M B 1 Help Mastitis real bad AGAIN

[organicmommy]

Ok so Bessie is having some major issues with Mastitis. We had it gone with the penicilin, got the edema down, things were going well. Then it got really cold here in Iowa and she started holding her milk on me. I went from getting about 3 gallons a day to 1 maybe 1.5 gallons a day. I assumed it was the cold weather. Then we had a couple days where we had the starts of mastitis but not real bad. However it went away after about 2 days of milking her really well. Then last night it was pretty bad in my opinion, had a smell to it and it wasn't the normal sweet smell so I told hubby to get me the penicilin after work tonight before he came home. Today its worse than ever before. The milk is really really chunky and it is almost a clearish yellow color when it is liquid. I gave her the penicilin this afternoon and we milked as much as she would let us have. I am going to go back out later this evening and see if I can get her to stanchion back up so I can put a hot compress on her and milk again to try to get more out. However she doesn't seem like her normal self. She didn't eat all her feed (protein, corn and alfalfa pelets) tonight like she normally does. I didn't look at her ears or take her temp but going off her actions.
Help me please, what else should I do, how do I stop this from happening again? We thought we were getting her milked out well but I guess not from the end results. How can I tell if I am getting her milked out with the Surge milker that goes under her? Things were just starting to be almost enjoyable with her (would have been better had it not been so stinkin cold)

Hugs
Jessica

[kellyj]

Doesn't sound like fun on many levels - sorry it is going so roughly. I am not an old pro but have dealt with mastitis a couple of times - I am sure someone will chime in soon with way more experience and some great advice. But thoughts that come to mind are: you've gotta get that temp and check her ears. The temp will help tell you if there is something more systemic going on than currently meets the eye. Also I wouldn't hesitate to give her a bucket of warm molasses water to perk her up a bit. Also add some vitamin C and cod liver oil added to her food.

If she has a temp, is off her feed and has mastitis I'd get the vet involved asap. Even if no temp talking to him/her on the phone can be really helpful and reassuring!

Have you targeted which quarter/s are the problem with the mastitis? Extra milkings are a must on that quarter. I stopped using a milking machine on my cow as her udder is odd and it was really difficult to do a thorough job stripping her out - even if she seems emptied by the machine you still need to strip her out by hand at every milking. With my cow I had to do a whole lot of hand milking to get an empty udder. Massaging the udder while the machine is on will help some with let down but still have to finish off by hand.

Hang in there and give her lots of loves!
KellyJ

[organicmommy]

I checked her ears when I went out a bit ago to check on her. Her ears are still perky, she let me milk out some more by hand of the yuck while I was out there. She did eat more of her corn while I was out there and I gave her some molassis on it.
How do I check her temp? I know that is a dumb question but I need a detailed answer. What type of thermometer etc.
I am going to give the vet a call in the am if things are not at all better by then, tho she did get up while I was out there and let the calf eat well from her.
She just seems to be in pain to be honest. The yuck that is coming out is very disturbing to me, it is not milk looking, it looks like when you pop a zit and its that yellowish color and then it goes watery.
I am starting to wonder if it is watery mastitis and from the sounds of it that is even harder to get rid of.

Ugh this is not going how I had hoped with having her. I am determined to have a family cow but I am starting to wonder if I am not going to have to start over with one that is older and proven to not have as many issues!

[Joann]

You may need to get a different antibiotic from your vet.
A cow's temperature is taken rectally. You can use any thermometer but you will need to tape a cord to it with duct tape. If her temperature is over 102F she has a fever. Just stick the thermometer in, keep hold of the string and stay out of the way.

Detirmine which quarter (s) have mastitis and work on those. Get the calf to help by holding away the other teats. Mastitis is quite painful and hurts worst during let down.

Best of luck. Write again soon. Others will also have advice that will help.

Joann

[djb]

She may need a pain killer & antiimflammatory from the vet.Is it Banamine you guys use over there?We use Ketoprofin in Aussie.I find this as helpful as the antibiotics.Keep milking out all that muck!What an educacation you have had Jessica!!!!!!Mastitis is never nice to go through.I'm feeling for you.

[Tricia]

Yes, figure out which quarter is the issue. When washing the teats or what not be very careful to not spread that quarter to other quarters, Be very very sanitary. Somethings can spread to other quarters.

