The life of a dairy owner...what have I done? Here's the latest saga.
I have been struggling with a high bacteria count in the bulk tank in spite of everything being cleaned beyond clean and I have failed two of my last 4 tests so I decided that I needed to check the Somatic Cell Counts of my goats. I realize that SCC and bacteria is not the same but I needed to start somewhere and a high SCC can be an indicator of an udder infection (bacteria). They all look fine, milk fine, act fine, but something is driving the numbers up and I need to find it in order to stay a Grade A dairy. I bought the Porta SCC test for goats to do this at home; super easy to use. I am milking 40 goats so I decided to do the milk samples in groups of 8 and then if they were high I would just test the does from the high group(s), no reason to use all the test strips if I don't need to. Well it turns out that two of my groups did indeed test high, very high, over 300,000 / ml. which is the highest the test reports and according to the directions indicates an udder infection. So next I tested the goats in those groups individually and 4 came back with over 300,000 SCC. Strangely enough they all have "interesting" histories.
One had gangrene mastitis 3 years ago and lost 1/2 of her udder. She milks like a dream.
One had been very very sick two years ago with an ear infection and horrible cough, I wasn't even milking her then, she was too sick. It was Trueperella pyogenes, which is an opportunistic organism and can cause internal abscesses. I almost culled her then. Her udder is horrible, hangs like a football
One is a FF with no kids on her. Her udder is normal on one side and the other side is very small with almost no milk, but not hot or abnormal. I pulled her kids at birth and this is how she developed. The last one is just a big old Alpine that is a milking machine. There were a few years that she didn't settle and she would still come into milk.
So I took a clean catch from those 4 does, plus two others that had "plugs" in their teats every time I milk. The tests came back that two of the four with high SCC are shedding a large amount of bacteria; the doe that had mastitis years ago and the one with a small udder half. One is shedding Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the other they don't know what the bacteria is and they sent it out to another lab. The other 2 with high SCC do not show any bacteria in their milk. One of the others has a very low grade staph infection in one half and I am waiting on sensitivity testing before treating. I can't buy any OTC antibiotics in CA so I have to work with my vet on this.
The State took its official bulk tank milk sample and if there is still a problem I will not be able to sell fluid milk until I sort this out and pass three tests. I would be able to make cheese, just no Grade A products.
The life of a dairy owner...
Ahhhh..puppy breath & snuggles. What mix are they?
