Post by Christine on Feb 19, 2008 6:27:19 GMT -5
Not sure if I mentioned it, but Gwen came down with mastitis a few weeks ago. No hardened udder, but sludge in the milk. Also, the milk had a decidedly "spoiled" smell to it, making it only useful for pig food. I tried milking her four times per day for a week and a half, but didn't succeed in completely ridding the milk from sludge.
After conversations with the vet, I sent four samples to the Cornell Dairy lab for testing to try to determine the identity of the organism, and to figure out what antibiotic might kill the infection. Yesterday, Cornell reported that the milk samples were completely clean.
The testing clerk turned me over to one of the Veterinarians on staff there. He suggested that one of the following situations was possible.
1. The four times per day milking, coupled with the body's normal infection fighting system killed off the infection without antibiotics. He told me that it took a couple of weeks for the body to unleash a defense against the infection, and that it might work itself out on its own, especially since my infection was light, and I had no symptoms of a hard udder or grittyness in the teat. I had placed Patrick the calf back on Gwen since I couldn't use the milk, and the vet told me that this was the best thing for a mastitic cow. The calf will "milk" the cow much more often than the average human ever could, and that this kind of load on the udder would help to flush any of the bacterial out of the udder. He further suggested that putting the calf back on the mother should be the first treatment for mastitis, even if you have to get a nurse calf.
2. The infection wasn't throwing off bacteria that could be sensed. The vet told me that many kinds of bacteria don't put bacteria into the milk all the time during the infection. Culturing one day's milk could show bacteria, while the next day's milk could be clean. He stated that 30% of the mastitic samples that arrive in the lab don't show positive results on a culture test.
3. The cow is infected with an organism (like micoplasm) that won't culture in any of their tests.
The vet suggested the following steps.
1. Keep the calf on the cow during the day. At the nightly feeding, separate the calf from the cow. Milk the next morning, and then reintroduce the calf soon after. This will keep the udder empty during the day, but still allow milk harvesting for human consumption.
2. If there is still sludge in the milk, treat the infected quarters with Pirsue. When injecting the medicine into the udder teat canal, use the smallest cannula possible (three MM length is perfect). This means that you're not threading a needle or tube up into the udder. You're just going a bit of a way into the teat canal. He said that you need to be INCREDIBLY careful about sanitation and cleanliness. He suggested washing the udder thoroughly with soap and water. He suggested disinfecting the teats with alcohol (I assume fresh isopropyl), and then not touching the teats again with anything except the sterile syringe and cannula. He suggested that the cannula could NEVER be touched prior to using it, and that the treatment be done in a clean location so that mud or manure can't be splashed into anything. He warned that you have to be VERY careful about sterile conditions when sticking anything up into an udder.
The medication's instructions suggest three treatments, but he suggested using five. Most antibiotics taint the milk for 36 - 72 hours, but a calf can drink the milk without ill effects. The wait period is longer (21 days in one case) if you decide to slaughter.
If that fails, he suggested keeping the calf on the mother (or placing a nursing calf on her instead) for a number of months. Right before you decide to dry her off, you inject a dry cow mastitis treatment into her udder, and then dry her the next day. The treatment, coupled with no milk production makes it easier for the medicine to do it's work. The cow can then be re-bred.
He did say that some cows carry a chronic infection that can't be cured.
I highly recommend the folks at Cornell. They seem to like dealing with family cow types, and understand just how much we love these members of our family. The testing didn't seem to be too expensive, and the vet was perfectly happy to chat with me for 15 minutes, answering all of my questions.
Oh yes, and one other thing. He told me that Jersey cows didn't do well if they weren't lactating for any length of time. He indicated that it was perfectly OK to milk for three years if you were willing to tolerate light milk production toward the end (and didn't want lots of calves around), but the cow needed to be producing milk during most of her life. Dry Jerseys had metabolic problems when they were dry, and became much more susceptible to milk fever the next time they calved. A happy Jersey is a lactating Jersey.
Kip
After conversations with the vet, I sent four samples to the Cornell Dairy lab for testing to try to determine the identity of the organism, and to figure out what antibiotic might kill the infection. Yesterday, Cornell reported that the milk samples were completely clean.
The testing clerk turned me over to one of the Veterinarians on staff there. He suggested that one of the following situations was possible.
1. The four times per day milking, coupled with the body's normal infection fighting system killed off the infection without antibiotics. He told me that it took a couple of weeks for the body to unleash a defense against the infection, and that it might work itself out on its own, especially since my infection was light, and I had no symptoms of a hard udder or grittyness in the teat. I had placed Patrick the calf back on Gwen since I couldn't use the milk, and the vet told me that this was the best thing for a mastitic cow. The calf will "milk" the cow much more often than the average human ever could, and that this kind of load on the udder would help to flush any of the bacterial out of the udder. He further suggested that putting the calf back on the mother should be the first treatment for mastitis, even if you have to get a nurse calf.
2. The infection wasn't throwing off bacteria that could be sensed. The vet told me that many kinds of bacteria don't put bacteria into the milk all the time during the infection. Culturing one day's milk could show bacteria, while the next day's milk could be clean. He stated that 30% of the mastitic samples that arrive in the lab don't show positive results on a culture test.
3. The cow is infected with an organism (like micoplasm) that won't culture in any of their tests.
The vet suggested the following steps.
1. Keep the calf on the cow during the day. At the nightly feeding, separate the calf from the cow. Milk the next morning, and then reintroduce the calf soon after. This will keep the udder empty during the day, but still allow milk harvesting for human consumption.
2. If there is still sludge in the milk, treat the infected quarters with Pirsue. When injecting the medicine into the udder teat canal, use the smallest cannula possible (three MM length is perfect). This means that you're not threading a needle or tube up into the udder. You're just going a bit of a way into the teat canal. He said that you need to be INCREDIBLY careful about sanitation and cleanliness. He suggested washing the udder thoroughly with soap and water. He suggested disinfecting the teats with alcohol (I assume fresh isopropyl), and then not touching the teats again with anything except the sterile syringe and cannula. He suggested that the cannula could NEVER be touched prior to using it, and that the treatment be done in a clean location so that mud or manure can't be splashed into anything. He warned that you have to be VERY careful about sterile conditions when sticking anything up into an udder.
The medication's instructions suggest three treatments, but he suggested using five. Most antibiotics taint the milk for 36 - 72 hours, but a calf can drink the milk without ill effects. The wait period is longer (21 days in one case) if you decide to slaughter.
If that fails, he suggested keeping the calf on the mother (or placing a nursing calf on her instead) for a number of months. Right before you decide to dry her off, you inject a dry cow mastitis treatment into her udder, and then dry her the next day. The treatment, coupled with no milk production makes it easier for the medicine to do it's work. The cow can then be re-bred.
He did say that some cows carry a chronic infection that can't be cured.
I highly recommend the folks at Cornell. They seem to like dealing with family cow types, and understand just how much we love these members of our family. The testing didn't seem to be too expensive, and the vet was perfectly happy to chat with me for 15 minutes, answering all of my questions.
Oh yes, and one other thing. He told me that Jersey cows didn't do well if they weren't lactating for any length of time. He indicated that it was perfectly OK to milk for three years if you were willing to tolerate light milk production toward the end (and didn't want lots of calves around), but the cow needed to be producing milk during most of her life. Dry Jerseys had metabolic problems when they were dry, and became much more susceptible to milk fever the next time they calved. A happy Jersey is a lactating Jersey.
Kip