Mastitis...UGH!

Latestarter

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man, if I were closer you wouldn't even have to PAY me! I'd be there in a heart beat! Well, when I wasn't taking care of my own animals anyway... When I was at @Southern by choice 's place to pick up Mel, she had little kids floating around and I would have loved to just get down on the ground with them and let them bounce all over and around me. :love Would have been/has to be right up there with puppies :love
 

Goatgirl47

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Thanks @Latestarter. I feel pretty useless out there right now and the hours I am spending with her is keeping me pretty busy; not that I'm not already. I have 18 kids to socialize so I can sell them and I am not spending any time with them. I need to hire them a playmate person.

I would love that job . :drool And as @Latestarter said, you wouldn't have to pay me, it would be an honor. :D But of course I'm way too far away.
 

babsbag

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Tonight I got nothing out of her udder at all and I am pretty sure that it is Gangrene mastitis, also known as Blue Bag and the real name is Staphylococcus aureus. There is a definite line of demarcation forming on her udder and she is MISERABLE when I touch it. My head tells me to put her down, no place for this in a dairy herd. My heart tells me to try and treat her. She doesn't act sick, no fever. She is off her feed a little but not completely and she does drink water. But I just don't know if keeping her is smart. This isn't contagious per say, but it can infect the environment. Fortunately she is in a kidding pen in the old barn and the pen she was in in the new barn is empty for now until I clean it out. This is an environmental bacteria so I will be fencing off the old barn area this week just to be cautious. The goats still go there during the day to hang out, it has been home for 7 years.

Tomorrow morning I am getting a penicillin based infusion for her, hopefully it will work better. I just don't know if I have it in my to go through this process. She will lose half of her udder, it is going to be really gross and very labor intensive. I am torn.
 

babsbag

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My doe acts fine but.... Hopefully I will get the lab results today. I switched her to Amoxi-mast infusions for the weekend but I know that half of the udder is lost. I haven't totally decided what to do. It will be a huge time commitment to see her through this and the rotten part about raising goats for a commercial venture is that I should go with my head and cull her. I am still building the dairy and believe me, that takes about all of the time I have. But she is such a fighter and she has been so good through this that I have a hard time giving up. If she survives this I know she will still be good milker even with 1/2 an udder. She could also go on to be a family milker with 1/2 an udder. She is an amazing mama too.
 
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