Day 5 already

After another scare about Bessie's health yesterday, I'm officially frazzled.  (Yes, I was frazzled before, but now I'm declaring it official) 

As a huge storm was blowing in with black skies and sheets of rain (which sent Ruby and Charming stampeding in the wrong direction as they frantically sought shelter), Jeff and I observed Bessie and her calf and the unexpected "third party":  her udder.

I've seen photos of cows who can hardly walk because their udders get so swollen and grotesquely out of proportion before they give birth.  Bessie doesn't get that insanely swollen.  But yesterday, she was mooing softly to little Junior, nudging him and trying to get him to nurse, all 4 teats streaming milk out onto the ground, and one quarter in particular looking huge and bulgy and maybe even feverish.  (Tutorial refresher, for those who haven't insanely immersed themselves in this dairy-farming attempt:  Cows have one udder, made up of 4 "quarters", each a separate milk-making section)

I had milked a gallon of gorgeous white milk from her that morning, and that particular quarter was very full then, and didn't give up all of the milk that was held back inside of it.  I can usually tell as I milk her if something is going on inside.  The milk might still squirt out, but there's a different feel when the teat duct is inflamed or when clumpy stuff is making it's way through the teat from the quarter.  That one section felt wrong as the milk flowed out, which left me thinking that we might need to pay closer attention throughout the day.

Sure enough, there was a problem.  After seeing her poor udder so swollen, I took a bucket out to milk her once more after the storm petered out a bit.  The other 3 quarters of her udder gave milk freely, but the huge quarter gave just a little milk, then plugged up.  Gave a little more, then stopped flowing.  Gave a trickle, then nothing.  Bringing that milk back inside the house, it should flow cleanly through the filter and into a half-gallon jar.  I had to change the filter twice, because of all the stringy "bits" of infection that were in that milk.

 

Mastitis is a big deal if you have a milk cow.  It is an infection inside the udder, sometimes isolated in one or a couple of quarters.  It can spread to the other quarters by way of the tiny hole where the milk streams out, and can appear as stringy bits and clumps in the milk.  The infection can lay low and not appear in any visible way.  There are tests to determine if a cow has a high rate of infection in her milk, but some of the types of mastitis don't even show up in those.  

This is a cow with a history of mastitis.  It would probably not have been profitable for the dairy farmer to keep her much longer.  As a family milk cow, it's OK because her milk production doesn't have to be top-notch.  But we do need to be watching for flare-ups.  

Bessie has one back quarter that is permanently scarred and misshapen from a bout with mastitis.  At the dairy, the farmer told us that when she got mastitis, they used her to provide milk to the new calves (they can't sell their milk if the "somatic cell count" in the bulk tank is too high, and a cow with active mastitis will significantly raise that cell count, as I understand it.  There's an acceptable level, and the promise of future pasteurization is supposed to kill anything unhealthy that might still be in the milk that ends up at the store.....)  Bessie must have routinely been working through infections in her udder for Farmer Bob to expect to pull her from the usual milking line and use her milk separately for the calves.

The vet has prescribed medicine for Bessie to treat mastitis twice now, once in the first few months after we got her and once when she stopped giving milk 3 months ago. 

Anyway, there are many types of organisms that can cause mastitis, maybe 16 different infectious critters that can cause it.  There is one type of mastitis that can masquerade as milk fever, from what I was reading.  (Remember, the vet came out in the middle of the night to treat her for milk fever).  And it's the type that can kill a cow (or, just as easily, the cow can recover).  It's all very scary if you let your mind go crazy with the possible scenarios of cows dying on your watch.  

Now that I've read the symptoms, I'm quite sure I felt sorry for a cow who had this type of mastitis.  I passed her muddy cow-pen daily for a few weeks.  She stood with head hung down, droopy ears, hunched up back, and no calf.  I finally saw a calf with her (I think the beef farmer must have put another cow's calf with her), the calf was drinking from her, and after that I didn't see either of them again.  Maybe she pulled out of it and was put back with the herd.  

