Post by eric on Jan 1, 2021 15:18:37 GMT -5
I'm dealing with a case of mastitis that's different from anything I've dealt with before and hoping for advice. I have a Jersey cow about 9 months into her first lactation, only just bred less than a month ago, that has a case of mastitis that just isn't going away.
My family only started milking her about 3 months ago when we butchered her bull calf. Her milk supply was very weak when we started milking her. I think she may have just gotten run down with her calf sucking on her all the time. They were basically never separated for 6 months. I don't think it could have been let-down issues, because it was at least a couple weeks before we started getting much milk. Maybe it was some kind of health issue. But her production came back up and for most of the time since we've been milking her she's been giving a normal amount of milk (for what we're used to in our ~14 years of milking cows), over a gallon per milking with 2x/day milking with no grain, no hay (at least not since last winter), and no very special grass/pasture. Mineral salt is normally the only supplement she gets. She's on pasture basically all the time. We rarely even bring her into the barn to milk.
We've had several cows before that have had just a little something snotty-like in the milk filter for a milking or two or three, and that might have happened more than once per lactation (with some cows more than others -- we have a second cow now on her fourth lactation that I don't think has ever had any sign of mastitis), but in the past the milk filter has normally cleared up on its own in no more than a day or two, and in the rarer circumstances where the filter didn't clear up on its own, we'd milk the cow (or the affected quarter) out extra times every day, and that seemed to always be enough for the milk to clear up. But with this cow it seems like she hasn't gone a week without a little something in the milk filter since we started milking her a few months ago. I very probably should have been proactive about dealing with it sooner, but I basically ignored it until a couple weeks ago. Until a couple weeks ago there was never more than just a very little bit of snotty-like stuff in the milk filter and the milk tasted normal, and we still haven't noticed any other signs like swelling or hardness or a warm udder. But close to a couple weeks ago we had a milking where the filter looked worse. We started milking more often, and for the last 4+ days we've been milking 7x/day on the bad quarter and 4x/day on the other three quarters. The milk from the bad quarter has tasted just a little bit salty when we've tasted it -- we've mostly been feeding it to the chickens -- but the milk from the other three quarters tastes normal, but the milk we've filtered separately from the other quarters hasn't been totally clean either. We've milked and filtered each quarter out separately a few times over the last couple weeks, and it seems like none of the quarters is completely right.
What should I have done already and what should I do now? Milking all these extra times each day definitely seems to have helped, but it hasn't eliminated the problem. Should I buy a calf to suck on her? Are there any homegrown (non-purchased) remedies I can try? Or if I have to turn to purchased remedies, are there organic remedies I can try first, anything other than homeopathics?
Sorry that was so long!
My family only started milking her about 3 months ago when we butchered her bull calf. Her milk supply was very weak when we started milking her. I think she may have just gotten run down with her calf sucking on her all the time. They were basically never separated for 6 months. I don't think it could have been let-down issues, because it was at least a couple weeks before we started getting much milk. Maybe it was some kind of health issue. But her production came back up and for most of the time since we've been milking her she's been giving a normal amount of milk (for what we're used to in our ~14 years of milking cows), over a gallon per milking with 2x/day milking with no grain, no hay (at least not since last winter), and no very special grass/pasture. Mineral salt is normally the only supplement she gets. She's on pasture basically all the time. We rarely even bring her into the barn to milk.
We've had several cows before that have had just a little something snotty-like in the milk filter for a milking or two or three, and that might have happened more than once per lactation (with some cows more than others -- we have a second cow now on her fourth lactation that I don't think has ever had any sign of mastitis), but in the past the milk filter has normally cleared up on its own in no more than a day or two, and in the rarer circumstances where the filter didn't clear up on its own, we'd milk the cow (or the affected quarter) out extra times every day, and that seemed to always be enough for the milk to clear up. But with this cow it seems like she hasn't gone a week without a little something in the milk filter since we started milking her a few months ago. I very probably should have been proactive about dealing with it sooner, but I basically ignored it until a couple weeks ago. Until a couple weeks ago there was never more than just a very little bit of snotty-like stuff in the milk filter and the milk tasted normal, and we still haven't noticed any other signs like swelling or hardness or a warm udder. But close to a couple weeks ago we had a milking where the filter looked worse. We started milking more often, and for the last 4+ days we've been milking 7x/day on the bad quarter and 4x/day on the other three quarters. The milk from the bad quarter has tasted just a little bit salty when we've tasted it -- we've mostly been feeding it to the chickens -- but the milk from the other three quarters tastes normal, but the milk we've filtered separately from the other quarters hasn't been totally clean either. We've milked and filtered each quarter out separately a few times over the last couple weeks, and it seems like none of the quarters is completely right.
What should I have done already and what should I do now? Milking all these extra times each day definitely seems to have helped, but it hasn't eliminated the problem. Should I buy a calf to suck on her? Are there any homegrown (non-purchased) remedies I can try? Or if I have to turn to purchased remedies, are there organic remedies I can try first, anything other than homeopathics?
Sorry that was so long!