Mastitis stringy milk?

Dec 1, 2020
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Western Washington
Hello everyone. I recently got a Jersey cow! She had her first calf mid April. We got her home a few days ago and she was having issues with one teat. The teat HAD a cut on it so we expected she was still a bit nervous with it. We hand milked 3/4 teats and a bit out of the sore one but she was just to "kicky". P.S. she had never been hand milked, only machine. We were still planning on getting a machine but really wanted to get her used to hand milking. She really started to do better with it though. We kept trying and trying on that one teat. Anyways, it was inflamed for about a day before our friend was able to sell us a machine. He is much more experienced with dairy cows and was able to work the one teat far better than us. Anyways, she is doing great now, all 4 teats are getting 100% milked out. She is showing no outward signs of mastitis. All four quarters are loose and not hard after milking. She is okay with me hand milking on the sensitive teat now (before the machine and afterward to start her and to make sure she's empty). Also, she does not have e-coli. Is it normal for there to be a few strings in the milk after some mild inflammation? Very few but just wanted to check as Im new to this.
 
The strings may or may not mean anything. Does the milk taste OK? If it is salty, that does mean mastitis. If I were you, I would get a sterile vial from the vet, collect a sterile sample of the milk from the affected teat and have a culture run.
 
We used to use the California mastitis test. I didn't know until now that it had that official name. It's just a paddle with 4 shallow cups, and a purple solution used to test for the start of mastitis. Otherwise getting a sample tested is also a good idea.
 
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