B 1 continual mastitis - antibiotics no good

[kellystoner]

Hello,

i am new to the forum and i have been studying it for the past month and have got so much info and help from the posts - so thank you all so much..

maybe i should have posted before now - as now i am desperate.

I am in Australia it is summer here and where we live it very hot and humid and bacteria can spread quickly.

We have been looking after a cow for around 6 weeks (she was in a place where she was not being milked consistently and had mastitis a few times) - when she first came we were getting about 6-8 litres a day and she has a calf on her 24/7 - she is from a farm of big milkers who produce 22litres a day without a calf on them - the calf is about 5 months old.

we started milking twice a day as she has just had mastitis with her previous owner - so we wanted to keep it coming out

however in those first two weeks her milk production really dropped right down to maybe 3- 5 litres a day and then because of this (and as we were new we did not think to adjust our milking - as there was less) the calf really chewed up her back teats badly - i think because she was frustrated that there was not enough milk. She gave her long thick cuts down her back teats - that were very sore - sometimes bleeding. Consequently she stopped letting the calf suck them and we had to tie her up and her leg back to milk them. This was difficult and she ended up with udders verging on mastitis - but we kept on top of it - and she seemed to pull through to the other side - or so i thought.

after we got through that i wanted to start keeping the calf away at night so we could get into a routine and not have to milk so much and get more in one milking. The first morning was fine - she was really full and milked happily. The second morning of keeping the calf off - she had signs of mastitis in two udders - the front one small clumps in milk - but the back one the milk was very yellow and by that afternoon it was just like yellow water. The hard part about the back udder was that no milk was coming out - it seemed all stuck in there - only a tiny bit after each massage - but mostly it needed stuck - even after an hour of trying. I then proceeded with milking and stripping those udders back 3-4 times a day, even though not much was coming out - hot compresses with pokeroot/comfrey, massage, onitment with pokeroot and anti bacterial spray on cuts - she came through this i thought after two days and then the next morning it was present in another udder - engorged/sore/hot/clumpy milk - basically no milk coming out - udder very hard and full - i left the calf on her 24/7 at this point to try to clear it up and even sometimes put her away for a few hours and then let her back with the calf and directed the calf to suck the teat i wanted (the mastitis one) which worked really well i thought

at this stage she was also looking really bad - laying down a lot - did not want to get up - off her feed for a couple of days - losing weight- so i went to the vet. We got antibiotics for up her teats and also a general one incase she had gone septic from the cuts.

So now the antibiotics have finished and the front udder is still full.hard and clumoy and hardly no milk - but not hot. but now the mastitis has moved to the back two again !!!!!

they are hot and sore and lumpy and milk is yellow water in one and just clumps in the other

i am at a loss - i am desperate i dont know what else i can do for her??? i have talked to everyone i know and read everything i know.

Can cows just be prone to mastitis - cam scaring from previous mastitis make them more prone and harder to get rid of??

the other thing i have noticed is that i think the calf has basically stopped drinking as she is eating heaps more feed and none of the cows udders seemed drained at all in the last two days - except by me - and that is hardly at all - do you think this means that she will dry up is her body basically drying her up because of all the infection? i also kept the calf off her again for a few hours in the hope that i could get her to suck the mastitis udders - but the calf did not even attempt to suck or seem interested - which is very unlike her

I have been thinking that maybe she cant fight the mastitis because she is generally unwell - her system is down??

or maybe i should get the milk cultured from my vet?

please any advice, anyone had this persistent mastitis

thankyou thankyou in advance

Kell (on behalf of Belinda the Jersey)

[barnydhppy]

Hi Kelly,
Welcome, and I am sorry you are having a hard time. The calf is old enough to wean if you want. I doubt your girl is trying to dry off. Mastitis is painful.

I recommend that you start frequent milkings. Like every 2 hrs in the day and as often during the night as you can. You need to get the milk moving out as often as you can, ok?

You can also rub on the outside of the udder a mix of oils: Coconut(carrier), tea tree, peppermint and palm oil(optional). We rub LOTS of this on the udder. You can also do a teat dip using this same mix to help protect the opening of the teats after you milk.

Yes, get the milk cultured, that way if you use antibiotics you can get the type of antibiotics that will kill that particular bacteria.

This is to get you started, I'm sure others will chime in!

Rena

[kellystoner]

Thanks for responding - we do use a teat dip of tea tree and also when i wash her down and use hot compress and such i use teatree and i have also been putting a natural chestrub on her udder after i milk - peppermint and eucalypt and such

i just feel like it is so set in - like i cant move it - every two hours is hard as i have a one year old and its hard when my husband is not here - but i will try

so that is really what it takes i guess that sort of full on all day commitment - i will really give it a go

can you tell me if it is a days or weeks kinda thing or does it totally depend

thanks

[barnydhppy]

What antibiotics did you use? Can you tell the schedule that you used them on...like once a day or twice a day? How many days?

