Post by Applelonia on Jun 28, 2020 18:53:18 GMT -5
If so, anything that helped the process? Are some cows just harder to dry off than others?
France is due August 28th. She was being milked OAD approx 2 1/2 gallons. I stopped her cold turkey June 10th.
18 days later she is still dripping milk from her back quarters. Her udder has not decreased much.
Her first lactation she was hard to dry off...her second was even harder - dripping a good solid two weeks ...she never really ever looked empty, floppy, completely dried off. But this third dry off seems a tad worse ...she’s going into almost three weeks of steady dripping.
She’s getting only first cutting grass hay - timothy, brome, Orchardgrass. Her pasture has a little clover here and there but mainly native grasses/weeds. She eats no grain.
I think the flies are making it that much harder, as she kicks at flies and I think that encourages milk flow. Catron does absolutely nothing - flies just stay in place with a direct spray. I’ve tried a couple different homemade essential oil fly sprays in the past - she breaks out in full body hives - legs, neck, body. Ultraboss pour on did nothing last year. Tried it again this year. Worked okay for 3-4 days and then flies back in full force! I think it made her ill - she was slow, dull eyes and off after it’s application - her milk tasted like how the pour on smells. Her manure stunk like chemicals for well over a week. My throat was itching if I got near them days after the application. Not using it again.
Are there any mild/gentle fly sprays that anyone has found that work well?
When I enter her stall for cleaning she goes into her milking area and will start streaming milk from her back quarters 😩 So, I lock her outside when I clean her stall, so she doesn’t have triggers. I don’t use any of the same milking words when I milk Cordelia, so it doesn’t set France off. But sometimes just seeing the bucket seems to put her in that milking mindset. I even make sure to milk Cordelia at times that are not the same as France’s milking time.
Before she was dried off her milk was tested - SCC 33,000 l. It’s ranged from 11 - 33,000 all three lactations. Her routine mastitis panel showed no growth for anything. Her udder health has been a huge blessing these past three lactations, but I so worry with the constant dripping.
This is her current udder look ...18 days into dry off period ...
Weight wise she is right about where I want her to be at. If she wasn’t due in two months I’d be tempted just to start milking again, as I’m worried she will get mastitis with all this dripping and not drying off 🙁
France is due August 28th. She was being milked OAD approx 2 1/2 gallons. I stopped her cold turkey June 10th.
18 days later she is still dripping milk from her back quarters. Her udder has not decreased much.
Her first lactation she was hard to dry off...her second was even harder - dripping a good solid two weeks ...she never really ever looked empty, floppy, completely dried off. But this third dry off seems a tad worse ...she’s going into almost three weeks of steady dripping.
She’s getting only first cutting grass hay - timothy, brome, Orchardgrass. Her pasture has a little clover here and there but mainly native grasses/weeds. She eats no grain.
I think the flies are making it that much harder, as she kicks at flies and I think that encourages milk flow. Catron does absolutely nothing - flies just stay in place with a direct spray. I’ve tried a couple different homemade essential oil fly sprays in the past - she breaks out in full body hives - legs, neck, body. Ultraboss pour on did nothing last year. Tried it again this year. Worked okay for 3-4 days and then flies back in full force! I think it made her ill - she was slow, dull eyes and off after it’s application - her milk tasted like how the pour on smells. Her manure stunk like chemicals for well over a week. My throat was itching if I got near them days after the application. Not using it again.
Are there any mild/gentle fly sprays that anyone has found that work well?
When I enter her stall for cleaning she goes into her milking area and will start streaming milk from her back quarters 😩 So, I lock her outside when I clean her stall, so she doesn’t have triggers. I don’t use any of the same milking words when I milk Cordelia, so it doesn’t set France off. But sometimes just seeing the bucket seems to put her in that milking mindset. I even make sure to milk Cordelia at times that are not the same as France’s milking time.
Before she was dried off her milk was tested - SCC 33,000 l. It’s ranged from 11 - 33,000 all three lactations. Her routine mastitis panel showed no growth for anything. Her udder health has been a huge blessing these past three lactations, but I so worry with the constant dripping.
This is her current udder look ...18 days into dry off period ...
Weight wise she is right about where I want her to be at. If she wasn’t due in two months I’d be tempted just to start milking again, as I’m worried she will get mastitis with all this dripping and not drying off 🙁
