*graphic picture warning*

[newton the goat]

The poster hasn't been on for some time, but if I remember correctly she ended up rehoming the doe to a pet home. Her udder did heal up nicely though.

I just love the outcome of this story! Having gone through this before, and ended up having to put our girl down, this makes me so happy to see this doepulled through.

Unfortunately our girl couldn't keep the raging fever down, even with all the meds. She was suffering so we did what we had to.
Some, like Bluemoons doe, cope fine and can go on to live a good life. I was very happy to help walk Bluemoon through this! It just warms my heart that she pulled through!

I'm sorry to hear that your doe didn't make it. It's sad that sometimes they aren't strong enough after fighting through that and it always leaves sad people behind.... I hope you won't have to go through that again...

 

[babsbag]

I had a doe that went through this last year. She is one of the fortunate ones that is alive and well with half an udder. She responded well to the antibiotics and raised her doeling quite easily. She was very sick for a few days but in the end came through with flying colors. I did not have to do all the treatments that Bluemoon did, I simply kept the flies off of it with spray and let it heal and slough off on its own. It was disgusting to say the least, but I did not take pictures or document her journey. The doe is due to kid in about 2 months. Watch her have triplets with one teat for them to share. LOL

 

[newton the goat]

I had a doe that went through this last year. She is one of the fortunate ones that is alive and well with half an udder. She responded well to the antibiotics and raised her doeling quite easily. She was very sick for a few days but in the end came through with flying colors. I did not have to do all the treatments that Bluemoon did, I simply kept the flies off of it with spray and let it heal and slough off on its own. It was disgusting to say the least, but I did not take pictures or document her journey. The doe is due to kid in about 2 months. Watch her have triplets with one teat for them to share. LOL

Sounds entertaining to watch. Lol! I'm glad she survived... I've read a few posts of the less fortunate ones and it breaks my heart seeing the owners go through it with them...

 

[farmerjan]

The type of mastitis that the doe had that the half sloughed off, was probably gangarene mastitis. It happens in dairy cattle sometimes; often only affecting 1 quarter but once in awhile will affect one side. Don't know if there is one specific bacteria that causes it but often there is coliform involved. It does take time to slough off, is really gross, but if you can keep the infection from getting into the bloodstream, they often recover. There is also one called klebsiella, that they get suddenly, udder goes from regular milk to next to no milk, and what there is is like water, in 12 hours, cow will sometimes run a high fever and the udder will look like a dry cow and be cold...can kill them in less than 24 hours. Coliform mastitis will often cause them to get a hot hard quarter, watery milky stuff and swollen.
Klebsiella has been traced to using sawdust from oak trees that have been drug through damp earth catching in the bark etc. The cure for that is taking "green sawdust" ( not dried like you buy at the store in compressed bales) and covering it to "heat it" ( like composting it) and it will kill the organism. E- Coli is environmental and they can pick it up from a wet pasture after a rain, just from laying in wet grass especially if the weather has gotten warmer. Causes an "explosion" of the e-coli bacteria. Staph and strep are usually not as sudden and do not normally cause the quarter or half of the udder to slough off like that. There are many animals that are actually high somatic cell count carriers and you will have to culture it to find out which one. Staph aureus is nearly impossible to cure and the animal will usually have a high cell count for life. Strep is a little more curable, but there are many that are chronic for life.

 

[babsbag]

I had my doe cultured and she did indeed have Staphylococcus aureus. She freshened in a brand new barn, on brand new hay. The pen had never been used before for anything. Just goes to show that Staph is everywhere.

I never really thought about SCC and her having Staph. I am months away from that right now but it is something to think about.

 

[farmerjan]

Sorry about the staph problem; it is a chronic problem with some dairy cows and when they get it, seldom do they ever get cured. It will be subclinical, then flare up. Sometimes it can be cured if a really aggressive antibiotic course is followed but I haven't heard of alot of success. When I milk test and the farmer gets back a "hot sheet" of his high cell count cows, they often will take a sample of that cow to the state lab to get it cultured to see what it is and what will work. We don't do culturing for specific types of somatic cell causes...

 

[Goat Whisperer]

Yes, it is a gangrene mastitis. Our vet calls it Bluebag.

The culture on our was e-coli.

It was terrible, our poor doe just wasn't going to make it. Didn't matter how much drugs we gave. She was suffering, only reason she would move was to try and feed her kids. The life was no longer in her eyes and she was going to die. In our case, I know I did the right thing.

 

[farmerjan]

So sorry for the goat suffering and yes you did the right thing for her. It's always an individual situation and sometimes you have to make a call. We just put down a cow that had gotten thin, started limping, then wouldn't get up and was eating some if we took it to her, then started laying over on her side and couldn't roll herself back up and after 2 days of rolling her up and propping her, she would get out flat again and we just decided that there was no reason to prolong her suffering. She quit trying and that was the end of it. You do what you have to do. With us it is a business so that loss hurts the bottom line as well as makes us feel bad.

 

[newton the goat]

Damn.... I never actually realized how often something like this actually happens.... I haven't heard about it much before getting animals.... or even joining this site....

 

[babsbag]

@farmerjan I am hoping that since the half of the udder that was diseased is now gone that the staph went with it. We will see. She is due to kid 4/8 and beginning to look pretty large already.