Monday, May 5, 2014

Ada Belle

Ada was born here on my farm 5 years ago, to my doe Ocho. Can't remember right now if she was a twin or not. Anyway, sold her to my friend at New Dawn farm up the road. She's been back and forth a few times. Right now, she's back, along with her friend, Jessie Belle. They both had twin kids about 2 1/2 months ago. For the past month or so, I've been going up there to milk them in the mornings.  But we decided the kids need to be weaned. And they were really not good on their udders. Jessie had some teeth marks from her kids, but on the left side only. I was putting bag balm on them and they are both ok now. But she does have a knot on the outside of the left teat. Not hard and small. Not too worried about that.


Right now, I am really concerned about Ada. This is the back view of her teats. You can see the left side is much bigger. I noticed yesterday, that side, on the inside, was hard. I was able to milk her and she did ok then. But this morning, it's much bigger and harder. And she raised her leg each time I tried to milk her. I know she hadn't let the kids nurse on that side at all. I had to use my left hand to milk this side and hold her leg with the other hand. I know it has to hurt bad.




Then, when I was finished, I decided to take a picture. Then noticed the blood. I didn't have blood on my hands. It's on the inside, not the back, where kid teeth would do this. So now I am wondering what it could be. I had put peppermint oil on the teat and udder a few times today. When I saw this, I just put bag balm on it.

What could this be? I have never dealt with this before. My friend seems to think it could be a clogged milk duct. I can get milk out and it looks fine, no blood or clumps. Could it be something serious, like CL? I have no idea. Just trying to see if anyone knows or has seen this before.

They are both here at my farm now. I'll be milking them twice a day. Kids are fine. Old enough to be weaned. When mine are old enough, they'll go down there.




Any thoughts? Suggestions? Help!

3 comments:

Kristin said...

Strange. It's hard to tell from the picture. I've had some get cuts or scratches on the teat that have bled a little before. I'd just keep an eye on it and moisturize her udder.

An At Home Daughter said...

We have had/have does that are lopsided because their kids favor one side. The little twerps. One of our does cut her teat on a plastic pan when engorged, and I wouldn't have known what happened, if I wasn't right there and saw another doe push her into it. Anyways, I had to carefully milk her out on that side for a while because she didn't want her kids nursing on it. Which of course there was no way to milk her out without making it bleed.
I would check the teeth on her kids, and if they are sharper on the outside corners than the other goats kids, then you could file them a little with a nail emery board. I read about this in a sheep farmers book.
I would not be concerned about CL. She doesn't have puss coming out of her, and hasn't been to any goat shows were she would have been exposed and stressed right? Those diseases are caused by stress and lack of proper minerals and vitamins. I was reading about animals getting those kinds of diseases in Pat Colebys sheep book.
Do you have any really good kind of skin healing salve you could use on her?

Kimberly

Kris said...

I have her here at my farm now. So kids have been off her since yesterday morning. I have been putting tea tree oil on it but I do have a really good plantain salve I make that I'll start putting on it. Don't know why I haven't been doing that.

The milk is white. No blood or clumps or puss. And the sore looked better tonight. It probably was one of the kids getting too rough with her. They are really big kids.