Bad Teats

[Ryan]

I have a friend that asked this. What would be the best thing to tell them?

"I have a cow that when she is due to calf, her front 2 teats swell up like balloons. What causes this and can it be treated?"

 

[Beefy]

its hereditary. treated? no. you can assist the calf to nurse or milk them down so that the calf can latch on but once they get big they will always be. the calf will suck them down but next time she calves they will be big again and you will have to assist again (most likely). they will get bigger and bigger, if you dont make sure they get milked they will sometimes get mastitis. other common problems are loss of calves b/c they get discouraged when they cant get the teat in their mouth, and cows tend to step on their larger teats when getting up and thats nasty. the teat tip will slough off...

Ive always heard (and found this to be the case in our herd) that big teats are inherited from the bull. we had an old charolais bull that all of our big teat cases traced back to.

 

[Caustic Burno]

I have a friend that asked this. What would be the best thing to tell them?

"I have a cow that when she is due to calf, her front 2 teats swell up like balloons. What causes this and can it be treated?"

Cull the cow and calf at the salebarn, put the folding money in your billfold and replace her, they are not going to get better.

 

[bigbull338]

send the cow an calf to the sale ballooon titts will never go down had a brimmer x holstein an her tits was like that finally just culled her scott

 

[jerry27150]

i have a couple that get big teats on the front, but calf gets on back teats first for a few days & then gets on front. when they get worse or i have to help calf they will ge gone

 

[Ryan]

Thanks everyone! I pretty much was going to tell him what everyone else said, I just wanted to get some more opinions before passing anything on to him.