# Mastitis - What is the Chunky Stuff?



## Alison (Jan 24, 2019)

I have a doe that kidded two or three years ago.   Her baby was stillborn, so I hand milked for about a year.  She would never dry up.  Even when I finally stopped milking, she would sort of stop producing SO MUCH milk, but never really dry.  Then out of nowhere she would fully bag up again.  No buck in sight.


About 4 months ago she got sick and I discovered mastitis.  I treated and it resolved, I thought.  About 4 days ago I noticed one side of her udder looked funny.  I wasn’t fully engorged, but was rock hard.  I took a culture (waiting on results) and started treating with Pirsue, LA-200, heat and massage, Vit C.  She doesn’t have a fever and is eating fine.  She mostly tolerates me messing with her udder, unless there is a plug and I have to get a little more aggressive to get it out.


When I apply heat and massage the hard clumps break up and stringy, chunky stuff comes out.  My question is what is that stuff?  Is it pus?


----------



## Latestarter (Jan 24, 2019)

@babsbag I know has dealt with mastitis... Pretty sure that's exactly what it is...


----------



## greybeard (Jan 24, 2019)

Alison said:


> When I apply heat and massage the hard clumps break up and stringy, chunky stuff comes out.  My question is what is that stuff?  Is it pus?



Sometimes it's generically called pus.
fibrin clots if they are stringy clotty looking globs.


----------



## babsbag (Jan 24, 2019)

Things you learn when you own a dairy... 

So here is the very technical explanation.   Gross changes in the milk such as the presence of flakes, clots, or serous (typically pale yellow and transparent) milk, and increases in somatic cell counts (SCCs) may be observed. The large increase in SCC reflects an influx of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (A type of immune cell that has small particles with enzymes that are released during infections) flowing from blood vessels into milk resulting in the formation of clots in mastitic milk through an aggregation of leukocytes and phagocytes.  Phagocytes are cool things...a type of cell within the body capable of engulfing and absorbing bacteria and other small cells and particles. Leukocytes are a type of white blood cell that help protect from infection as well.


----------



## Sheepshape (Jan 25, 2019)

Unfortunately, the bottom line is that mastitis damages the milk ducts and the udder is never likely to function properly again. Softie though I am, mastitis means cull to me.


----------



## babsbag (Jan 26, 2019)

@Sheepshape  I have had two does with mastitis that I kept; one lost the use of 1/2 of her udder and the other literally lost 1/2 of her udder. But being dairy goats that are good producers they have been able to raise kids and be milked with no problems. I had two other does that freshened with mastitis and the culture showed that it was a contagious bacteria and they were culled. Every situation is different but culling is often the wisest choice.


----------



## Ridgetop (Jun 20, 2019)

I had a Suffolk ewe given to us years ago that lambed twins and freshened with mastitis on one side  She raised both her twins on just one side.  After they were weaned I treated her with mastitis treatments on both sides.  The following year she lambed twins again, only got milk in half of her udder, and again raised her twins on just one half of her udder.  The other half never got milk again.  After weaning her twins, I again treated her and then I sent her to the auction. 

Mastitis is tricky to treat, painful for the doe to have and be treated for, causes lots of extra work, requires extreme sanitation, requires isolation of the infected doe, and depending on the type of mastitis the infection can be spread between the flock.  The milk from the mastitis doe has infection in it and if another doe with an open teat lays down on bedding that an infected doe has leaked milk on the clean doe can conceivably become infected.  Thus isolation for the infected doe and sanitizing of the pen she is kept in.

After drying off my does, I always treated them with a dry treatment at the end of their lactation.


----------

