# Treating mastitis in goats?



## Livinwright Farm (Oct 28, 2011)

Is *this * safe for goats too? or is there a similar product made specifically for goats?


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## ksalvagno (Oct 29, 2011)

That is safe for goats. Is the goat drying up or still milking? Today is for goats/cows still milking and ToMorrow is for goats/cows that are drying up. I used ToMorrow on one of my girls. She probably didn't have mastitis but the last of the milk was chunky so didn't want to take the chance. Was very easy to use.


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## Livinwright Farm (Oct 29, 2011)

The doe just gave birth the other day, so yeah, she is still in milk.
I wanted to make sure it was okay before reccomending it to a another farmer.


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## ksalvagno (Oct 29, 2011)

If kids are nursing, then I'm not sure it would be good. I think farmers have to dump the milk for a certain period of time with this. But you would need to read the directions. But the product is safe to use on goats.


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## zzGypsy (Oct 30, 2011)

we had a goat with mastitis, that's what the vet had us use.  we pulled the kid and bottle fed while treating with this, ended up treating for 6 days (twice what we expected to), but returned the kid 3 days after we stopped using it (just milked her down in those 3 days).  we had some pretty resistant mastitis and did not get a clear test after using it, but by keeping the kid on her and keeping her milked down as much as possible all the time, it did eventually clear.  took about a month.  vet said as long as the level of infection was low, and the milk didn't smell or look off (even though it still activated the test card) the kid would be fine.  we tossed what additional milk we took off her until she was clear.  kid was indeed fine.

I don't know what the recomended milk withdrawl is for human usage.


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## Beekissed (Oct 31, 2011)

Many commercial dairies are utilizing ACV in their water as they have found it contributes to good udder health, prevents recurrent mastitis, and they don't have to dispose of any milk when using this good preventative. 

Here's an interesting snippet:



> I read a book written by a vet/M.D. in Vermont that was all about the benefits of vinegar. By his conclusions, the body, man or beast, is basically full of calcium, but, due to alkaline blood, the calcium comes out of solution and starts to form deposits around the body. Vinegar supposedly keeps the calcium in solution, thereby making it immediately available to the needs of the body. This doctor did extensive research with men and women, as well as cattle, especially dairy. His research concluded that milking cows, given a quarter cup or so of apple cider vinegar per feeding, had zero occurance of milk fever, zero occurance of mastitis, greater milk production, healthier calves with greater birth weights and faster rates of gain, often by as much as 30% in six to eight months. He also found that mastits could be treated with vinegar in the ration, the clincher being that the animals he tested with recouperated 100% with no long term negative effects for having contracted mastitis in the first place. Mastitis can ruin a bag. His findings were the same, if I recall correctly, with milk fever. Complete recovery with nothing more than apple cider vinegar in the ration.
> We make a couple hundred gallons of cider each year, drinking some, and letting the rest go to vinegar. The cows LOVE the pomice, before and after it sours. Strait vinegar in the ration and you'd think they opened a bag of molasses. We feed with vinegar when we have it, and have never had a cow (we have ten jerseys) develop any calcium related problems that has been so fed.


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## MrsDieselEngineer (Oct 31, 2011)

Beekissed said:
			
		

> Many commercial dairies are utilizing ACV in their water as they have found it contributes to good udder health, prevents recurrent mastitis, and they don't have to dispose of any milk when using this good preventative.
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> Here's an interesting snippet:
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This is very interesting!  I normally put a gallon of ACV in the main drinking trough for my critters, but mostly to help with the flies and general health.  I hadn't heard it helps prevent Mastitis and Milk Fever.


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## Chaty (Oct 31, 2011)

I wont let doe kids stay on a Momma that has mastitis. If its a buckling that will be wethered then he will stay. I have been told that if a doeling stays on a doe that has it can be predestined to having a mastitic udder and I dont want to chance that. I have only had 1 case and it was yrs ago. Also I always pull doelings here anyway. Good luck!


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## aggieterpkatie (Oct 31, 2011)

That's a wive's tale, Chaty. Some dairies feed their heifer calves the "waste" milk from cows who have mastitis or have been treated w/ meds. They wouldn't do it if caused the heifers to freshen with mastitis.  Mastitis is an udder infection, and ingesting that doesn't stay around in the kids' systems for 2 years and then travel to the udder.  

If I had a goat with a slight case of mastitis, and I was dam raising, I'd leave the kids on.  If it was a really awful case, I'd pull them off.  

And if the Today doesn't clear up the udder, it's best to have a culture done to see exactly what type of mastitis the goat has. Not all meds treat all mastitis.


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## Beekissed (Oct 31, 2011)

MrsDieselEngineer said:
			
		

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Have you ever had a case of either malady in your livestock?


