Extra teats

[Craig]

What do most of you do about extra teats on beef heifers, or cows for that matter? Aside from culling, do you cut 'em, band 'em, do nothing? What is the most number of teats you have seen on an udder? Some of you have to have some good cows with less than perfect udders, right?

 

[JSCATTLE]

I don't do anything unless she isnt 4 quartered . Extra teats won't hurt anything

 

[dun]

I've never seen extra teats cause a problem with a beef cow, but I saw one cow in a dairy that couldn;t be milked by machine because an extra teat was growing off the side about halfway done a working one.

 

[Crazy Farmgirl]

I leave them.

I only know one guy who has a dairy that removes them and completely for "asthetics" on his part. I asked him why at one time and his response was "nothing worse than looking at a shriveled up useless teat".

 

[backhoeboogie]

I've seen as many as 8. BIL has one in with my herd like that. 4 quarters tho.

Some of mine have one or two extra. There are plenty of broke things out there that need fixin. So far this has not been one of them.

Half the herd was culled in last summer's drought. This issue did not figure in. Fertility, calf quality, costs, attitude, breed, and a host of other things are far more important to me personally. Some gals with perfect udders went down the road too.

 

[jilleroo]

Plenty of cows have extra teats but we ignore them. However, here is one case where they were useful! I noticed a huge white charbray cow in a remote part of our farthrest paddock with four big bung teats and a new bull calf. The calf had no hope of getting on any of the main teats but the cow had two extras about an inch long right up the back of her udder. Calfie was sucking on those and getting just enough milk to stay alive, no more. (Those teats are plumbed in to the milk supply!) We went reluctantly down to grab the calf a couple of days later and bring him home (no mean feat, 700kgs of cranky cow to contend with). To my delight, I found that he'd got onto all the four big teats - over the course of the week, those teats had gone down a bit and softened up some from not being sucked. He was smart enough to keep trying them and had got on! Phew, thank goodness for those extra ones keeping him alive for the week.
Of course, had the cow been closer to facilities, we wouldve put her in the crush, immobilized her with the RAU, and put him on.
I saw her recently, those teats are small and neat now, you wouldnt believe they'd been so huge. We'll cull her at weaning time if we can.

 

[regolith]

The calf had no hope of getting on any of the main teats but the cow had two extras about an inch long right up the back of her udder. Calfie was sucking on those and getting just enough milk to stay alive, no more. (Those teats are plumbed in to the milk supply!)

Extra teats of any size usually come with their own 'quarter', and can spring up at calving time. They just dry up because they're not used. One of the farms I worked on had a cow with five that I called 'Breakfast' because if she came in the right side of the milking shed I could milk the extra while the cups were on the other four... kept it lactating the whole year by taking the milk for breakfast or switching a cup over from the milking machine when one of the others was done.
Seven is the most I've seen.

 

[Black and Good]

I've got a Black Angus cow I named " T i t t y " she has 7 teats on her udder and one thats bout inch long hanging from the bulls favorite place. :lol: I know it's not a teat,but it looks just like one. She is a super cow gentle as a lamb,but a calving time she protects her calf and everybody elses as well. Until her calf gets bout 3 weeks old you had better keep your eye on T i t t y.