Posted by GoatWorld on January 09, 2001 at 22:54:07:
In Reply to: Re: "Today" posted by Cathy on January 09, 2001 at 19:58:54:
Hello Cathy,
One of our does recently had mastitis sort of as you described. The milk was very chunky and a darkened color. Unfortunately at the time I discovered this a few weeks ago, we were snowbound and could not get out to the store for one of the ToDay kits.
What I did was start with a treatment program of 1 cc of Gentamycin and 3 cc's of Penicillin G (300K IU) and then every 12 hours for 5 consecutive days, alternate meds:
1st dose: 1 cc Gentamycin & 3 cc's of Penicillin.
2nd: 3 cc's of Penicillin
3rd: 1 cc of Gentamycin
4th: 3 cc's of Penicillin
and so on. This was all given subq.
I also milked out the infected teat as best as I could every 12 hours. Within the first few days, the milk started to lighten and the chunky milk disappeared. At first, the chunks were reluctant to come out but carefully massaging them in the udder seemed to break them up just enough to come out the orifice in the teat. They had the consistency of a very thick motor oil.
I had to really work the teat to get the milk to come out at first - it was plugged as you described; but after gently kneading it with my fingers for a few minutes, it seemed to loosen up the end just enough to get the flow started. You may have a large chunk right at the tip not allowing anything to come through.
Even after the first few days of this treatment, I still considered using the ToDay kit as this doe was set to kid at any moment. Even though I did get the kit, I found that I did not have to use it as the milk did clear up very well.
A few people told me that if the doe kidded during this process, to take off the infected teat so the new kid would not get any of the infected milk. Another person told me that the kid would not drink the infected milk. Taping is probably the better of the two ideas.
Vicki is right about drawing up some milk in the refrigerator just in case you need to find out what kind of mastitis you are dealing with. Hopefully you can get this doe straightened out and she'll be doing okay soon. Please keep us posted.
Best regards,
Gary Pfalzbot