Opinions on cow with staph aureas

[Jenn]

Oh...yeah you need to use sterile tubes!

In my area, the lab won't accept samples from individuals, only vets or dairies (there may be some anti raw milk sales politics going on?)

-Jenn

[Canningmama]

Oh for pity's sake. I can't believe they didn't tell us that. I wonder if we could bypass the vet and take it directly back to lab....it would be the same lab, but we wouldn't have to deal with the frustrations with the vet. Can I sterilize my own jars and be OH SO FREAKIN' CAREFUL when gathering a sample....like gloves and alcohol and an extra person to help (Oh, Ange!! ) I can boil the heck out of a jar, buddy!

Also, which of the bacterias is the dreaded staph A? Is it the Coagulase Positive Staph or is it the Klebsiella Aeroes (or however you spell it).

(Drinkin' that morning coffee in my jammies again.....hehehehe...for those of you who read my post yest. morning.)

Hey Woodspryte or Kelly, how are you using the hydrogen peroxide or colliodal silver. Don't have a CS maker machine thingy though I've often wished I had one. IOW, how do you administer it and what's the dosage?

Thanks y'all!

[ange]

So here we're worried about drinking the milk, and it's your water that's gonna take us out?? (Half joking. I think! ) Jenny, if the lab will take it, they should send out sterile tubes... I know when you do a soil sample from the extension they send you a kit so you can get a sterile sample to them.

[WoodSpryte Farm/Tiffany]

Ange.
I know how expensive and mentally exhausting this is.. am doing it now. we have not tested it yet, I guess thats next. we are dealing with gangrenous mastitis here. its crazy. I hope it all works out ok for you. Im thinking of you

[ange]

Oh, Woodspryte, that's horrible. Let us know how you deal with it and how it goes... reading of other's experiences is the best learning tool there is.

[Canningmama]

Hey Woodspryte, Sorry you're dealing with all you're dealing with too. I saw the pictures of your recent labor. (Haven't been able to keep up with the 12+ page thread, but I tried! ) Did you see my question for you about the hydrogen peroxide and/or collodial silver earlier in the thread this morning? Thanks!

[Canningmama]

BTW, Leimana, thanks for your input. If only I had known when I pulled up chickweed after chickweed after chickweed in my garden this spring! Unfortunately (ha! never thought I'd say that!), I think I've gotten a hold of it and it's not growing like it was in my garden. I just robbed the road shoulders of mullein just this past Saturday, but it was for me to dry for tea this winter, not for Daisy. I'll have to go rob more road shoulders. Is it ok to feed her these things wilted and a day or so old, or do I need to feed it to her fresh? Do you know anything about lamb's quarter? I bet it would be real good to feed her as well. I know it's super nutritious.

[kellyhensing]

I have never used hydrogen peroxide or CS, so I can't help you there. I just remember reading on here about people trying it (although, I don't think there was much success).

The Klebsiella is a bacteria that is usually found in water hoses etc. That is why I suspect your jars.

If you find a lab near you, they should provide you (for free) the sterilized tubes.

Let me know when your husband just starts shaking his head at you when he sees you on the computer.
-Kelly

[simplynaturalfarm]

Hmmm, tubes are so incredibly cheap, I don't know why your vet would not just give you some for blood samples, biotracking etc. Even if they charged for them, I think they would be dirt cheap. You could also buy specimin containers or anything sterile. If you were closer I would give you some of mine!
I would never knowingly drink Staph aureus milk raw. Your vet may be right in saying that it isn't necessarily a MRSA bug your cow has, but the bug is very capable of causing great nasty stomach bugs like you attribute food poisoning to, and the longer Staph Aureus milk is allowed to sit at room temperature, the more likely you could be to get sick, especially if you or somebody drinking it was immune compromised. I would definitely pasteurize it before drinking it myself (at 140 minimum according to internet and DH who is microbiologist), and I would never make raw yogurt, or any products that allowed it to incubate at 90 or higher as that is when the STaph Aureus in milk grows like wild and becomes dangerous to drink.
I am a HUGE raw milk fan - that's why we have 3 cows. Staph Aureus is one thing I will not have in my raw milk so I am careful to have them tested for that first.
Heather

[Canningmama]

So can someone tell me which one of these bacterias is the Staph A? Is it the second or the third? (sorry for the stupid question) Thanks.

