Post by Prairie Haven on Mar 7, 2018 14:30:54 GMT -5
All, I am at my wits end with my cow Isabelle. She calved on Sept 9 of last year, and sadly the beautiful heifer was born breach and dead. (We watched the security footage and noted the breach delivery.) Isabelle did great in her recovery and we didn't see any issues at all until January 2018. I want to back up a bit and add that a week before her due date, we were not seeing Isabelle really bagging up much and definitely not to the "springing" point. Just as we were kind of wondering if we could have messed up on the due date, she started to act little off, like in milk fever. Within a day or two her udder completely filled out-totally engorged. She went full into milk fever and I found her basically on her deathbed outside the calving paddock. Long story short, we revived her with CMPK IV and sub Q. Her calf was born the following day. We worked through her engorgement and she did so well, considering all she had been through. Clean bill of health from our vet.
So 4 months into lactation I notice a sudden super slow strain on her milk, and very minuscule "flakes" on the filter. A Mastitis Indicator paper test revealed mastitis in the left rear quarter. We started milking her out on the quarter 3-4 times a day and gave her 2 homeopathic remedies prescribed by our homeopathic vet (I utilize several vets - both homeopathic and traditional). She was not symptomatic AT ALL other than the ph indicator paper test and slow filtering. The slow filtering resolved quickly but I did still see a positive test on the ph indicator paper. She would go from clear to slow filtering back to clear again. Our trad vet came out and took samples from all 4 quarters so we could culture and figure out what we were dealing with and do sensitivity testing to see what would be the best treatment for it. Test results came back immediately as "Heavy" on the count and the comment "growth was too numerous to count". Our traditional vet recommended we cull her, but when we pressed for a treatment to see if we could eradicate this, she prescribed Excede and Today, which she administered the first round. I don't remember exactly the protocol, but I do remember that we were to do several courses of each. We tossed her milk following the withholding period guidelines. At the next milking, her milk filtered the worst ever with huge clumps of gunk and needing to change filters every half gallon jar. Milk volume was the same, but condition the milk was awful! I reached out to my homeopathic vet (I have 2) who tried various formulations of the nosode staph a as well as the homeopathic remedy of the allopathic sulpha drug. We saw some lessoning of her symptoms following this protocol over many weeks, but it did not resolve at all. I contacted a second homeopathic vet 2 weeks ago and he recommended a different homeopathic remedy along with flushing her quarters with colloidal silver. We are almost done with the 10 day flushing protocol and we are still no closer to seeing this resolve.
I am just completely sad and worn out. This has been all consuming for my family and I have no idea what to do or where to go from here.
Also, yesterday and today we noticed what seems like she is holding up her milk, except milk volume is the same. Her udder seems like it still has milk in the quarters, yet we milk her out completely. I also noticed that she may have scraped the side of one quarter with a hoof or something, which I have heard can be a sign of pain or irritation in the udder. She has no lumps, no hardness, nothing else to indicate mastitis and doesn't mind being milked or massaged, etc.
I thank you in advance for any advice!
So 4 months into lactation I notice a sudden super slow strain on her milk, and very minuscule "flakes" on the filter. A Mastitis Indicator paper test revealed mastitis in the left rear quarter. We started milking her out on the quarter 3-4 times a day and gave her 2 homeopathic remedies prescribed by our homeopathic vet (I utilize several vets - both homeopathic and traditional). She was not symptomatic AT ALL other than the ph indicator paper test and slow filtering. The slow filtering resolved quickly but I did still see a positive test on the ph indicator paper. She would go from clear to slow filtering back to clear again. Our trad vet came out and took samples from all 4 quarters so we could culture and figure out what we were dealing with and do sensitivity testing to see what would be the best treatment for it. Test results came back immediately as "Heavy" on the count and the comment "growth was too numerous to count". Our traditional vet recommended we cull her, but when we pressed for a treatment to see if we could eradicate this, she prescribed Excede and Today, which she administered the first round. I don't remember exactly the protocol, but I do remember that we were to do several courses of each. We tossed her milk following the withholding period guidelines. At the next milking, her milk filtered the worst ever with huge clumps of gunk and needing to change filters every half gallon jar. Milk volume was the same, but condition the milk was awful! I reached out to my homeopathic vet (I have 2) who tried various formulations of the nosode staph a as well as the homeopathic remedy of the allopathic sulpha drug. We saw some lessoning of her symptoms following this protocol over many weeks, but it did not resolve at all. I contacted a second homeopathic vet 2 weeks ago and he recommended a different homeopathic remedy along with flushing her quarters with colloidal silver. We are almost done with the 10 day flushing protocol and we are still no closer to seeing this resolve.
I am just completely sad and worn out. This has been all consuming for my family and I have no idea what to do or where to go from here.
Also, yesterday and today we noticed what seems like she is holding up her milk, except milk volume is the same. Her udder seems like it still has milk in the quarters, yet we milk her out completely. I also noticed that she may have scraped the side of one quarter with a hoof or something, which I have heard can be a sign of pain or irritation in the udder. She has no lumps, no hardness, nothing else to indicate mastitis and doesn't mind being milked or massaged, etc.
I thank you in advance for any advice!