# Severe Mastitis



## legacyvalley (Feb 13, 2010)

A 3rd time freshener freshened Monday with a single buck. 
Wednesday she was weak, not eating or drinking. One udder was hard and milking thin yellow liquid. She was given treatments of CMPK, propolyne glycol, and a dose of penicillin. 

Thursday she was still not eating or drinking, given injections of CMPK, thiamin, and changed the antibiotic to excenel, dose a Today. Massaged with peppermint lotion.

Friday she was eating, drinking, given excenel but still had a rock hard udder that was blood red, two doses of Today, rumin sounds heard. 
Massaged with pepermint lotion.

Saturday took her to the vet. He infused her with quartermaster, and tried to milk her out, injected her with gent/banamine, and gave me Tribrissen to give her. 

Today she is eating and drinking, udder is still hard and large, not too hot but will not milk out but a few drops of blood. Her teat is dry and cracked now from the vet. 

Would you use the Tribrissen? What else can I do? Would Dex help her?


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## prairie nights (Jan 16, 2009)

Stacey, 

I am not the best help but noticed your post got 27 hits and no response yet. With mastitis you want to get the milk out no matter what. Try hot compress on the udder and try milking it out every so many hours, just to get the milk out. This is very painful and it may be hard on the doe to let down the milk but you need to do everything possible to milk her. The warm compress will relax the udder some. 

Also, is this possibly a CAE positive animal? Has she been tested??

Jana


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Lubricate the teat with something antibacterial but emollient.
You will need to milk her about every 2 hours and this will irritate further. You have got to keep fluids moving out of the udder or the tissue will go necrotic and you will have a real mess. If you want to save the udder you will have to work it until it is soft and flowing again. 
Once the udder is rock hard with blood you have scar tissue forming so be sure to use banamine to reduce inflammation -reduce scarring and ease the pain of repeated working of the udder. Don't just milk- really massage - get help if your hands get tired. You have to break up the dead tissue and milk it out. The bleeding indicates there will be a lot of debris to bring out.
It is excellent she is eating and drinking. 
Not sure quartermaster is the right choice it is a dry cow treatment. You should always take a clean sample so you can type the infective agent and target with appropriate protocol. Sounds like you are doing all you can. Just don't give up!


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## legacyvalley (Feb 13, 2010)

She is CAE negative...I have kept up the massaging but without much luck. I have the teat lubricated. It is very small and difficult to milk. We are three years new to goats and were going to start milking the does as they freshen. With Dex being a steroid, would that help her? I was going to try another vet tomorrow. We are not blessed with vets with goat experience here. I was really surprised she was even alive after Wednesday night so we have come a long way.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Do you bolus? Can you get some Mineral Max? Her immune function would be boosted by the mineral combo in that. 1 cc per adult animal. Maybe you know a cattle farmer who could give you a dose? Get some vitamin C down her too- chewable kids type is easiest to get but if you are a cheese maker and have citric acid granules in bulk just sprinkle a tsp on her feed. Any source is great- citrus peels or tabs crushed. If you have any wheat germ oil add a couple of tablespoons to her food for vit e boost.

I have not used Dex so you will have to wait for someone with more mastitis experience to come on to help with that question. In an extreme case you could get an cannula and expand the teat so it just drains. Ask the vet about this option. It takes some patience and experience to insert properly. Perhaps PM Jennifer at nightskyfarm or pm Vicki. Best luck.


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## Cotton Eyed Does (Oct 26, 2007)

Yes PM Vicki asap or better yet call her. Her udder will go gangreen if it isn't treated inside with high powered antibiotics and she can die from it quickly. Vicki will know the "recipe".


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## legacyvalley (Feb 13, 2010)

We do bolus...this doe was purchased bred just recently so I have not bolused her. I'll look for mineral max. It isn't something I have.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Also I think Janie at KJFarms and Camille at Wheytogosannens can help you if you can't get Vicki but really you are doing great. The Mineral Max will be RX so you will have to find a vet that works on cattle or a cattle farmer. Most goat people don't use it because they bolus and put out loose mins but I keep it for boosting immunity during stress.


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## nightskyfarm (Sep 7, 2009)

I sent you a message Stacey.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I am back if you need more help. Biggy is with a single, make sure you milk the doe out along with what little a single will eat. If the udder struts full of milk, it leaks out of the orifice which makes it ripe to catch any bacteria on the barn floor (because she is laying down with the pressure of her body streams the milk out) which comes back up when the stream stops.

Sounds as if you should continue the gentemycin and dex. Dex is a wonderful steroid, and a steroid is what gets inflammation down. Most vets won't give you dex and banamine being both NASID's but my vet uses them together and they work wonderful. I also only use dry cow infusions (hey did you see my vet  

Giving banamine about 20 minutes before milking sessions helps also.

Sometimes no matter what you do you will not get the milk flowing, but don't quit on your antibiotics daily and infusions 3 times 12 hours apart, until you have no heat and the doe is walking around 100% so you know the infection is gone. Always always pull fluid from the udder half and find out what this is. You don't want a doe walling of ecoli or one of the other horrible mastitis that her first heat or delivery will aggrevate the mastitis and she will blow out the mastitis that you thought was gone out the side of her udder. Bacteria will do anything it can to infect your place, so it can grow in another udder.