Klebsiella oxytoca
Aeromonas hydrophila
Coagulase Positive Staph

[frogHOLR]

Jun 11, 2011 15:59:10 GMT -5 Canningmama said:

So can someone tell me which one of these bacterias is the Staph A? Is it the second or the third? (sorry for the stupid question) Thanks.

Klebsiella oxytoca
Aeromonas hydrophila
Coagulase Positive Staph

That's not a stupid question at all - it's the same one I asked last year! It's the third - Coagulase Positive Staph. The lab I sent to called it "Gram Positive Contagious Staph Aureus" and she 'scored' (?) a 10. I guess that was colony forming units or some such thing? My cows also had klebsiella species (which is gram negative) - one had a 'score' of 20 and other a score of 30. These were milk samples taken from all quarters, not individual ones, but they were kept separate between the two cows. No one told me that my water could be a culprit for the klebsiella, however I found out that cows which live on shavings are more likely to have klebsiella than cows which are kept on sand, straw, or even in MANURE!! Here I was going to great lengths to keep her bedded down in these lovely wood shavings only to find that I had probably set her up for catching klebsiella from them! UGH! Over the long haul, the klebsiella didn't really prove to be a problem and she had a great lactation with low SCC.

[suzorse]

I just took a sample in and used a syringe, clean teats real good
then milk out some on the ground clean end with alcohol then milk your sample into the barrel of the syringe I held the end of the plunger part on my mouth, carefully put plunger back in syringe and you have a sterile sample, I left the needle on the syringe also
Suzanne

[simplynaturalfarm]

So sorry, the last one - Staph aureus is coagulase positive.
Klebsiella is one of the coliform bacterias that cause mastitis (like e coli, kleb Pneumoniae, enterobacter aerogenes). Does she have issues with low grade mastitis that comes and goes for 7-10 days? The problem is that coliform bacterias are not reliably cultured from milk on the blood agar - at least that's what DH tells me. They tend to be environmental in the straw, manure etc - it is quite easy to contaminate a sample with kleb so he doesn't always believe it when it is cultured in milk.
Aeromonas hydrophila is usually a contaminant from water - maybe from your washed container that you put it into. I would have to ask DH if it is ever found in cows - I don't think it should be. I looked it up online and there have been rare situations when it was found in raw milk in Greece and Europe, but not much about US.

[rosalind]

First off, I want to give your famly a big pat on the back for doing a great job trying to work with this cow. To milk multiple times a day and do testing, you're obviously devoted to the care of your cow.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staphylococcus#Coagulase-positive

Klebsiella/aeromonas = a sanitation/milk handling issue. I think that's why Kelly wanted you to get sterile tubes (and everyone's right, they are cheap. Your vet should give you some, or at most they'd be pennies each. I suppose you could buy them from Jeffers, etc. online too.) If you're looking for another vet, you might put up a KFC post to VA folks to see if anyone has a vet nearby your area they recommend?

In the future, tho, I think Kelly's idea of testing your milk in the jar is an excellent idea. If the klebsiella, etc. is showing up just in your containers, maybe you need to be looking at your milking/cleanup routine for possible contamination there. VA Tech is a great resource, and you might even call their dairy dept. to ask about testing/bacteria questions. Usually they're very helpful, being a school and all.

My opinion, I would never want to knowingly drink Staph A milk. FDA thinks pasteurized milk is better for you and doctors think I should be on acid-reducers for my acid reflux when what my body really needs is more stomach acid. Hah, so what do they know!?

I have to ask, is a refund possible? Or if you sent her to slaughter, would they refund above and beyond sale barn price? The cow obviously came to you with a major problem. I don't know what place she came from, but sounds suspicious to me.

Staph A is terrible on a farm and a dairy farmer really should be smart and sell any Staph A cow because of the CONTAGIOUS nature of the bacteria. Again, that is my opinion. I know regardless of the number of cows you have, they become such a part of your life it's hard to see life without them. BUT, at only having her a few weeks, my opinion would be to get out now. Research a new cow. If you're in Virginia, I KNOW you could easily find a cow. We've just sold some cows to VA and the place I work has sold cows to VA recently. But before you buy a new cow, you now know about testing the milk. I'd also recommend testing for Johnes, BLV, mycoplasma, and anaplasma (tick-borne). Any legit farm should either already do DHIA or some form of milk records and blood testing on occasion.

Another consideration would be to dry up the cow early with an agressive dry-cow treatment. You could wait, hope for a Nov. heifer, and IF a heifer, put it on colostrum/milk from powder or from a non-infected cow. Then you could test to see if dry treatment worked for the cow and if not, you could cull then. Anyway, it's an option, but probably an expensive one....