As for how long? I don't know...but when we did, it was 2 days to get it out and one additional one to make sure it was gone. Having a little one does make all the difference in the world.

Hang in there!!! You are doing the best you can!
Rena

[Rhein-O-Ranch]

We use a product here in the USA called Masti-Clear. It has a thin straw on the end of the tube. You insert the straw directly intto the teat and squeeze the whole tube in. Then massage the teat upward so you get the ointment as far up into the udder as possible. Then when you milk the next time the ointment usually comes out first.
Masti-clear is penicillain based and there is another cream that is based on different antibiotic.
We get the tubes from our local farm supply. A vet may have it or something similar.
I also hit them with a antiboitic shot. When I use penicillan I give at least twice the bottle dosage. So on 220 kg cow I use 25 cc. And with what you are experiencing I would give it for a minimum of 5 days. It doesn't hurt to give more than recommended.
And yes definitely get it cultured.

[kellystoner]

Hi

i have given her antibiotics up the teat for three days (cepravin (ceruroxime sodium)) and antibiotic shots at the same time for three days (trisoprim - sulphaizine & trimethoprim)

that finished 2 days ago - she is seeming better in herself - eating a bit more and not laying down all the time - but those udders still have mastitis and it has spread to another

so you think that they need to have shots longer - do you think i need to start again now and give 5 full days ?? or just as many until she seems to be clearing?

i am also moving here to be near my house so i can milk her all the time and am considering taking the calf off her - as a local farmer just told me calves can spread the mastitis from one teat to the next?
i think the calf is hardly getting anything anyway?

let me know what you think - eekk

thanks .. K

[Jerseylady*Heather*]

If she didnt get enough anitbiotics the mastitis will come back stronger, and be harder to treat. If she were my cow I would treat her with the intramammery infusion (in her teat) every twelve hours till it clears. milking at 12 hr intravals. And always treat one day longer then symptoms. What is happening is she is building up scar tissue and inflamtion from the infection. She will have permanant damage to those quarters and they will always produce less. You sound like you have been doing a great job with her. The rubs on her udder are great. It sounds like the calf is causing more harm then good. I would pull him off. My cow freshened with mastitis this year and we first treated her with Antibiotics, and then we went and picked up a couple of bummer calves from the dairy, and beteween three calves they were able to get her milk moving and get it cleared. We caught it early and she didnt have any damage to her udder. I would get on those antibiotics ASAP. I would also try to have her milk cultured, that should tell you what you need to get it cleared. You are doing a great job with her Keep it up.

[Rhein-O-Ranch]

I agree about the calves. I have a Brown swiss that had been machine milked all of her life until she came to me. She had a long history of mastitis. Now she has at least 2 and sometimes 4 calves on her. She has been here over a year and has had one minor case of mastitis.
All of the old time dairy farmers that I know say that calves will strip and keep mastitis to a minumum.
And I am finding that going 2 days after symptoms disappear isn't a bad idea on the antibiotics.
Try penicillian this time instead of what you have been using. Old but still works on lots of organisms. Obviously what you used didn't work too well.

[kellystoner]

i am not sure - there seems to be several ways to go - take calf off - and milk her every two hours or keep it on and maybe even two on her ? do you just put the extra calves on when she has mastitis or all the time?

and if you have two calves all the time - can you still do the, pull them off for the night and milk in the morning routine?

but it definately seems like she needs more antibiotics - i will ring my local vet and she if she recommends any others and also how much it costs to get it cultured..

also, does anyone know if milking machines can suck mastitis out better than by hand? as we may have access to one if that can help ]

thankyou all so much

Kell

[Jerseylady*Heather*]

OK, there are a number of ways to go. The intramammery infusion usually works best, and was working on your girl until you stopped. Here in the US you can buy them at the local feed store. I would treat till better and then put a couple calves on her all the time to keep her cleaned out, or you can milk her every two hours( which is impossible for me which is why I do the calf thing), Depending on how much milk she is making you can have one or two calves. My cow was producing 7 gallons/day so I had three calves. Most calves NEED total one gallon/day. Your 5 month old calf sounds like his chewing of the nipples is causing alot of damage, and needs to be separated it will not stop chewing only get worse. You can try giving her the Penicillin on top of the intramammery infusion(I did). But she needs to get the milk moving through. Lots of massaging of the udder, and TLC she will come out of it. If its not too late to save the quarters. I hope this is a little clearer. I think she is at the point where she needs antibiotics to continue.

As far as separating over night, as long as the calf/calves are getting enough milk 1/2 gallon every 12 hours. They will be fine. I usually wait till calves are around two weeks old to separate. But with all the antibiotics in her system you dont want to drink the milk till it has cleared her system.
I hope this helps I can get kinda scatter brained sometimes and be hard to understand. If you have any more questions ask away, I really hope you can pull her out of it and make a good cow out of her.

