We Interrupt This Program…

I’m having coffee at 4:30 AM to get to the barn at 5:00. Today I’ve promised to drive a truck and trailer to Brasher Falls to pick up piglets. Three for me (I’m raising some to sell) and six for the school. It will mean at least five hours on the road, and the timing is terrible, but I like to do the school farmer a favor when I can. It’s good to have a backup network, no matter how small. Moreover this way I use their truck, trailer, and gas. Lucy will probably ride with me.

I’m doing barn chores early because my cow Katika is sick and I’ll need extra time for my attempts at doctoring. It appears she has mastitis (an infection of the udder).

In eight years, Katika has never had mastitis. A few globs in her milk a few times over the years, but a little extra milking took care of it and it would be gone by the next milking.

But now her left rear quarter is swollen rock hard. It feels like a warm medicine ball. The swelling started small on Wednesday night, and I was puzzled by it, but by yesterday morning the whole quarter was bulging and hard. It is hanging below her hocks. It is obviously quite tender. The odd thing (to me, who has read about mastitis for years but never seen it) is that at least so far, the milk is perfectly normal. No globs or strings or salty taste. Her temp was also normal, 101.7.

But I can’t get much of the milk out. I milked her four times yesterday, spending hours sitting underneath her massaging her udder, and I probably got a half gallon max from that teat over the day.

Her steer calf, Rocky, is the dopiest calf I’ve ever had, and though he’s almost 8 weeks old he has just discovered there are back teats. Yesterday I tried keeping him off her to increase his hunger and feeding aggression (while milking out all the other teats) but when she moved the tender quarter away from his questing nose, he just sucked on the empty ones and looked puzzled.

I even brought in my 9-month foster bull calf, Charlie, to have a go at the teat while Katika was in her stanchion, but she swiped at his head once and he slunk off.

I began wondering if she could have been kicked by a horse in the udder? Or stung? I can’t see any mark but I’ve just never seen anything like this. Or is this what mastitis looks like?

I’ve had a string of bad health luck with my animals in the past few months and I’m very anxious. Of course I will call the vet if I need to, but my bill is so high from various emergencies I’ve been paying it off in installments already.

Eight weeks ago Katika tore her udder open — different teat — and then went down with milk fever and I barely saved her. (I will post about this soon!) Then my young ewe Kiwi developed peritonitis and had to be put down. A coyote picked off two of my hens. Last week Lucy’s horse Birch colicked, for no apparent reason; and yesterday I discovered one of my best ewes, Azalea, dead in the field, no previous symptoms.

I’m a good and careful person with livestock. I know this is just coincidence — a string of bad luck. I’m struggling to keep up with all the extra work and on top of my emotions. But dread is gathering in my belly.

Katika, my cow, is my dearest animal. I can’t let anything happen to her.

Off to barn chores, then on to piglets. More when I can.