Post by Kelsey on Mar 24, 2017 14:45:53 GMT -5
Here she is this morning, staying warm and dry under her fancy horse blanket. Doesn't fit quite right but she doesn't mind. 
I posted briefly last night in the March Calving Watch - she calved Tuesday afternoon and was fine all that day and night, but by Wed morning she was down with milk fever, flat out and bloated.
Had a little relapse yesterday morning, but seems to just be dealing with ketosis now.
We have switched from Bovikalc (gave 3 total) to the small CMPK boluses, giving several every 6-8 hours. This morning we gave her a bottle of Dextrose, plus her Vitamin B.
She is eating fitfully, and cudding, but eating no where near enough. I am milking her very little because I know she will spring up to 12 gallons in no time at all if I milk her out. Really hoping the upside of this MF (if she makes it...) is that her production will be suppressed and she will milk more moderately this lactation. Her udder is quite large, but no edema at all, and it's not hard at all (her teats are soft, no leaking at all) - but she probably has 6+ gallons in there. I milked 5 qts the first day, 2 gallons the second, 3+ yesterday - just enough to soften her udder up a bit.
She's on a very dry clean area (front lawn - pic was taken through the window) so hoping she isn't susceptible to mastitis.
My main concern right now is that she'll develop metritis or has a retained placenta - part of it came out for sure, but I really don't think all of it came out. Temp was normal yesterday, this AM it was 103.1 but that was immediately after the Dextrose. An hour later it was 102. Will continue to check and start abx if it goes up again.
Should I give her a shot of Dex now? I've never had a cow actually go down with MF or be this bad off after calving. Have a call into our vet to see.
She literally has 10+ buckets or piles of different feed out - grain, alfalfa pellets, collard leaves, 3 types of hay, madrona branches, molasses water, I've been cutting bucketfuls of green grass and dandelions...
Right now she's grazing a very nice section of pasture.
And the baby! Still needs a name. She's a heifer - daddy was Lynnbrook Terrific. A definite keeper!
I posted briefly last night in the March Calving Watch - she calved Tuesday afternoon and was fine all that day and night, but by Wed morning she was down with milk fever, flat out and bloated.
Had a little relapse yesterday morning, but seems to just be dealing with ketosis now.
We have switched from Bovikalc (gave 3 total) to the small CMPK boluses, giving several every 6-8 hours. This morning we gave her a bottle of Dextrose, plus her Vitamin B.
She is eating fitfully, and cudding, but eating no where near enough. I am milking her very little because I know she will spring up to 12 gallons in no time at all if I milk her out. Really hoping the upside of this MF (if she makes it...) is that her production will be suppressed and she will milk more moderately this lactation. Her udder is quite large, but no edema at all, and it's not hard at all (her teats are soft, no leaking at all) - but she probably has 6+ gallons in there. I milked 5 qts the first day, 2 gallons the second, 3+ yesterday - just enough to soften her udder up a bit.
She's on a very dry clean area (front lawn - pic was taken through the window) so hoping she isn't susceptible to mastitis.
My main concern right now is that she'll develop metritis or has a retained placenta - part of it came out for sure, but I really don't think all of it came out. Temp was normal yesterday, this AM it was 103.1 but that was immediately after the Dextrose. An hour later it was 102. Will continue to check and start abx if it goes up again.
Should I give her a shot of Dex now? I've never had a cow actually go down with MF or be this bad off after calving. Have a call into our vet to see.
She literally has 10+ buckets or piles of different feed out - grain, alfalfa pellets, collard leaves, 3 types of hay, madrona branches, molasses water, I've been cutting bucketfuls of green grass and dandelions...
Right now she's grazing a very nice section of pasture.
And the baby! Still needs a name. She's a heifer - daddy was Lynnbrook Terrific. A definite keeper!
