Sick Mama Cow

Well, I went out this am and 31 has mastitis. She is prone to it so we have been watching. This is the kind that doesn’t show up on the ‘litmus’ test. I milked as much as I could and could still not get enough bad milk off the quarter to put the meds in the teet. So, off to the vet I went to get antibiotics, pain killer and oxytocin. I gave her 35cc of antibiotic , 10cc pain killer, and 2cc oxytocin in the muscle this am and that same amount of pain killer and oxytocin this evening before milking. She is to get pain killer 2x daily if she is in pain, oxytocin 3-4 times a day and antibiotic today and again on Wednesday. What a hard time. She is still eating so she should be ok, but it is stressful.

On a good note, she was letting the baby suckle on the other 3 teets tonight when I went out there and that is a good sign that she isn’t hurting as much as she was this morning.  Well, we will have to discard the milk for 3 days after her last antibiotic (it will go to the calf) and then we will have lots of milk!

We lost one of our bee hives. I think the hive beetles attacked. We still have one, but will need to buy another next spring. I am very sad at the loss.

I hired a young man last week to work on the fence. He is coming back tomorrow to work on fence and a water collection project we are adding to our barn. Gigi and I are painting wood panels for the completion of the hexayurt this coming weekend. Yay!

I saw a living model of paddock paradise! I was so excited that I turned around, drove by again and stopped at the house to ask about it! The lady was very nice about it and walked out to the paddock to discuss it. She had what looked like a maze made out of white electric tape. I was enthrawled! I have been a bit intimidated at thinking how I could use this great pasture management system on my 7 acres… but when I saw it in use, I finally figured out how to do it in steps and make it work for us, cows and all! I’ll give you more specifics as I figure them out on our pasture. Oh, boy! Another project! Just never have enough to do ’round here!