Here we go Vet wannabe's

[bird dog]

I have a 550 lb heifer in my pre-condition program that has been a poor do'er from day one. Not one from my herd but part of a group I bought back in the spring. Anyway I found her yesterday evening about dark sitting off by herself. Got her up and she moved toward the herd but very slowly. I noticed she looked like she was bagging.

So I got to calculating and can see no way she could be bred as she was only about 300 lbs when I got her eight months ago. Not impossible but doubtful.

I had a busy day but checked on her this morning about day light. She was still moving slow and I noticed she had a cough and some nasal discharge. I assumed some sort of BRD. This afternoon I got her up to a pen that had a headgate and gave her a antibiotic, Bannamine and some vitamins. I wish I would have taken her temp. but didn't. While in the headgate I reached down to squeeze a teat to see if milk would come out. The teat was very hard as was her whole udder Her bag was about the size of a half a cantaloupe and about that hard. So what is going on to cause her udder and teats to be like this? Would some sort of infection cause this?

Thanks for any ideas.

 

[kenny thomas]

Is it possible it could be mastitis?

 

[Silver]

I'm gonna go with mycoplasma mastitis. Has a scholarly ring to it.
Hope you get it beat.

 

[wbvs58]

I think I would still feel for a calf just to be certain as something has to have caused udder development.

Ken

 

[Lucky_P]

'Summer mastitis'.
Caused by bacterial infection - usually Trueperella pyogenes bacteria - introduced by horn flies biting teat ends and introducing the bacteria into the teat canal.

 

[timwil94]

See your veterinarian as soon as possible. If you put it off, who knows how the disease will turn out. We are responsible for our animals. Therefore, you need a specialist to establish what kind of disease it is. The veterinarian will prescribe the necessary drugs. It's better than guessing what it is and giving an antibiotic at random.

 

[Nesikep]

I had a calf get mastitis, no doubt from the horn flies biting.. she never showed she was down or anything, but one quarter was really badly swollen.. she was about 3 months old or so.. I gave her a shot of draxxin and she was fine, though I don't think she'd ever make milk in that quarter now

 

[bird dog]

'Summer mastitis'.
Caused by bacterial infection - usually Trueperella pyogenes bacteria - introduced by horn flies biting teat ends and introducing the bacteria into the teat canal.

Thanks Mr. Lucky. Is there a preferred treatment?

 

[Lucky_P]

Recommended treatment usually involves stripping out as much pus as you can from affected quarters and infusing with a commercial intramammary antibiotic preparation. I usually used a 'dry cow' formulation on affected heifers, if more than 30 days prior to calving.
This bacterium is resistant to most common antibiotics; not sure injectibles are gonna do much for her. In all likelihood, affected quarters are going to end up being 'blind', or will at least have greatly diminished production, if you were to keep her as a cow.

 

[Buck Randall]

I'll second Silver's diagnosis. Mycoplasma is famous for causing pneumonia/joint ill/ear infections/mastitis. It's very difficult to treat, and cows infect their calves through the milk. Try getting a sample from the udder for the vet to test for mycoplasma. If it's positive, she's a cull and her dam becomes a suspect.

 

[bird dog]

I'll second Silver's diagnosis. Mycoplasma is famous for causing pneumonia/joint ill/ear infections/mastitis. It's very difficult to treat, and cows infect their calves through the milk. Try getting a sample from the udder for the vet to test for mycoplasma. If it's positive, she's a cull and her dam becomes a suspect.

She was never intended to remain in the herd, just a stocker heifer I bought as part of a group in the spring to run through the growing season to go with my calves to give me larger loads to sell. All of the others in the group except her and one other performed as expected and have left the farm. As mentioned she has been a poor do'er. She never shed her hair off completely this summer. Now that fall has arrived her coat actually looks pretty good.

Since I had her up by the pens yesterday and this is something I have not seen before, I loaded her up to see what the local vet would say. She tried to drain the udder but only could get a few chunks of pus out of three of the teats. She thinks the heifer has other disorders and would require expensive tests and treatments to fix and since the heifer is has very little value and been such a poor performer, cutting my losses would be the best step going forward. I tend to agree. The heifer had a temp of 104.7 at the vet.

Incidentally she was more active yesterday and looked better so maybe the antibiotic that I gave her is at least making her feel better.