Apply not only the hot compresses but some ointment with mint (I like Dynamint ointment that we have here) or cayenne pepper. My favorite lately is lard or cocounut oil or whatever base you have on hand and mix in Cayenne pepper. It will stay on a long time keeping that quarter warm and circulation going.
I would cut back on feeding her any extra corn.
Increase Vit C, Vit E and Garlic.
If you do herbs, comfrey and aloe are great in her feed. Any veggies like apples and carrots. All will help her nutrient levels.
Milk that quarter ever couple of hours or as often as you can.
Lots of warmth, massage, ointments.......

Can you get a vet and see if they will culture the milk? Then you will know what antibiotic will work, there are so many things out there that penicillin will not work on, so do what you can to get an exact diagnosis.

Temps are not all that hard to take (usually) Any thermometer for oral/rectal works, just have a good hold on it or do as Joann suggests. My Molly will hold still while I do a rectal temp with a cheapo digital thermometer. Stand to the side incase she kicks or craps (although Molly prefers to crap after the thermometer is out).
Make sure her bedding is nice and clean, if possible put down a clean layer. Use a teat tip always.
You say production went down and she is holding up for the calf. This will just cause more problems, so you may have to manipulate her and the calf to trick her into a good let down. I've been through this the many times I have tried to share milk with Molly. It was horrid. My peaceful, giving, generous, heavy milker cow refused to let down!!!!! She was huge. Give you an idea, she is a smaller regular jersey that will peak at 8 gallons a day, huge udder. So I tried share milking and ended up with a very sick cow and mastitis - really really bad. I ended up taking the calf away. Molly is not so good with share milking it is all or nothing. She is rare.
In your case see if you can get that calf to work for you, if she will let down for it, get it in there when you are milking, get it on that bad quarter.
Hang in there.

[Tricia]

Milking with the Surge. Does it have a guage for the pressure? What is it at? I think it should be around 12? A too high or low pressure can cause problems.
You should be able to squeeze the inflation hoses and feel milk going though them.
But if you are just milking out one quarter in between regular milkings, hand milking might work better especially with gunk coming out.

[organicmommy]

Just an update quick.
I went out and checked her last night she was laid down and wanted to stay that way, she looked so sad. I went beside her and she let me milk the bad quarter for a bit til it started to be painful and the calf was wanting her to get up which she did. The calf was nursing, did a little on that quarter but not a ton. She ate a bit of her alfalfa and a few bites of her grain with molasses added to it.
This am I went out and she laid down with her calf again but she looks much happier, has ate her grain from last night and ate more of her alfalfa and hay. I will go out again in a bit and see if I can get her up and milk her some more.
The serge doesn't have the guage on the milker I will ask dh to check the pressure tonight when he is home and I am milking again. I can squeese the inflations and feel the milk going through most of the time, which is how I tell if she is still giving milk or not. That is where my problem comes in.
I will go until a)I feel no more milk coming thru, b) the inflations get cool from not having milk going thru and c) I can no longer hear milk hitting the milker inside.
The calf is 4 weeks old and we are working on getting him seperated off however it has been so cold here in Iowa that dh has not been able to spend the time needed out there to get him a stall built. I am hoping that doing that will aleve some of our issues.

I can tell you all this, I feel like I am loosing this battle with Bessie. She is such a hard cow to milk most of the time, doesn't want to stand and keeps getting the mastitis over and over. I don't think I will loose the war, I will have a family cow but I am not sure if this one will be our long term cow. We have some things we are looking at changing and using the old milking barn rather than our pole barn for her and getting the milking area a lot nicer which will help and then getting a mini jersey for our family.

I will update again after I milk in a bit. Thanks so much for your help.
Jessica

[kellyj]

Good news that she seems a bit more perky today. You are doing a good job.
Finding a good routine takes a while, I've had Shasta for a year and a half and I am constantly tweeking things in the barn routine to make life easier for her and me.
Hang in there!
KellyJ

[organicmommy]

I went out again and she went in to eat and I put the warming stuff on her and the calf was nursing off all 4 quarters because she won't let down very well but he got quite a bit out of the bad quarter and I stripped it til nothing would come out at all.

I am thinking I need to give her something for the pain, how much asprin would I give her to help with that?

Her penecilin has dexometh....? in it to help with inflamation from the vet when she had the edema so badly and he said to use that on her to help with this as well but didn't say on the pain reliever.

I am hoping that with the calf nursing and me helping to pull the extra we will get this going the right direction!

