G 7 Any perspectives on these vet's remarks?

[bluedogfarmer]

Hi, warning: this is a long story. The gist: My cow Ivy got sick after calving. I had the vet out and he and his antibiotics saved her from dying of septicemia. However, I do not know how to interpret some of the information he gave me about the nature, causes and effects of her mastitis and septicemia.

My cow Ivy (1/2 Jersey, 1/2 Angus, 5 yrs old) calved on March 18th. She's my first milker in her first lactation with me, her third. So basically, I don't know much at all, and she's been there before. All seemed fine, the calf was born in the night, everyone staring at me in the dark.

I started milking. But the calf wasn't eating much. Ivy's udder was huge; we kept trying to get the calf to take the teat, but she wouldn't. She didn't seem sick, just wouldn't nurse.

Finally, on the second day, I started worrying a lot about the calf not getting colostrum. There was no evidence she was nursing -- I'd never seen it, and I was watching, and Ivy's udder was always full -- 3x a day. So we fed her Ivy's colostrum/milk(?) using an esophageal feeder several times.

On the evening of the 20th (Sat), I'm still worrying about the calf (who seems fine), and I notice Ivy's panting and very hot and lying down, and doesn't want to get up. While she's up, she's kind of shifting on her feet like she might topple over.

I called the vet. Bless his heart, he came right out. I can share all the gory details with anyone who would like to know, but the upshot of the visits and testing he did was that she had massive mastitis in three quarters (he said that's probably why the calf didn't nurse much -- she didn't like how it tasted.) But she was also septic -- had a whole body infection -- and he doubted that the sepsis was caused by the mastitis.

She had a respiratory rate of 70, a temp of 105 point something, and a heart rate of 108 (which the vet called "an ominous sign"). Her manure seemed normal; she was eating and drinking, and he said she didn't look dehydrated.

He checked her for retained placenta -- no. He said the sepsis caused inflammation and that inflammation in her lungs was probably causing the shortness of breath (no evidence of lung infection -- no cough, wheezes, etc). and elevated heart rate. He said inflammation in her feet was causing her pain, thus the shifting when standing and not wanting to be on her feet.

He wondered about a liver abcess opening during the strain of calving and perhaps infecting the blood. Takes blood and milk samples.

So he gives us Today for the mastitis and Polyflex antibiotic to get some treatment going and Banamine. Next a.m., fever's gone and she's more willing to get up on her feet. All else is the same -- including the respiratory rate.

So I'm milking 2-3 times a day, trying to be scrupulously clean. The calf found the good quarter, pussy milk's coming out of the other quarters. Ivy seems to be feeling better on her feet. The milk seems to be getting better.

By Monday, though, she had bloody diarrhea. Still breathing 70-80. So now the vet is thinking it looks like salmonella that's now in her colon. The Today doses and the Banamine doses are done, we keep on with the Polyflex. He tests her stool.

Tuesday, diarrhea less bloody. She's still eating, drinking, seems to be recovering. By Wednesday, tests are coming back, Thursday respiratory rate 35-40.

So, the results and what the vet told me about them: She has staph infection causing the mastitis in two of her quarters. The third quarter was entero something (?). None were ecoli. He said that staph is hard to kill because it hides in scar tissue. He said it would be okay for her to raise this calf, but he wouldn't breed her back. I asked if the milk was okay to drink. He said yes, that stomach acid kills staph.

I asked why it was so bad. He said because it could spread to her other quarters.

The blood work looked good, he said. It indicated no evidence of liver abcess (which would make it so we'd not want to breed her again, he said, because of the great liklihood of the same situation recurring.) But that's not it, so never mind.

The stool sample did not show salmonella, but he said that it didn't show anything else, either, and that he felt quite certain that with the bloody diarrhea that it was probably salmonella.

So he said "I'm not telling you to cull the cow" but he thought "maybe you wouldn't want to breed her back." He didn't explain any more.

I respect what this vet knows, but I'm wondering how much what he has to say has to do with his experience with large commercial dairies -- he's retired from being the herd vet of a very prestigious, historic dairy. Does any of his advice need to be taking in a different light for a family cow -- or taken more seriously because it's a family cow?

Is this milk I should not drink raw (after the withdrawal time for the antibiotics)? Is this cow, for lack of a better word, a loser? Of course, I love her.....