Anyway, back to Bessie.  I called the vet when I was on my way to Farm and Fleet for some over-the-counter mastitis medication.  The lovely stuff that you put up her teat with a syringe.  He told me a few more things to look out for and suggested that if I hadn't seen the baby nursing all day, to try to milk out of the normal-looking parts of Bessie's udder and give the little guy a bottle.  He said that, if Bessie's milk from the infected quarter started looking clear instead of white, I needed to call him to come out.  (My own mental note, based on what I was reading before: Clear "serum" instead of white milk would mean that she was fighting the type of mastitis that could kill her.)

I milked Bessie, kept the clotty milk separate, administered the "intramammary" medication, struggled to get a little of that good milk into the baby's mouth (not much luck), made sure mama and calf were settled down after the big to-do......  Bessie had been righteously indignant that I would tie her in the stanchion, pen her baby in the stall, force a bottle into his mouth, FORCE him to do anything besides scamper to her side when she bellowed out to thim.  She perked right up when she thought her baby was in danger--a good sign.

Jeff had heated up dinner, and then we settled into the living room to watch a DVD.  I fell asleep on the couch.

Before dragging my tired body off to bed, I trudged out to the barn once more.  It wasn't much past 9:00, but it felt like midnight, tired as I was.  

Bessie seemed to be fine, although her distended udder was bulging out from beneath her where she was resting.  Her ears were warm (cold ears are a sign of sickness, I've come to find out) and baby's mouth was warm inside (a cold mouth might mean he hadn't nursed and was starving).  All the things I'm learning; it's really kind of amazing when I have the chance to think about it!  Baby seemed satisfied and cozy in his little nest-corner (he's chosen a favorite spot where he settles in).  

Then I could sleep, knowing that Bess wasn't stretched out on her side and near deaths' door....Warm ears for Bessie, warm mouth for Junior, warm bed for me.

This morning, all is fine.  The quarter is still hard and full, still not giving much milk, but definitely better than yesterday.  I put more medicine into it.  Baby started nursing after scampering around a bit.  Bessie did her over-protective Mom thing.  It's like watching an overly confident little toddler boy dashing full-speed around the playground, his mother being left behind and even downright ignored but doing her best to remind him "Don't go so far!  You're climbing too high!!  Be careful, sweetie.  Hey, those big boys are too big for you to play with!  Why can't you just.....hold....mommy's.....hand?  Sob!"

All of that to say, things look good today.  The baby is a little spit-fire, a "pistol" as a friend used to say about her little son.  Bessie is on her feet, for which I can be immensely thankful.  

I have a new-found admiration of dairy-farmers, and all that they do to care for more than just one cow, and many calves on a yearly basis, and not getting enough sleep, making sure the cows all have the right mineral and salt rations for their stage of life,  keeping their dairies clean and operating and not giving in to exhaustion but continuing to care for all of those cows day-in and day-out.  There is so much that I don't know, and so many things that a wise dairy farmer could teach us.

And...The vet is nothing short of amazing, having come out after midnight one night already this past week, and answered my panicky questions on a Sunday afternoon.  I have probably hundreds more questions to ask him, but those will need to wait for a time when he's actually supposed to be on duty.

Here on our little micro-mini-dairy, we're still waiting for a taste of milk, as the medicine works it's way out of Bessie's system and as we wait to see if any more cow-emergencies are in the forecast..... Sigh!  (I cheated, and took a scoop of the considerable amount of cream from yesterday's pre-medicated milk for my morning coffee.  Yummmmm..)

One bright note:  The calf might be the thing that finally gets Jeremy interested in 4-H.  I asked him about whether he'd like to show the calf at the fair next year, and then the money from selling it at the 4-H auction could be his for a college fund.  There are a couple of options out there for a nice-looking little steer-calf, and a friend who has already asked if she could raise him for beef, but if Jeremy wants to groom him for the county fair, that gets first priority, I think.  Could be a fun new chapter for all of us! 

I just need a nap, first.

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/