[joncowcare]

Hi Organicmommy,
I think you may need to take a look at your whole milking procedure and appraise honestly if there are any aspects that need changing so that this doesn't happen again.
Be honest with yourself, are you milking as cleanly as you should ?
Remember pre and post milking routine are just as important as milking itself.
Are your hands/clothes/cloths used clean and fresh each time, do you wash your hands after handling each teat/quarter ? This may seem an arduous task but is especially important when mastitis is around.
I personally don't use ointments etc because they can be a real mastitis risk, I dry wipe, strip foremilk and then teat-dip after milking, there's a reason why many commercial farms follow this routine, it works.
It can sometimes be hard to admit that we are at fault but if the same cow has had 2 mastitis outbreaks within as many weeks she either didn't clear it the first time or else there is some other cause.
I hope you manage to nail it !
Jon

[organicmommy]

Jon I have so done that.
I know that the first onset of mastitis was caused by the HUGE amount of edema that she had and her not letting down because of it. That and our lack of knowledge that we needed to get her milked out within the first 12 to 24 hours didn't help either.

SHe has gotten the mastitis this last time that we thought was cleared up, but obviously not quite all the way in the the same quarter as the first time. Her udder is looking a lot better than when we started. We were not given an easy hand to play with for being first time milkers/family cow owners. Prior to this we had only owned steers for meat.

Now that being said her stall I wish was cleaner than it is, not that it is terrible, I do clean out as much as I can each day. However when the temps are far below zero for several days in a row as they have been, its been very hard to go out and to the cleaning I would like with 3 kiddos under 5. That being said she doesn't have to lay in anything but clean straw/corn stalks unless she chooses to which there are times she does.

My routine is to washer the udder with an antibacterial baby soap prior to milking, I then dry that off, get a clean towel and wash each teat with a clean towel and dry off. My hands are in the same water that I use for washing but I never double dip my towels if that makes sense. The milker is brought in and cleaned each night in the house with soapy water and allowed to air dry inbetween each use.
There is nothing on the milker I can vouch for that, I am pretty particular about that because I am still getting used to drinking the raw milk, can't handle the thought of things being dirty.

I then do my best to strip her out, however I know she is not dropping all her milk for me as her bag very rarely gets completely soft after milking. This could be part of our problem. We will be getting a seperate stall ready for the calf soon, he will be 5 weeks this weekend and I do believe that is is time for him to find another place to be during the majority of his time.

All that being said, I went out and milked her this am by hand again to be sure I can tell what I am getting, and it is milky looking again today rather than the clearish yellow watery it was yesterday. She has had 2 days of antibiotics and the vet said to do 3-5 days, I am going to do the full 5 days to be sure that we have it completely cleared up for her. It is making it so I must buy milk and butter but I want to get her taken care of so that I don't have this issue anymore.
Yesterday she was not letting the milk down at all for myself or the calf very well. The calf did decide to nurse from all 4 teats tho so that is good, he was helping to clear it up for me, which is what I needed, before that he refused to drink from the 2 back quarters at all.

So I think we are on the mends, however I want to figure out what we need to do to prevent this from happening again. I am hoping that some of the snow melts off this week while it is warmer and we will be able to let them back out to the pasture during the day but we need a lot of melting since the drifts are over the top of our fences. So not sure if that will happen or not.

Thank you all so much for your help with this and believe me I have been trying to evaluate what I can do to make this better and what I have been doing wrong. I am really starting to believe that maybe I have just not quite gotten it all taken care of completely in this time and that her not dropping her milk for me is a big part of our problem.

Hugs
Jessica

[Tricia]

I'm really thinking taking the calf out and you controlling it all might just get things going better here. Hmm, what about tying the calf so there is no snacking and they are still together. Then when you want to milk, you can bring the calf over and get things going? AND you can get a teat dip on her so nothing is getting in and causing problems.

You can win this. She needs training and you are in charge. Just hang in there.
Keep milking that quarter all you can as often as you can - even with the antibiotic.
Hot compresses, massage, all that also.

You also have to make sure that surge is set at the correct pressure.

Keep going you are doing great.

[Tammy]

I am glad that you are determined. You are doing a good job. I don't have really any advice other than what others have already recommended. If I remember right, this is the cow with the poorly attached udder. I believe that type of udder is more prone to mastitis in part because it is difficult to milk. Your idea of possibly getting a more experienced cow with fewer problems in the future is probably a really good idea. You are learning so much. I admire your determination and spirit!