If you do not get milk flowing, make sure you do one last dry cow on her, in fact since she has already be given genemycin get 2cc and pulling out a small amount of the dry cow infusion, put 2cc into the infusion and shake, put this up her teat and leave her be....100 days bred I would reinfuse her with Pirsue if you can get just a tube of it. V


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## legacyvalley (Feb 13, 2010)

Thank you! The vet just gave her one shot of gent and didn't give me any more. I was using the excenel and still am.. She has had 4 doses now this will be 5 today. The vet gave me a sulfa drug...Tribissen. He says it stays in the udder longer? And he didn't give me any of the Quartermaster. I am using Today. Would you use the sulfa? The excenel really has made her go from death to standing and eating. 

I so appreciate everyones help.


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## Goat Town (Nov 20, 2010)

You have been given good advice regarding treatment for mastitis. I might recommend an additional antibiotic, Baytril. In the past I have treated cases of mastitis with Baytril, Banamine, and Pen-G. In 2009 I had a doe contract blue bag or gangrene mastitis. I saved her life with the above combination of drugs and a lot of udder massage. She lost the right half of her udder, but has gone on to kid again and I milked her all season.

Gangrene mastitis is the worst type a doe can have. The infected half will literally fall off. It isn't pleasant for the doe or for her care givers. Let's hope she doesn't progress to it.


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## Cotton Eyed Does (Oct 26, 2007)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> genemycin get 2cc and pulling out a small amount of the dry cow infusion, put 2cc into the infusion and shake, put this up her teat and leave her be....100 days bred I would reinfuse her with Pirsue if you can get just a tube of it. V


 This is what I was thinking she needs to do, but couldn't remember the amount of gent. to put in the infusion.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Welcome to the forum Nicole.
Not all mastitis progresses to gangrene. There are many different bacterial strains that cause different sets of symptoms. You will most likely get gangrenous tissues when staph aureus is present but one forum member had bacillus cereus isolated from her culture. There is also clostridial mastitis which can be avoided with vaccination combos. 

This is why it is so important to get your clean sample and get it cultured to know what you are fighting-they do not all succumb to the same protocol. 

Immune function is key in all of the mastitis types. Keeping mineral levels constant and boosting under stress will help prevent any weakening of immunity. Keep us updated on your progress Stacey. Can you add twig bark- branch clippings to her diet. The bark of twigs and particularly now with dormant buds set on the branches is super high in minerals that are readily digested.


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## [email protected] (Sep 18, 2008)

I had a doe this spring with severe edema and mastitis. Off the top of my head (can't remember doses) she got:

Dex-for swelling
Oxytocin-to induce milk let down
Pirsue udder infusion
Excenel
Banamine for pain

Within 3 or 4 days the swelling was down and she was milking easier. Cleared up within a week.

Had started to use an udder lotion made specifically for edema/massage and was advised against it or at least not to get it anywhere near the orafice on the teat as it could introduce and/or seal bacteria into the udder.


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## legacyvalley (Feb 13, 2010)

Denise this is similar to what we are doing. Did the doe lose her udder?
Has she kidded again since that time?


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## [email protected] (Sep 18, 2008)

Did not lose her udder. It was lopsided as the mastitis was only in the one side. She is my biggest milker and was milking 3-4 lbs out of her good side and only about one lb out of the bad side each milking. She's bred and due to kid in March, so we'll see then if her udder comes back to normal or not.

I should mention that I had two does freshen with adema (only the one got mastitis) and figured out that I was feeding too much protein before kidding. All three of my senior does either kidded with HUGE kids or edema. I cut back the FF protein in their grain (they kidded two months after the sr does) and all was fine and normal.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Good call Denise !


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

My vet has your worm and use a sulfa (trisulfas are of little value to ruminants they are dog and cat scipts) anytime a doe is seen, because worms and cocci and bacterial pnemonia are so opportunistic in a sick animal. It's won't hurt to give it to her, but I would rather fecal and if she does get congested (which she won't with the excennel) Excennel/Naxcel are our best upper respiratory drugs, and Naxcel is the mastitis antibiotic you want to use. 

The problem with picking Baytril right now is that we have no idea if we are looking at edema or mastitis and what kind, and Baytril is only Gram positive, where excennel/naxcel are both gram negative and positive so it's a better guess.

Glad you are chiming in Nicole! Welcome. Now with a diagnosis of melignant edema that came to you via staph aureous, do you vaccinate with lysigin? Vicki


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## Goat Town (Nov 20, 2010)

Thank You all for the warm welcome to the forum.

Since I experienced the case of gangrene mastitis I vaccinate all does with both Lysign and J-5. I start after they've been dry for a month, continue through pregnancy and finish right after kidding.

Thank you, too, for the information about Baytril. In the past my vet has prescribed it for cases of mastitis. I'll pass along to her that we need to change antibiotics in the future.


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