[Jerseylady*Heather*]

Oh and its fine for the calves to drink the antibiotic milk, just not good for humans. Sorry shouldve clarified.
-Heather

[djb]

Kellystoner,sorry I should have seen this sooner.I am in Aussie & am familiar with the Aussie drugs needed.Sounds like the calf is getting no milk now at all & that is why she has given up drinking.I would still try to get the calf to suck frequently as well as you milk her out frequently.I have had plenty of practice with mastitis unfortunately & I always use Mamyzin[penicillen specific for mastitis] 5 days injection as well as 2 days of IM ketoprofin for pain & fever.The ketoprofin is as important as the antibiotic in my view.You may not get much recovery of those bad quarters but you will save the cow.If her udder is rock hard using up the teat antis. may not get where they are needed.Using Uddermint on her udder will also help a bit.
Give her plenty of good tucker.If she is not drinking much,drench her with water+/- molasses
Hope this helps & good luck!

[Rhein-O-Ranch]

I agree with the ketoprophin or here in the USA I use a generic banamine product. It's drug name is flunixin melguamine. I buy a 250cc bottle from my vet and always use it with antibiotics. One warning with banamine only use it everyother day as it can cause stomach irritation.
But reducing the swelling with one or the other drug seems to be key to a faster recovery.

[kellystoner]

thanks so much for all your info. sorry for late reply have been busy with cow!

so am milking four times a day, gone back onto intramuscular antis. yesterday. so far there seems to be a little improvement, the really rock hard one seems to have broken up into hard chunks (better than one solid chunk) and still just getting little bits of milk from it - massaging lots. One back udder is actually seeming ok - it never got to hard stage - just hot stage. The other back udder however is still producing hardly any milk and its yellowish water still and basically none. However she is eating again - yeah!~ and comes to the stall now instead of being pulled and we saw the calf suckling from her this afternoon for a while - which she has not done in days.

I know i really should get that calf off her - i am just afraid that maybe the calf is still feeding and that if i take her off - the the cow will get worse. at this stage i do not have access to other calves - i will work on finding some tomorrow.

I was at the point yesterday of drying her off - as i spoke to local conventional farmers around here and they told me she is basically ruined because of scarring etc.

Do you think that a cow can come back from bad mastitis like this (that keeps coming back) to be milkable this time round?

Also, is it possible to dry off one or even two teats and not the others - or is it best if you are going to dry her off to just do them all?

i also bought a bag of calcium/magnesium rich formula that is meant to be injected intravenous - but i do not feel confident to do that - so the guy at the store said internally would be ok.. has anyone had experience with anything like that working?

thanks so much guys - and thanks for the ketoprophin tip- i will ask my vet xxkell

[wacowgirl]

I don't think you have mastitis that "keeps coming back" I think it probably never fully went away. Keep at it. Intermamary infusions are going to take effect quicker (in my opinion) than IM antibiotics. I would do both at this stage. Keep milking as often as you can and take the calf off. I think that calf is likely making it worse at this point. She doesn't need milk anymore so probably is only snacking rather than emptying the udder anyway.
Good luck,
Trisha

[richard olson]

try getting a product called UDDER COMFORT it's a thick lotion you rub into the udder.i think theres a dist in ma . main office #888 773 7153. this is good stuff,massage it onto the hole udder a couple days before freshing,and it works good for a soar back pain on humans[the company can't say that] it's safe to use no drugs,essential oils mostly peppermint.i'm a selfemployed dairycow hooftrimmer[18 years] i see alot of farmers use UC tell em richard olson from rice lake wisconsin sent ya.

[Heidi]

Hi K,
I really do feel for you. It must seem like hard slog at the moment. All the advice given above is great, but I'm sure it does leave you feeling conflicted as to what is best in your situation. I have nothing much to add to the good advice given above, other than my support, that yes, you are doing the best you can with the circumstances you've got. My cow has a bad quarter, that has been scarred by previous mastitis, however the other three teats milk fine. So there is a lot of potential left yet for her. Keep us informed please.
H

[kellystoner]

HI everyone,

i have a positive update!!!

so it has all gone better so far than i imagined it would - which is such great news and i feel so much better - milking every two hours really really helped her and i finished the rest of the bottle of antis. that i had (injection) and also gave her a calcium/mag boost product and something/all things? have helped. All sings gone of mastitis, milk flowing again and lump receding slowly. Getting heaps of milk through and she is in less pain and eating again!! everything she can - down to three milks a down now and very soon two - thanks so much for all your advice!!!

i'll post again soon in normal section and say hello and give updates thanks again - so much !

xxxkell