permanent damage.
Thanks,
Brian
This is Brian from central VA. My wife and I are milking a registered Jersey, Emily, born in Apr 08 and first calving on June 14 10. She had a registered Jersey bull calf ater being AI'd in Sep 09 and aftr a difficult birth. The calf had to be pulled out by a vet.
She is a great cow and shares about 5 acres of okay pasture with 2 full grown Jersey steers (pets). We feed her 16 percent Sweetec feed when milked, and give her about 1/4 cup of mineral "crumbles" each day in the feed, She drinks from a spring fed creek and the calf suckles the two front teats but never ever the back two. For the first few weeks of milking, the milk we got was salty in taste and only slowly did we learn that this was not right. We got the California Mastitis Test and had the vet back a couple times (the first to see that she had passed her placenta and the second to look at her left rear quarter which is now a problem) and soon had all but the left rear milking good sweet milk and showing okay on the CMT test. Never any blood or stringiness or globs in any of the quarters.
The past couple days, after thinking we had the saly milk at least isolated in the left rear and a lot less salty in taste, we have seen the left rear quarter swell, get red, get hard in the middle, and give very little milk. The left rear teat is smaller than the others now, and will not replenish with milk when squeexed. And she seems very sensitive to the touch back there with a hard core to the quarter, much more so than the other three. We are looking at getting the vet back next week (he advised that she had sub-clinical mastitis in the left rear but suggested milking, massaging, and using Dynamint lotion all of which we have been doing, and discouraged the introduction of antibiotics because of issues with them).
So...sorry for the long-windedness, but does anyone have any tips on how to approach this left rear problem? We really do not want to permanently damage the quarter, obviously, but fear that without vet intervention we are looking at a chronic problem and possible permanent damage.
Thanks,
Brian