Cow with blocked quarter

edward901

I have a cow who calved 6 days ago.She is a 4th time calver.She is milking perfectly fine in 3 quarters however the 4 quarter is full up.No matter how much I draw the teat I can't get any milk to come out.It seems to be completely blocked.There are no lumps of hardness in the teat.There are no signs of mastitis in the quarter either.Even though there's no milk comming out of the teat the quarter is full all the time.It is not getting any bigger.Would the milk in this quarter be flowing into the other quarters.Any advice would be appreciated.Will she get mastitis eventually or will the teat have to be removed to take the pressure of her?

Say my name

Give her 20cc's of penicillin injection and a tube of tetra delta in that quarter.

edward901

What does tetra delta do for the quarter.Does it cause the teat canal to open up?

Say my name

edward901 wrote: »

What does tetra delta do for the quarter.Does it cause the teat canal to open up?

It's a treatment for mastitis.

If the quarter is swelled like that and there's no milk coming from it. It's mastitis.
It's just that there's a hard bit of mastitis blocking any milk/mastitis coming down to the teat.
You need an anti inflammatory to bring down the inflammation and break up the blockage.
Even the process of sticking up the tube will help.

Edit: There's other posters here who are real masters of the drugs if you do manage to get something moving.

patsy_mccabe

I had a suckler cow with a blocked teat this year. Noticed calf wouldn't stay sucking on it. Went to milk it and nothing came down. After a bit of rough downward milking between the thumb and first finger a lump came down. It got blocked again but after repeating it freed up. It's fine now. No treatment given.

edward901

Thanks for your suggestions. I will have another go at drawing the quarter tomorrow.If no success, I will have to go down the antibiotic route.

patsy_mccabe

Dairy cow??

edward901

Yes she is a Dairy cow.Hope I can sort out the problem without antibiotics.

Say my name

Just for yourself. If you don't get the blockage cleared and don't use antibiotics if you're lucky it will break out of the side of that quarter and cow will get very sick and perhaps die. If you're unlucky it won't break out and she'll die.
We don't just use antibiotics for the hell of it.

Snowfire

Would one of these be worth a try, may be scar tissue/ clot blocking the Teat canal.

greysides

I suggest you either ring your vet or have them look at it. I'm not sold on the mastitis theory. Though it may have been earlier.

Lady Haywire

We had a cow who sealed over her teats so well that we found it extremely difficult to open them each year. One year we gave up, left a back one blocked, the next year the same happened to the other back quarter so we left her off then. She never was sick with it as it was fully closed, def no chance of infection getting in, and it definitely wasn't mastitis.
Personally I honestly wouldn't worry about it if the quarter isn't overly hot or hard/sore on her to touch or handle. I'd take her temperature alright but if it was normal and cow was happy in herself i'd just let her be.

Mooooo

If it's been a number of days since calving id leave it alone. Milk away off 3 quarters and she'll likely soak up on it. Keep an eye on her that she doesn't get sick. Go messing with it now and even if you get it going it may well lead to a cell count or mastitis issue as it may notmilk out fully. Have never lost a cow that we let a quarter soak up.

kevthegaff

Snowfire wrote:

Would one of these be worth a try, may be scar tissue/ clot blocking the Teat canal.

I find their good to open the canal but the cow is uncomfortable and once removed always leads to mastitis