Post by campbells7 on Nov 20, 2011 22:59:58 GMT -5
Ok so long story short it turned out that my new cow that we just bought a few months ago who was already bred had her calf and freshened with mastitis. This was our first time going through the whole thing from calf being born to us milking so we were not totally sure what to expect with the transition and for the first few days we passed off the fact that she would not let down for us as just her being nervous and getting settled back into being milked but in a new environment. Well finally after a few days of just totally not being able to get ANYTHING out of her my husband said something about the milk in her quarters looking different and I started to wonder. So we did the taste test and sure enough we have both back teats tasting REALLY salty and one front one is watery with strings of yellow junk (did not bother tasting that one) NASTY! With my Dexter the only mastitis we've ever dealt with was just the salty stuff and we were able to treat it naturally with herbs. ginger root tea soaks, and milking more often. We are of cores doing all those things right now for this cow and finally figured out that if we let the calf work on her with us, then with one of us on each side and the calf going back and forth we are able to milk her out because the calf gets her to let down. The only thing is that we ARE able to get the two back ones and the one good one milked out well; however, the one that has the clods in it we are really having a hard time with. We are really lucky to get 8 oz at most out of it total each time. It is probably more like 4 oz. The teat has a hard center and I have been trying to roll it around in my fingers to break up anything that could be clogging it but it is really giving us a hard time. I really feel like the back two are getting better but this one that has the watery/clod junk is really concerning to me. One thing I am wondering is do I have two different types of infections on my hands or is this one quarter just at a more advanced state of infection? The quarter is really hard feeling and we are having quite a time trying to massage it out. We are going out every 2 hours and in-between we are separating the calf so that she is really motivated. Also we are giving her probiotics, goldenseal, echinacea, vit C, garlic, and cayenne orally to help fight the infection. We are finishing each time with doing a ginger root tea soak which is what I have done for myself to fight mastitis and for me as well as my Dexter it has always worked in like 24 hours. We just figured out today around 2:00 what we were dealing with and have done the whole routine about 4 times. I know that not much is going to happen in that amount of time but I just want to be sure I am not missing anything. If at all possible I don't want to use antibiotics. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?