I searched the Tree of Knowledge, and found little to nothing about salmonella or staph mastitis.

Anyone???

Thanks for reading this far!

[tassie]

Ditto the WOW factor .

Do you know the history of Ivy's first two lactations? Despite what the vet says, if she had no problems with those then this is a recent phenomenon and you might be able to correct it with careful nutrition and supplements to get her immunity back on track. I would want to give it a try if it were me, but that's just the way I think .

Did she have a particularly hard winter to deal with? Can you think of any reason why her immunity might be compromised?

Hope she's on the mend,

Trina

[djb]

Cows do get salmonella ,it is catching to others including humans & it recurs when cows are under stress.I'm not sure how it is diagnosed but probably faeces testing.I think all the treatments given were correct ,he sounds like a good vet.I think what he is trying to tell you is that it is very likely all these problems will happen again next time she calves.I think his advice is sound to cull your cow & start afresh after she has reared this calf.I'm not sure about drinking her milk if she has salmonella.I would get a definitive diagnosis of this first.Someone else will know the answers to the things I don't know.I'm sorry you had such bad luck with your first cow.By the way her showing signs of sore feet is just that her udder was so sore that any leg/foot movement hurt her udder[it is 1 of the first signs of mastitis;not wanting to step properly & walk much]There are many types of bugs that cause mastitis,staph is just 1 of them.The rapid breathing of your cow is probably just from her high fever,humans do this too.

[Rhein-O-Ranch]

Some vets work in the CYA mode. Wat he says has merit. But you need to evaluate the cow for your needs.
I know how you feel about the cow...It being your first. I had a hard decision that I put off for 3 weeks when our first milk cow broke her leg. I kept thinking that she had just dislocated her hip during a bout of milk fever. After the swelling went down it was obvious that she had broke her leg.....
It sounds like you have plenty of time to evaluate and make a decision.
After a withdrawal period and she looks good I would go ahead and drink the milk.

[tassie]

I have no problem with this vet - I think he has done a wonderful job for you. What you have to decide is whether you are willing to put in the time and effort needed to either establish that she could do OK with the right care, or whether she's a liability.

If you didn't get a positive result for salmonella, then it is quite likely she doesn't have it. You could get another test to confirm/deny this. It's possible that she had those gastric symptoms because of other stresses on her body, given how well-established the infection was.

The staph infection is a worry because it IS difficult to shift (but not impossible). Again I would urge you to get a history of her previous calvings so you can figure out when things went pear-shaped.

Trina

[Shelley (whistlingtrain)]

Well, I'm not a vet, but here are my 2¢.

Beauty is 13, never had mastitis (probably) before I got her at 10 years old. Her first lactation with me she went over a fence with the taller cow and ripped off one of her teats. It was a horrifying injury for me. The swelling made it so I couldn't milk that quarter, bruised and bloody as it was. She ended up with raging mastitis in that quarter. I first-aided it for a week, had an old-timer vet over who showed me how to wash it out. I used penicillin infusions in that quarter but once the mastitis took hold, it went rampant quickly. I'm talking 24 hours and she was septic. Fever, listless, not eating. The big dairy vet said I'd probably want to dry her off and kill the quarter because once the scar tissue built up in there, it would mean non-stop forever mastitis. I used Today for a week, and gave her penicillin shots until she recovered and the mastitis cleared up. Then for several months I had to use Today again for a few days to get it back under control.

She still has chronic mastitis in that quarter. The milk squirts out when she lets down, but I think it probably helps because every time the fountain sprays, the quarter is being flushed. The calf nurses it, I milk it awkwardly by positioning the bucket and catching the fountain. When the weather changes, or she is otherwise stressed, she has a flareup. The milk will strain slowly, sometimes I'll see little clumps. I keep a supply of mastitis cards handy for testing. And, my regular maintenance care involved giving her scoops of vitamin C powder with her grain and using peppermint udder balm when I start seeing the signs. I catch it early and usually don't have to resort to the antibiotics. Only once a year or so does it not clear up right away.

So, against my good vet's advice, and with my heart and not my head, I'm saying it doesn't have to be a death sentence. I'd wait it out a bit and see just what it turns out to be. I'd check her for diseases--all of them, just for peace of mind. Salmonella, TB, all of the baddies. Just to be safe. See if the mastitis clears up. When you dry her off use a strong dry-cow infusion just to be safe. I do that with Beauty for peace of mind. Use a good teat dip after milking when the calf's not nursing any more. (There's no point while the calf's nursing).

