Dealing With Annie's Mastitis

Annie, our Nubian goat, has struggled with mastitis for a while.  Milking her has always been a pain - for us and for her.  She kicks like a saddle bronc every time we milk.  She doesn't let her kids nurse for very long.  We normally shy away from antibiotics.  We normally try natural remedies.  Up to this point, we've been unsuccessful in the methods we've experimented with.  We resorted to trying an antibiotic treatment to attempt to finally clear up Annie's mastitis.

Tricia purchased some Today syringes which are to be inserted into the teats in order to inject the meds to fight off the infection.  You can purchase this at your feed store or Tractor Supply Company. Tonight we started the "Today" process.  We'll see how it goes tomorrow.  Ha Ha!

We went out the the barn at night right before supper and used alcohol to wipe down Annie's teats in order to keep things extra clean.

I have cleats on the milking stanchion and we put ropes around Annie's feet and secured them to the cleats.  This will keep her from kicking as we insert the syringe about a quarter inch into each of her two teats and inject the medicine.  We put some dairy ration and alfalfa pellets in her trough to somewhat distract her.

Tricia inserted the syringe into her teat and injected it all in.  It went surprisingly smooth!

She held the teat closed and used her thumb and index finger to push the meds upward into her bag.

Nothing dripped out.  We did the same thing on the other side.  The directions say to use every 12  hours, but only two doses.  Others, including some veterinarians, say to use it until it clears up.  Tricia did the California Mastitis Test after the second dose and she still showed some slight mastitis.  We may give it one more dose and then test again.  If it doesn't clear up, we may have to culture and see exactly which bacteria we're fighting and get the appropriate meds to knock this stuff out.

Kind of discouraging, but we'll keep trying.  Perhaps we'll find the "Annie-biotic" that will work.  I know Annie (and Tricia) will be happy.