# Pretty sure she has mastitis :( can I cure organically?



## cjb (May 2, 2006)

I had mentioned on a different thread that our cow's milk was tasting cowy by 24 hours after being milked. Also, there were some stringy pieces in the filter after milking.

The front left quarter is now rather hard/stiff and its hard to get milk out of it. She was slowing way down on lactation anyway but there is someting definitely different about this quarter.

Some questions:

Do I have to use that "Today" stuff? That is an antibiotic, right? This renders her 'inorganic' for the rest of her life, as I understand 

Since her udder is actually pretty hard, does that mean that it is advanced? Am I in danger of losing that quarter permanently? Does this mean that I can't drink the milk from ANY of the quarters?

Also, when you use these products, I heard that you have to stick a tube up the hole of their teat - true? Does it hurt badly? Can I do it myelf or will said cow kill me?

Why did this have to start out complicated . ugh.


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## Valmai (Sep 29, 2004)

Does the milk taste salty? There are a number of types of mastitis, some worse than others. Milk that hard quarter by hand. It should produce something which looks like a cross between milk and yogurt. You have to get all of this out, you will know when that happens as you will then be milking a 'clear/yellowish watery' substance. Sometimes there is a small amount of blood which need not concern you. If you get something totally different let us know coz it could be a severe type of mastitis. If she had the really bad mastitis she would be down by now and in obvious trouble. I have done the above and cured the problem without any proprietary medicines.
Continue milking her until you are getting real milk again. It does not mean she will loose that quarter. The milk from the other 3 quarters should be okay.
By the sound of the symptoms you so not need a tube of anything at this stage. Ive done that many times and provided you angle the blunt needle end correctly it does not hurt the cow. Depending on what you have to hand, some natural antibacterial like garlic wouldn't hurt. I highly recommend you get a copy of "The herbal handbook of farm and stable" by Juilette Baracali Levy. It is my livestock bible.


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## Tom McLaughlin (Nov 16, 2002)

Keep the quarter milked as much as you can and massage with a peppermint based lotion like Dynamint( acts like VicksVapo rub which I've used and seems to work). Also ya might wanna add some raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar to the feed along with the garlic.


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## michiganfarmer (Oct 15, 2005)

yanno, a hundred years ago there were no antibiotics. Farmers milked infected udders many times per day for a couple weeks, and that help a lot. If they could not cure the mastitis, they dried the quarter up. It wont affect th eother quarters unless it gets bad enough to cause gangreen, and that is pretty rare.


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## michiganfarmer (Oct 15, 2005)

if there are any amish around you, they really are the experts in organic treatments.


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## michiganfarmer (Oct 15, 2005)

cjb said:


> Since her udder is actually pretty hard, does that mean that it is advanced? Am I in danger of losing that quarter permanently? Does this mean that I can't drink the milk from ANY of the quarters?
> 
> Also, when you use these products, I heard that you have to stick a tube up the hole of their teat - true? Does it hurt badly? Can I do it myelf or will said cow kill me?
> 
> Why did this have to start out complicated . ugh.


Just being hard doesnt mean the quarter, or the udder is ruined. 

I have used those tubes of mastits treatment many times. The most of our cows never even flinched. After you inject the tube, pince off the bottom of the teat, pull the tub out, and "milk" the teat in reverse to puch th emedication up, then massage the quarter in an upward motion to get the medication up in the quarter.


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## cjb (May 2, 2006)

You guys are so extremely helpful.

Not sure that I would want to tackle this without HT.

The quarter is somewhat stiff and the teat feels wrinkled and different. Also, this cow was nearly dry when I discoved this - she is due to calf Feb 6th. When I milk this quarter, it just looks like milk - no watery, nothing discolored. ?????


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## Teacupliz (Nov 20, 2003)

You should at least reat with tomorrow- this is probably why they sold her-- she was already down to 3 quarters right. Hey I have one hersey down to two teats- I still plan to keep her for now- and I bet out of 2 quarters you will still get more milk then you need- Liz


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## DJ in WA (Jan 28, 2005)

A 2-teated cow, isn't that kind of like a goat, only 800 pounds heavier?

