dark, thick colostrum?

[Chris H]

Have a 2 year old Hereford that we just delivered her calf last night. It was a tail first presentation, vet managed to get the back feet up and pulled it. I checked her udder and stripped out 4 -5 squirts last night, and checked it again this morning. The colostrum is the color and consistancy to chocolate pudding. It's not lumpy, her udder had a bit of edema but not tender. The calf nursed enough that the udder was softer this morning than last night.

I've milked dairy cows but never saw colostrum this thick & dark. Has anyone seen this?

 

[cowgirl_jenna]

Colostrum comes in many different shades/Consistency. In my experience, the few beef cows i've had to milk out of, the beef seemed to have much thicker and darker colostrum vs the dairy cows I've milked out of. Beef animals usually have great colostrum. Personally, as long as the calf drank it, I dont think I'd worry too much. I have seen some really bloody colostrum from some dairy heifers, but that was really blood color. You may want to check the cows temp. if you can easily just to be sure, but it doesn't sound like mastitis to me as it wasn't lumpy and her udder isn't hard. Is the calf doing good/drinking?
Jenna

 

[Lucky_P]

Chris,
That's not normal - colostrum should be fairly thick and yellow - not like chocolate pudding.
Had a similar deal a couple of years back - 1st calf heifer, fairly hard hand-pull. Little fellow slow to get up, but the heifer took to him well. After a couple of hours when he wasn't up yet, we put her in the chute to milk her out - thick, brown colostrum- and not much of it, at that. So...we thawed out some we had frozen back and tubed him. May have given a second dose 6 hrs or so later - I don't remember. Calf was up & nursing the next morning, and she came into her milk just fine, did a good job with the calf. No issues next time out of the gate.

 

[Chris H]

Thanks to both. I did show it to our vet last night and he thought it looked like there was blood in it. The calf was nursing this morning but I have him a quart of colostrum. He's pretty small, 55 lbs. I gave him another quart of milk replacer this evening and will continue to supplement at that rate until I see how the cow is doing. She popped out a rectal prolapse while the vet was pulling the calf. He had to come back out and stitch it up because it wouldn't stay in. She's our grandson's heifer so she's getting a little extra pampering. We took her for a walk this evening, for the exercise and to try to find something she'll eat.