New to milking and I think my Jersey has mastitis

[Newgirl1]

Sunday morning I went out to milk and notice my Jersey (Jackie) must have gotten stuck in a fence cause one of her front teats was badly cut. I tried to touch it and she kicked causing the cut to split the rest of the way open and the milk spilled out. We had the vet come out and stitch her up about an hour after that. Since then I have been using one of the needle/tube deals he left me to drain her out. Everything seemed fine and I was getting just about as much out of that quarter as I usually do until last night (Wednesday). When I put the tube in nothing came out so I pulled it out to try again and white cottage cheese looking stuff (from reading I gather this is mastitis?) I was able to pull a bit more of this out of the teat then she milked out for me and I got just a little less than normal. This morning when I milked the were no chunks, no swelling, no redness, and that quarter was not hot, but I only got about half what I normally get. The cut looks to be healing nicely, no sign of infection on the outside, bad smells, etc. any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks

 

[chooks4life]

Hello and

Sounds fine to me. While she's repairing the quarter you are likely to get less milk from it. Our house cow (Fresian) had her udder stood on, split, milked pink milk for a few days but never needed vet care. I think it sounds like yours is on the mend.

Best wishes.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

It's possible she might have a little infection in there, but if the milk doesn't look "cheesy" and the udder is not hot or swollen, it could just be some discharge draining as the udder heals.

I would continue milking what you can from that quarter and monitor the quality of the milk (squirt it on something solid to see consistency). If it looks cheesy, you may have to have the vet out again. For now, I would just avoid drinking any milk from that quarter.

A few of the cows at the dairy barn here at school get mastitis in one quarter, and they are fine in the other quarters. However, once they get mastitis, they need to be treated with drugs and we milk them out into separate buckets and throw away the milk. We also have a few cows that just dry up in one quarter but the others are still fine and we milk them like all the other cows.

 

[Newgirl1]

Thanks all!!!