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## zzGypsy (Oct 31, 2011)

aggieterpkatie said:
			
		

> *If I had a goat with a slight case of mastitis, and I was dam raising, I'd leave the kids on.  If it was a really awful case, I'd pull them off.  *
> And if the Today doesn't clear up the udder, it's best to have a culture done to see exactly what type of mastitis the goat has. Not all meds treat all mastitis.


that's what our vet had us do.  he says the constant milking down of the udder is part of what helps to clear up low-grade and resistant mastitis.  we talked about the option of doing a culture, but the vet suggested if the symptoms were decreasing, let the kid do the work.  if we had started to lose ground, we would then have done the culture.  in our case, the vet's suggestion worked just as he predicted.  he'd seen some other cases of resistant mastitis in his practice and had better results with what we did than with culturing and treating directly.  several of his other cases had to be culled out of the milking herds because they were not able to get effective treatment.


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## cmjust0 (Oct 31, 2011)

Ask your vet about using injectable erythromycin..  It's called 'Gallimycin 100' and you can buy a 100ml bottle for like $11, OTC, from PBSAnimalHealth.com...  I have some in my cabinet for just such a situation, though I haven't had a case of mastitis upon which to test it out..  

The reason I'm suggesting it is because, some time ago, I started thinking about *why* certain antibiotics were used over others in certain situations, and I began thinking about routes of elimination from the body..  For instance, urination is one of penicillin's main routes of elimination from the body; consequently, it's really good at treating bladder infections..  Why?  Well, because it passes right through the bladder on its way out!  Makes sense, right?

Well, then I read that the milk withdrawal on erythromycin is pretty lengthy because it reaches **high** levels in milk when given to lactating animals..  Which is to say, lactation may be one of the main routes of elimination of erythromycin..  Putting 2+2 together led me to wonder whether erythromycin might be a good injectable medication for mastitis, and sure enough, I started reading where dairy farmers use it somewhat regularly for that purpose..

Anyway, it might be something to ask the vet about..


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## aggieterpkatie (Oct 31, 2011)

zzGypsy said:
			
		

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Yep. Only if it was really bloody and clumpy I'd pull them off b/c they'd not be getting enough milk.  


And about the ACV for treating milk fever....really? They say you just put it in the water or ration?  There's no way I'd ever treat a cow that way.  Maybe *after* I treated with IV calcium I'd add it, but no way in heck I'd rely on just ACV with a case of milk fever. Cows go down quick and it can be really scary. I'd want immediate treatment.


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## Livinwright Farm (Oct 31, 2011)

aggieterpkatie said:
			
		

> And about the ACV for treating milk fever....really? They say you just put it in the water or ration?  There's no way I'd ever treat a cow that way.  Maybe *after* I treated with IV calcium I'd add it, but no way in heck I'd rely on just ACV with a case of milk fever. Cows go down quick and it can be really scary. I'd want immediate treatment.


I don't believe that the ACV is used as a treatment for Milk Fever, but rather as a preventative against it.
Is that correct MrsDieselEngineer?


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## aggieterpkatie (Oct 31, 2011)

Livinwright Farm said:
			
		

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This is the part that had me wondering: 


> He also found that mastits could be treated with vinegar in the ration, the clincher being that the animals he tested with recouperated 100% with no long term negative effects for having contracted mastitis in the first place. Mastitis can ruin a bag.* His findings were the same, if I recall correctly, with milk fever. Complete recovery with nothing more than apple cider vinegar in the ration.*


I'm not even sure how you'd get a cow w/ milk fever to eat or drink.


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## Livinwright Farm (Oct 31, 2011)

aggieterpkatie said:
			
		

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 I'm not sure about cows either... and I'm not sure as MrsDieselEngineer does either... but this thread is about treating mastitis in goats... maybe you could find someone under the cows section that could help you with that? :/


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## aggieterpkatie (Oct 31, 2011)

Livinwright Farm said:
			
		

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I don't really need to know how, because I already know how to treat it.  LOL.  It just kinda went off on a tangent.


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## Livinwright Farm (Oct 31, 2011)

aggieterpkatie said:
			
		

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Gotchya!


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## MrsDieselEngineer (Oct 31, 2011)

Nope, no experience with cows    As far as goats go, I'm pretty sure ACV is a preventative not a treatment.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong 
Oh, and I've never dealt with Milk Fever and really don't know much about it.


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## Beekissed (Nov 1, 2011)

Yep...preventative in all the articles I've read about it.  And, of course, an ounce of prevention.....  

Whenever I am presented with a problem with livestock husbandry, particularly with health, I always plan for prevention of it right along with the treatment of it.  

I know that I don't want to deal with that problem ever again and the best way is to find out how to prevent it.  It matters not that they have used it in cows and found it successful....I'd imagine that anything with an udder that may get mastitis would respond in the same way.  Even us....


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## cmjust0 (Nov 1, 2011)

ACV supposedly treats everything from parasites to urinary calculi..  Guess we can go ahead and add mastitis to the list as well..  

Thing is, the main 'ingredient', if you will, in ACV is acetic acid..  Goats make tons of acetic acid in their rumens as it is..  Drenching one with straight ACV as a treatment for...whatever...is a bit like throwing a match on a fire, so one can only imagine what mixing a little ACV with their water _actually_ accomplishes..  

If someone wants to do it, more power to'em of course..  I'm just sayin..


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