Definitely get her into spring with good fresh grass, and when she's not on grass supplement her with vitamin C and E. I didn't believe that they could turn a cow's health around so quickly until I tried it myself. It's hard on a girl to go through a long, wet, cold winter on dry feed, then calve and make lots of milk at the same time. I swear by a good molasses/mineral/protein lick too. I use Flaxlic--a little pricier than the standard dairy lick, but they gobble it up, and this is my first lactation with no milk fever (knock on wood).

Good luck!

[bluedogfarmer]

Thank you ALL for your ideas so far! It very comforting that there is this great community so full of experience.

To answer some questions (and ask some more): I don't know a lot about Ivy's first two lactations (hmmmm. All the things I didn't know to ask...) She did have mastitis at some point in her first lactation -- bad enough to take one quarter virtually out of commission. Her udder's kinda lopsided and there's only ever a couple of squirts in there. That turned out to be one of the quarters with the staph.

When I bought her from her second owner during her second lactation, she was mastitis free according to the CMT that woman was using. She'd only had her a few months and said she was overwhelmed with caring for and milking a cow. I just left her steer calf with her and he nursed happily most of his life.

In terms of the salmonella, the vet didn't think there would be any point in retesting because she would have cleared it out of her system if it had been there -- i.e. she's better. The concern was apparently not salmonella in the milk -- I guess unless manure got in the milk inadvertently -- during a period when she was shedding salmonella and symptomless(??)

So is the concern that it would be difficult to manage this cow and keep her healthy? Is the concern that her milk would make us sick (but he specifically told me that staph in the milk would not sicken us)? Is the concern that her presence on the farm exposes us to salmonella more than we ordinarily would be? Is she just likely to be sickly (I've had her for two years, and she's been great -- just hasn't been fresh)?

I completely agree that the vet is great. He suggested measures to keep from spreading the staph to the other two quarters -- milk the healthy quarters first, use separate cleaning cloths for each quarter and teat, don't get milk from wet hands or anything onto the teat ends, use a teat dip, wash hands before changing teats. These didn't seem too onerous. So if I can manage these strategies, then....?

He told me he was NOT suggesting culling her; but I guess maybe he was saying that if he said he also would not suggest breeding her back.

Ivy had a great winter. It was mild, her nemesis -- the old herd leader -- went to the great freezer in the sky, so there was no heavy competition for food and she ate well and looked good.

I'll definitely get on the vitamins C and E. She's got great grass coming in.... Of course you can all tell I want to keep her.

So any more ideas appreciated -- including explanations of why I should not keep her if that seems the case to you.
Amy

[farmgirlwa]

I know of the vet and he is wonderful! He helped me with a very difficult calving...early morning calls, and saving the life of my 4 day old calf with what he called a tough "scour bug". I think he understands the relationship between family cows and their owners.
Did he say what kind of Staph? Did you let him know you are drinking her milk raw?
Let me know if I can help in anyway. I am right across the valley.
Alicia

[bluedogfarmer]

Hi, Alicia: You were the one who hooked me up with him! Thank you tons! We haven't had any of her milk, raw or otherwise. I told him I was willing to pasturize if that would seem more reasonable, and that did seem to make him more comfortable, but for the staph (staph aureous) specifically, he said that wasn't really necessary. He said the staph was more a concern on the skin if the milker had any sores. But he obviously wished I would pasturize -- but for what? And if the salmonella's not in the milk -- is it just that it can get in the milk from the environment?

I tried every which way to get from him what he thought and why -- he wasn't going to say to get rid of the cow. I guess I trust that if he thought the situation was completely untenable he would have told me that flat out. But I couldn't get straight in my mind from what he said where the danger points are or what the ongoing watch out points are.