I've been down this road with a cow sold from a dairy. Not a good feeling when I discovered they sold after failing to clear up the mastitis and didn't tell me about it. Read here to understand why it can be hard to treat. If it's like this contagious, Staph type, it can be impossible to eliminate, and it will drop production. Question is whether your cow is actually drying up, or mastitis is causing production to drop.

If contagious type, could spread from one quarter to another. When you get the test results, call the sellers and see what they have to say on the subject.

Below it talks about "culling decisions" based on Staph mastitis. My question is, how to cull. Should the cow go to hamburger, or to another farmer to deal with?

http://www.extension.org/pages/A_Practical_Look_at_Contagious_Mastitis



> Mastitis caused by Staph. aureus produces more damage to milk-producing tissues than Strep. agalactiae and decreases milk production, with reported losses of 45 percent per quarter and 15 percent per infected cow. Recurring mild clinical mastitis often causes additional losses.
> 
> The bacteria damage the duct system and establish deep-seated pockets of infection in the milk-secreting tissues, followed by abscess formation and walling-off of bacteria by scar tissue. This walling-off phenomenon is partially responsible for poor cure rates of Staph. aureus infections by antibiotic therapy.
> 
> ...


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## cjb (May 2, 2006)

geez - we're talking about culling already  waahhhhh

I'm hoping that we'll be able to cure this and move on. The guy did not strike me as the type to deliberately pass on a problem. I think she may have gotten this infection in the process of moving then taking away her calf.

Now i'm very confused. Treat? Don't treat?


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## Valmai (Sep 29, 2004)

First of all it cannot be black mastitis, she'd be dead by now if it was. Is that quarter hot or noticeably warmer than the other 3? How well are you milking that quarter? You do have to persevere to get the mastitis out (if it is mastitis). It sounds as though she may have had mastitis which is why the quarter may be firm. I'm inclined to go with Ronnie's suggestion about end of lactation being the cause of the bad taste. If she were mine I would dry her off now (without dry cow therapy) and keep a close eye on her udder. When she calves leave the calf on her and share the milk. A vigorous calf is *the best cure* for mastitis. Dairy cows are required to produce far more than you would need for a house cow, so I cant imagine why you would even need to consider culling.
A warm brew of dock leaves on the udder is good for inflammation.


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## cjb (May 2, 2006)

The quarter is not warm or red at all. It is just kinda stiff. The udder isn't - the bag area above it is. She was already close to drying up on her own because the calf was mostly eating grass etc. I was trying to get a few weeks out of her before drying her and have been told that drying her WHILE she has mastitis is a bad idea. sigh.

Right now, I am milking that quarter out and applying bag balm while massaging the entire bag and teats. However, I am only milking her once per day because there is so little left in her.

The milk that's coming out looks normal, unless I filter it, then it has a few tiny clumps of white in it.


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## Valmai (Sep 29, 2004)

"then it has a few tiny clumps of white in it." That means she most likely does have low grade mastitis (combined with your description of her behaviour and good eating habits). I would hand milk that quarter until you get only milk and none of the clumps, and then allow that quarter to dry off. Do yourself a favour and get the book I recommended, that is what gave me the confidence to go organic with all my animals and I never regretted it.
But all said and done it's your cow, your decision. Take everything everyone has said and go with your gut. Good luck and dont give up. You struck gold with her lovely nature and you and she will have, Im sure, a long and happy association.


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## cjb (May 2, 2006)

Valmai, there is almost no milk left in this quarter. I milked and milked tonight and literally got a few tablespoons. However, the quarter is hard - it feels muscular. I also strained the milk from it and got very little "sediment". No strings or clumps, just tiny white granuals.

So do I continue to try to pull milk out of this quarter? I was told not to try her out until the mastitis is cured. The quarter is hard so she obviously still has a problem but almost zero milk is coming out.

ugh. Its tempting to just give her the "Today" but we bought the cow to have organic milk.


