Bad Mastitis

[insurman]

So we have some cows on a second place that does not get check as often as the home place..

I was there last Saturday and the cows come up close enough to count everyone...well one of then was not as close and because of the very high grass I could not see her bag. Well my mother n law calls me this past Tuesday and tell me this gals bag is huge and she set an appt with the Vet. I go get her Wednesday and it looked like she had a couple of basketballs in there. She has a 4 month old bull calf that is doing well....

Vet says Mastitis, milked it out, 2 shots straight into the teats and a antibiotic shot. Said we had to do it again in a few days. Kept her in the pens and did it Friday afternoon. As of this morning it is hard to see if there is any improvement. Calf is still nursing the 2 good ones..

So I assume this will get better and if so what to do next? This is her 3rd calf, all born no problems, raises a good calf, etc..

Will she always have this problem going forward or did the calf just not got used to his favorite spicket and ignored the others?

 

[regolith]

Are you not milking the bad quarters out every day? It would really help her chances of recovery if you were.

Best case scenario is she clears up now, is light on the two quarters for the rest of this lactation and comes back into milk as normal next year. Give it a few more days, but if she's not showing improvement now it's not unlikely you may permanently lose the two quarters. In which case she's better gone when she weans the calf (and is out of withholding time).

Cows that have had mastitis before are more likely to get it again, I find. That's a law of averages and says nothing about an individual cow; I still have plenty of cows that get it once and either never get it again, or the second time is four years later.

 

[Supa Dexta]

A calf at 4mo should be using all quarters too. A calf at 4 weeks should be. Bad bag and costing you time and money, your call if thats acceptable.

 

[cowgirl8]

I'd sell....Anytime you have a cow with nonworking teats you risk her newborn calf to go after the nonworking first. If this is a place where they cows arent watched daily, you risk losing a calf. We'll keep cows with 3 working teats, but, its more work on me. During calving season i go out to each herd 3 times a day. I know all cows with questionable udders, although we have only a few, and i make sure that new calf does not latch on to the one that does not work. We did have one with 2 working teats, but it was our only white cow and easy to pick out. She was really old and could raise a great calf on 2 teats. It was a pain though because i had to watch her like a hawk and once her udder was full it was hard to tell which teat the calf nursed. Her last one struggled the first few days, but finally figured out which ones worked.

 

[TCRanch]

Are you not milking the bad quarters out every day? It would really help her chances of recovery if you were.

Best case scenario is she clears up now, is light on the two quarters for the rest of this lactation and comes back into milk as normal next year. Give it a few more days, but if she's not showing improvement now it's not unlikely you may permanently lose the two quarters. In which case she's better gone when she weans the calf (and is out of withholding time).

Cows that have had mastitis before are more likely to get it again, I find. That's a law of averages and says nothing about an individual cow; I still have plenty of cows that get it once and either never get it again, or the second time is four years later.

'

Spot on! I have one now I'm treating for mastitis. And unfortunately that teat was also injured; possible she stepped on it while she was getting up but the vet thinks her calf got too aggressive trying to nurse and literally broke the skin because it was so engorged & tight (like casing on a sausage). The mastitis is clearing up but I'm also milking her out daily.

Good luck!

 

[insurman]

Thanks for your thoughts...
Going to continue to milk her out this week and another round of shots today. Will prob sell calf this weekend and let her dry up and then make the call on selling or keeping. All three of her calf's have been very nice and she is very docile, easy keeping (except for this issue) and bred to our new Simbrah bull. We have plenty of grass for now and she is not taking up any more space so we will prob wait to see how she heals and if it is ok then we might give her a chance.