Milking Woes, Part 2

After confirming that Nettie had mastitis in her left udder, I went to the local farm / feed store and bought four tubes of Today.  I already had Oxytetracyclene, needles, syringes and Probios on hand.

Since suspecting something wrong with Netties milk,  I continued milking her but gave the milk to the chickens.  The first morning of medicating was no different, except I had to administer the Today, the antibiotic and the Probios after I milked her.  I figured that the Today medication had to be somehow inserted into the teat, but it just sounded strange to be squirting something UP a teat instead of having something come OUT of the teat.
The instructions said to insert the tip into the teat orifice and slowly depress the plunger.  Nettie has smaller teat orifices than all of my milkers, so I was afraid inserting the tip of the syringe was going to be difficult.  Well, it wasn’t easy-peasy, but it wasn’t as huge a challenge as I had feared.  It did, however, feel really funky.  You insert the soft-tipped syringe into the teat orifice, pinch the bottom off as not to let any medicine escape, then push the plunger until it’s all gone.  While you’re pushing the plunger, you can feel the stuff go in and it kind’a makes a funny squishy sound.  Then you massage the udder to spread the medicine around.

Nettie was very considerate through all this.  Getting milked, goo squirted up her boob, injection of antibiotic in the front shoulder and a drenching gun filled with Probios down her maw.  She’s such a good goat!

We did the same thing four days in a row; milked her out, infused her udder with the Tomorrow, gave her a 6mL shot of Oxytetracyclene, gave her 5mL of Probios.   By the fourth day, Nettie was not as cooperative, nor very happy to see me coming with my medicine bag.  But we got through it.

It’s now been two weeks since I started the meds on Nettie.  After the fourth day of medication, I started drying her up but she’s still really full.  Not so much as it looks painful, but still really full.  I swear, she never wants to stop producing milk.

Last night I did another round of CMT tests on all the gals.  Ishtar and Annette were fine, although Nettie’s sample may have been a little bit gooey, but I may have just been looking for it to be gooey.  I’ll do third round of tests on the gals in a few days.