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## Valmai (Sep 29, 2004)

From what you say Im inclined to think she doesn't have mastitis, she may have had it in the past and dried that quarter off herself. The 'granules/sediment' is not something Im familiar with. If she were mine I would stop milking that quarter but check it every day for heat or other changes. Perhaps she had mastitis and the calf didnt clear it up, usually they do, which left it hard and dry(ish). If you feel you need to give her penicillin or DCT then do it, but part of being organic is persevering with the slower, less invasive, more gentle treatment, rather than going for the chemical quick fix. I have to admit I am very anti pumping chemicals into animal or human just in case they have something wrong. Thats why we have so many resistant bugs around. (Perhaps she got a bad knock to her udder during travel?)


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## Tom McLaughlin (Nov 16, 2002)

I'm pretty sure Bag Balm is not organically approved but it sounds to me like a few days of massage with a peppermint oil based ointment(Cai-pan, Dynamint, there's a bunch of different brands) will help her alot even if she is drying up.


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## mundamanu (Oct 22, 2004)

cjb said:


> ugh. Its tempting to just give her the "Today" but we bought the cow to have organic milk.


Just find out if she really does have mastitis, then treat her with the synthetic chemical treatment and cure her. Once you have these initial problems out of the way, which it seems you inherited when you brought her home, then take seriously her organic management, which as I am sure you well know, is a holistic approach, rooted in healthy soil. Healthy soil produces healthy plants, which grow and maintain healthy animals. In other words, organic works because the management system itself significantly reduces the incidence and intensity of disease, illness, and parasite loads, making it unnecessary to resort to synthetic chemical treatments. With low incidence and low intensity when problems do arise, organic treatments work well. However, in the rare case of full-blown disease or full-blown parasite infestation, those organic treatments sometimes fail and it is necessary to resort to synthetic chemical treatments. In commercial operations this means that the animal needs to be to shipped off to a conventional herd. However, on a homestead, this just means that synthetic chemicals were used on a rare occasion. If you dry her off after treating her, there won't be even a trace of the synthetic chemical in her body or milk in the spring.

Good luck.


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## HazyDay (Feb 20, 2007)

cjb said:


> Do I have to use that "Today" stuff? That is an antibiotic, right? This renders her 'inorganic' for the rest of her life, as I understand .



For one, do you even know if she has never been treated? If not then you could alreadly have an inorganic cow.
second. Do you have a CMT on hand??? test the milk. My Nubian doe was milking flakes and blood for 3 weeks, I used the CMT and it showed nothing, I took a milk sample to the vet and all tests came back "neg" The vet said she just kidded and their is alot of growing happening in the udder, which can result in a broken blood vessle and bloody milk. She stoped doing it a few days after I had the vet do the sample.  

So get yourself a CMT kit. They are only about $20.00 and that mix will do you for YEARS!


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## cjb (May 2, 2006)

I ordered the CMT kit - should be here any day. In the meantime, I'm going to keep up the milking and massage and look for heat/redness.

I would prefer not to use medicine on her but will if it seems warranted.

Thanks


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## Terry W (Mar 10, 2006)

Glad I looked in today-- this information is very usefull to me, too... AMish neighbor has a heifer with an udder issue..


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## DJ in WA (Jan 28, 2005)

cjb said:


> geez - we're talking about culling already  waahhhhh
> 
> I'm hoping that we'll be able to cure this and move on. The guy did not strike me as the type to deliberately pass on a problem. I think she may have gotten this infection in the process of moving then taking away her calf.
> 
> Now i'm very confused. Treat? Don't treat?


My question about culling was a general one, not directed to you in this situation. I just wonder about the ethics of selling a problem to the next guy as a dairy did to me without telling me. I also read on here once of a guy with a cow with recurring milk fever. He said the vet told him to sell her. I asked who you would sell her to. If you sell her as a healthy milk cow, the buyers won't notice her problem til she next calves.


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## cjb (May 2, 2006)

DJ in WA said:


> My question about culling was a general one, not directed to you in this situation. I just wonder about the ethics of selling a problem to the next guy as a dairy did to me without telling me. I also read on here once of a guy with a cow with recurring milk fever. He said the vet told him to sell her. I asked who you would sell her to. If you sell her as a healthy milk cow, the buyers won't notice her problem til she next calves.




I agree.


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