help please....

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Missy

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Hi all,
A couple months before X'mas, a friend bought a jersey cow off a dairy farm as she kept getting mastitis in one teat.They bought her to foster calves on.The cow was in calf to a jersey bull and the owner of the dairy asked that if she had a heifer could he buy the heifer off them. Well she calved new years eve. I went and seen her when her calf was about 3 days old. She had a heifer calf so she was going to be sold to the dairy in a week or so.I asked "friend" if they were going to put another couple of calves on her as her milk bag was HUGE and she had a tonne of milk,way too much for a newborn jersey calf. Well they stated they were not until they sold the heifer calf,stupid if you ask me!!!

Well of course cow got mastitis so bad (yet they wouldnt treat her) they decided to send her to the sale barn in a pretty bad way. I went and bought her home,paid $30 for her...Shame as i know how much of a good mumma she was!
Well i have her home,one teat has thick creamy milk coming out(not chunky) other 3 teats look like water almost...
I can get one calf to suck her out,others aint interested yet. I have been stripping them out a bit.I asked vet what i could do,he gave me a Anitbiotic and 4 doses of Oxytocin to give her 20 mins before i put calves on her to help let milk down ...
He never suggested the thing you put into their teats to help clear it up....

Any suggestions please :?:
 
Well, sounds like you're not getting much help from the vet department and the cow's not worth a whole lot to begin with, so I'll just give you a couple quick thoughts and try not to suggest you spend more money than the cow's worth.

Oxytocin - it causes milk letdown within a minute or two. 20 minutes is too long. Give her the oxytocin and then start putting calves on.

Antibiotics - intramammary infusions would be best, try Cefalak/Today (can purchase over the counter at a vet clinic or ranch supply store) or Pirsue (prescription only, will have to get it from a vet). Every 12 hours until milk is completely normal.

She does need to be completely milked out twice a day. After the calves are done, get yourself a bucket or just milk her onto the ground. You'll probably need ibuprofen after you're done because you'll be doing it again in 12 hours.

Might save her, might not... if all four quarters have problems and she has a poor udder you might be money ahead to put her down now, but that's hard to say without seeing her. Might turn out with a decent cow in the end too.

Best of luck-
 
Thanks Milkmaid, i am still doing a search of the net but as i am in Australia i cant seem to find much to treat her with,just waiting on another vet to ring back..

She raised some nice foster calves before she calved herself. Yes ,her bag isn't great! And she was worth a bit when they bought her,but as they let her get in the state she is,she isn't now but i would like to try to save her ,even if i only get one more calf from her! She is up and eating,seems better today than yesterday.
So why does her other 3 quarters have stuff that looks almost like water? Whats that??
 
Ah, ok. The Australia part might have helped in the first post.

You're looking for antibiotics called pirlimycin (Pirsue) or cephapirin (Cefalak/Today), or other types like ceftiofur, penicillin, amoxicillin... I'm sure you have to have some of those over there.

Treat all four quarters. The ones with watery liquid may actually be worse off than the one with thick clumpy liquid.
 
Sorry MM, :oops:

Ok just spoke to other vet,he did say the name but i can't prounounce it so will go on this arvo to pick it up. Treats all 4 teats so hopefully it works...
:D
 
I guess you have similar drugs/protocols to NZ.
Masticillin, mamyzin, tylan and engemycin are all injectibles, all prescription-only, that I've used. In my opinion tylan is a waste of time (though some vets like it). Masticillin would be my first-choice for a multi-quarter strep uberis.
Sometimes an additional intra-mammary can help serious cases; sad news is this one sounds too far gone.

If the watery milk is scant and brownish and the cow is sick she's not likely to recover anything of those quarters, is my experience. But 'watery milk' that is thin and white sounds more like self-cured mastitis (and if you can milk it out easily that's almost certainly what it is). I've never seen quarters like that return to normal milk, though for all I know it might be nutritious enough for a calf. Yellow watery with a few specks - the infection is still raging and there's a chance of curing it with the antibiotics.

As said - 20 mins is way too long to wait after giving oxytocin. 1 - 2 minutes, then put calves on or milk her.

Pretty much all these antibiotics have a month meat withholding - if she doesn't come right and is dried off she should have some meat value in six weeks or so.
 

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