Call the vet now or wait till Monday?

[newbiekat]

I was gone Friday and Saturday. Had a friend milk for us yesterday. She reported everything as nomal. I go out to milk this morning and find one of my girls has cut open her teat. I thought it was just the tip, but as I investigated more found it was the entire front side of one teat. I've never had to deal with this before. She poured milk out of that side so I didnt even need to milk her out (couldn't milk her out even if I wanted to), but I did milk the other side out...

Is this bad enough to call the vet now and get them out on a sunday, or can this wait till tomorrow?

 

[Goat Whisperer]

I would at least try to get in touch with your vet today. Poor girl, that looks awful For now I would keep her in a clean stall with several fans to prevent flys. I would spray it with lots of Fight Bac pretty often until the vet will come out.

Sorry you (and the doe) are dealing with this

 

[newbiekat]

That's what I was thinking. I figure it will need stitches too. I'll call my vet. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Latestarter]

That will almost def need stitches in order to heal correctly How did she manage to do that? Any idea? Maybe hang it on something sharp while jumping up on or over something? Hope your vet can make the farm call.

 

[OneFineAcre]

If it will need stitches you should call vet now

 

[alsea1]

I would not wait. This needs to be properly cleaned and she needs medication asap.
The longer you wait the more expensive and time consuming this wound will be to fix.

 

[newbiekat]

Called the vet and brought Petunia in for an emergency visit. She did need stitches. The vet gave her some mild anesthetic then we flipped Petunia on her side while the vet gave her some lidocaine in the teat. She cleaned it and stitched it up and gave some banamine and Nexcel (?) antibiotic. Said come back in 10 days to take stitches out. From what it looked like, she took a pretty good chunk of her teat and the vet thinks part of her teat canal was taken too. So her concern is whether the scar tissue from the stitches will block the teat canal. So when we come back in 10 days she wants to put something up the teat to make sure it is still open. But for now we are going to dry her up

All is well. She is doing good. We have moved her and a few of her buddies to a separate area with dry bedding, so hopefully she will heal just fine. Sucks too cuz she's one of my better milkers! And this year we only had 3 in milk so we are gonna be behind on all of our milk and cheese orders! ughhh! Oh well... Nothing I can do about it

Not sure how she did it though.

 

[Latestarter]

Wow... sorry, but at least she'll heal up and no infection! Here's hoping the canal will be OK and she'll be as good as new. Kinda surprised the vet didn't put a "drain" in to keep the canal open/protect it from scar tissue... I'm not a vet, so don't even know if that's feasible... Glad you took her in.

Just curious... Why can't you keep her milking on the good side? I know she's on anti biotics, so you can't use the milk, but it would keep her lactating... I would expect she'd be all healed up and off them in 2-3 weeks...

 

[Hens and Roos]

that everything heals well

 

[norseofcourse]

Glad the vet was able to get her fixed up - best thoughts for a quick, uncomplicated recovery.