[Canningmama]

Gosh everybody, thanks so much for all of your help and willingness to share your knowledge! I've just been reading all about it from your link Rosalind. (unfortunately, I had company come in today and will have company for the next 10 days, so I haven't had as much chance to research this as I'd like). But don't leave me (us...Ange too. hehe) yet, I HAVE TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO HERE!! I assume there are bad cases and not so bad cases of staph a? Right now, aside from the fact that the c.m.t. test is showing a high SCC, we wouldn't have even known that she had any infection anymore, cause the clumps went away pretty quickly. So, what if I treat her again with something like LA200 and TODAY simultaneously; start giving her vit. E, continue giving her ACV, all the garden weeds I can find , etc. etc. etc., is there any way to make this such a teeny tiny mild case of staph a that we can just ignore it? And another thing---the test results say that Coagulase Positive Staph is susceptible to Ceftiofur, Cephalothin, Erythromycin, Gentamicin, Novobiocin, Oxacillin, Penicllin, Pirlimycin, and Tetracycline. So, why is it so uncurable? Supposedly the only antibiotic it's resistant to is Ampicillin. Stupid bacteria. I guess I'm just not wanting to accept that fact that she's no good as a human /milk-consuming cow, cause that's all we got her for in the first place...our consumption...not as nurse mama (I'm here for that ). If I have to get rid of Daisy, I don't know if I'll ever be able to afford another one, at least not in the near future. U.G.H.!!!!

[kellyhensing]

All you can do is try. I know the with-hold perieod on Today is 96 hours (4 days). I am not sure about LA200. Just read the labels carefully.
Thinking out loud: Vitamin C, kelp, good loose minerals would also not hurt. Load the girl up.

I have never dealt with Staph A personally. I just know from reading on here that it is a persistant one. You will want to definitely find a lab and do cultures again after the meds.

Do you know what SCC you are dealing with? A lab will give you a number. I have my milk tested every 2-4 weeks and keep a log of the SCC. This will tell me fairly quickly if something is starting to brew.

I dealt with mastitis while we had company in town. Totally stunk to dump all of that lovely milk twice a day!!!
-Kelly

[kellyhensing]

Oh, have you used SpectraMast? It is a teat infusion, you get it from a vet (or have them write a prescription and you can get it mail order), but I think it is stronger than Today. Just a thought...

[Canningmama]

Kelly, I did use Spectramast LC along with Banamine and it didn't help too much. I doubt that TODAY would help, but I thought it might be worth a shot... perhaps it would not do any good. I don't know exactly what the SCC is exactly. I may call the lab and see if they have the numbers for me. That would be good to know. How/where do you have your's tested every 2-4 weeks? We're looking into finding another place to test because they charged us $58 to test. When I told them I was quoted $20 by two different people, they knocked the price down to $28. Do you mail off your samples or hand deliver to a lab? How important is it to keep the milk cold?

[kellyhensing]

I use a company called Dairy One for my SCC, butterfat, and protein levels. This company serves many states and one of the labs is in Hagerstown, MD. It is about an hour from me but they have a drop off point in the next county, so I drop my samples there. They have a courier come nightly and pick them up. The samples do stay refrigerated.
If I am having a problem and I need results right away, I drive the samples to the lab myself. I get the results in about 10 minutes. If I use the drop off point and courier service, I get results the next morning. The cost is $2 per sample. Now, this company does NOT do the culturing.

If I have a high SCC, I have the milk cultured. I take that to my state animal health lab. I think there are 3 or 4 of them scattered around the state of Maryland. The closest to me is in Frederick, MD (45 mins). I do have to drive the samples there (no drop-off point), but I have only had to have my milk cultured once.

I will do an internet search for labs in VA for you and see what I find...

I used to mail my samples to Vermont to Dairy Bacterial Testing. The testing was more expensive and then to add in shipping was pretty costly. One time, my samples got lost in the mail and that package was a total loss. But, the lady who runs it, Milicent, is extremely knowledgable and helpful.
Hope this helps...
Kelly

[kellyhensing]

Dairy One does serve Virginia...
www.dairyone.com

Also:
United Federation of DHIA's
Contact: Steve Frank

2300 Litton-Reaves Hall
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

Also, here is the link to VA Dept of Agriculture. They have a number for "Dairy Services" and also a list of labs. You need to contact the lab closest to you to see what they offer.

www.vdacs.virginia.gov/about/directory-ais.shtml#labs