Does that make sense?
Amy

[farmgirlwa]

Yep, I remember. I would worry that she might spread the infection to the rest of your herd by flies this summer, might be something to think about. Also with Staph A the idea of spreading it to your own body via milking, if you had sores might be a concern. Couldn't the calf spread the infection to other quarters by nursing or nursing other cows? Some others with more knowledge will chime in. I wish I could add something more positive.
Alicia

[Claire]

If she has Staph A in those two quarters its basically a permanent, chronic infection and will always be an issue. The bacteria hides out in the quarter, like your vet said, and it can't be totally eliminated with antibiotics like other common mastitis-causing bacteria. It probably won't be perpetual mastitis, but will flare up often and the other 2 quarters will be at risk of infection. I've also heard there are concerns of it being passed on to other females in the herd, i.e. any future heifers she has and if you get another milk cow. If the infection can be controlled, i.e. she is otherwise pretty healthy and she doesn't get severe flare-ups you can keep milking her and/or use her for a nurse cow, but I wouldn't have another cow you want to milk around her and I would be iffy about letting her raise any heifers you want to eventually milk. Did you milk her before this calving or was she dry when you got her? It could be she's had the staph for a long while and freshening just made it flare up again.

Its not surprising she got so dramatically sick after calving- its such a massive physical and hormonal strain on the body that whatever was brewing in her probably managed to overwhelm her immune system and was unleashed, and it probably made her more vulnerable to any other bacteria lying around that she normally could fight off without issue.

[AnnB (NE)]

The way I take it is that he's saying that this should be her last lactation.
He doesn't see an immediate need to cull the cow, if you're willing to take the precautions that he recommended. But, he doesn't think that it's advisable to breed her again since she'll likely repeat the scenario when she freshens.

Personally, I would cull her. I don't want Staph A spread all over the property with the resulting potential to infect every heifer on the place. But I can also see that someone else in different circumstances might decide to just milk her until she dries herself up. Some cows will lactate for 2-3 years.

Ann B

[bluedogfarmer]

Okay, thanks for your ideas. I wouldn't want to spread staph around. What would be the means or mechanism by which heifers would get staph from her and thus be prone to staph mastitis? How would staph spread all over the property or other cows if is contained in her milk and udder?

I sure appreciate all the insights. I'm just trying to get a complete picture for decision making.

Anyone else have experience with Staph A or salmonella?
Thanks again.
Amy

[Joelle]

Staph is basically a very hardy bacteria which can transfer easily from carries to surfaces right back to carriers again. It's one of the most easily transmitted bugs in healthcare, too, hence the big drama over MRSA. Transferring is as easy as: staph is in the milk, the milk drips on the ground, another animal lays on the ground, the new animals has staph. It's just that easy.

Most of the time staph is relatively harmless, because it lives on the skin and serves as a protectant from less desirable bacteria. It only becomes a problem when it finds a home on something other than the skin - an open wound, or a vulnerable udder. These environments aren't designed to live harmoniously with the staph, so you get recurrent inflammations and trouble with wound healing. Humans carry staph A without obvious adverse effects too, until they become ill or injured and the staph goes haywire. I'm assuming it works the same with cows.

[gdorris]

I hate to be negative but in the 15 years we had a dairy; I never cured a Staph A cow......ever.
The infection can be passed by flies, by her calf, by anything that would touch the staph infected teat and then touch another cow's udder. I, personally, would not want to drink the milk even if pasturized. This kind of thing is another good reason to have a good supply of milking gloves (blue nitrile is what we used) to keep infection from you and from passing it to another animal from your contaminated hands.

[milkmaid]

I cured ONE Staph aureus cow. 14 days of treatment during lactation with off label use and a 2 1/2 week milk withdrawal. Not worth it for most cows.

[Shelley (whistlingtrain)]

I don't mean to steer the focus to my cow, but if a cow has chronic mastitis that flares up a couple of times a year with stress, is it always Staph A? Should I culture mine next time she has a flareup to make sure that's not what Beauty's got in her udder?

[simone947]

no, chronic mastitis can also be klebsiella or even a staph species especially if the cow has poor teatends or a weak teat sphincter, but i would definitlely sample and culture milk to be sure.

[bluedogfarmer]

So, Milkmaid, how did you know you had a cure? Repeated testing? Will the staph be revealed in a test at any time or only when she's having a recurrence of the mastitis?

As of now, Ivy seems fully recovered. Her udder is not swollen, no longer any hard places within -- one quarter still had a hard section until a couple of days ago. Milk not stringy or flakey. We're pouring it in the compost pile until Thursday. And then, I don't know what.

Amy

[milkmaid]

Amy - see this post: Cattle Today
You get fewer false negative cultures by using the milk from forestrippings and freezing it overnight prior to culturing.



Link verified: 2-11-11