[sherrye]

i agree with all the above. i share with buttercups calf. her baby girl is now 3 months 2 weeks. since butter is a mini we get less milk. i put calf up at night. in am i milk and then mom and calf are together from 9;30 to 4;30 in eve.baby cocoa knows the drill and runs in stall to geytgrain before bed. it was so hard at first. she had never been milked. had horns held her milk up. poop pee and kick. she argued about even going in stantion. i wanted to give up. all the fine folks here kept me on task. now its so easy. i did use calf to nurse and get her to let milk down. now i leave calf in stall till i am done milking. still for us not much cream calf gets it. oh well we love our cows just a thought. dont quit now. press on sherrye happydays

[Shelley (whistlingtrain)]

You are doing great, and it sounds like you're really being honest in evaluating your system. You'll get to the bottom of it.

Beauty has chronic mastitis every time she's in milk, and any time she stresses or the weather gets too hot/cold. This has happened ever since she tore off half of a teat a few years back. I have found that adding vitamin C to her grain by the table spoon (it's made in a loose form for horses) and using Uddermint balm after milking will clear it up most of the time. Neither of things interferes with the calf nursing, which is important because I sharemilk most of the time. I also keep Today infusions on hand, because once it takes a turn for the worst the situation will go downhill very quickly, and I like to be ready to nip it in the bud. I use Today for 2-3 days, depending on how things are going. Then I toss the milk for a couple of days. I only keep the calf away while the infusions are in her--once I milk out the last dose I let the calf back on because it's a great help to keep her empty.

At the time of her injury, which was horrible, she was very bruised and bloody. I had to use infusions for 7 days and we gave her penicillin shots for a few days as well, once the infection was obviously systemic--she didn't want to eat, obviously didn't feel good, and had a temperature.

I am also religious about using bovidine teat dip when there is no calf nursing. There's no point if the calf is going to lick it off, but if the calf is gone, I make sure and use the dip.

This is my system for dealing with mastitis in a cow that I adore and can't bear to part with. :-)

[organicmommy]

Well I need to update, we are on the mends but now I am hoping that she picks up her production again after not making much. I noticed again today that she is eating some of her hay/alfalfa but wasting a TON more than that. She has had penicilin now for 3 days I am going to continue for 2 more days to make sure it is completely gone, I DO NOT want to deal with this again in the real near future. She acts like the shots are very painful which makes me feel terrible but I am sure that the mastitis is just as painful for her if not more.
I didn't realize that the extreme temps could bring it on, that is something we have definatly had, its been near or sub zero for highs for 2 weeks I believe but this week is much better.
The calf is emptying her very well thru the day, honestly her udder looks the best it has looked since she freshened. It looks like a totally normal udder but it is not filling out thru the day for me to milk out, last night I got around a half a gallon this morning I would be lucky if I got that much out of her (I dumped the milk straight to the pigs)
Any thoughts on continuing the penicilin for the 5 days vs the 3 days? Could that be why she is not eating as well on her hay? Do you think that once she gets back to eating normal her milk will come back up? The calf is only 4.5 weeks old so I should have a long time left to milk her.
Thanks much for the support.
JessicA

[barnydhppy]

You might want to start giving her some probiotics, that will help her rumen to function better. As far as 3 vs 5...I think you ought to go with the full 5 days. (That was what you were thinking about doing already) I'm not one who uses antibiotics so don't know much on the topic, but what I do know is that I have been told of the importance of following them the complete duration(otherwise the bacteria become immune and you can have another outbreak). For you, since this is a repeat episode, I would think going the long haul might be of more benefit?

Rena

[organicmommy]

Rena that is my thought as well. I will get some probiotics for her (any suggestions on what and where to get?)
The vet said to use this for 3-5 days, that is why I was thinking that since the 3 days didn't keep it at bay the 5 days would probably be better to be sure that it was completely gone. I do NOT want to deal with this again any time in the near future.

Hugs
Jessica

[Tricia]

Probiotics come in large tubes - like caulk- at the farm supply store. Ah I think was called Probios? I think that is what I saw.

I prefer to give the human stuff I get at the health food store. But it takes abit more of that for cow compared to a human. Just figure if she weighs 800 pound as compared to a 100-200 pd human. But get what you can get.

Hmmm, I wonder if the calf is just snacking often so her udder isn't very full. You won't know until you can keep the calf away from her for 12 hours for a few times.

She is getting enough water? I think it is 5 gallons of water for every gallon of milk Is that right anyone?

You are doing great, give her a hug from me.