April 29, 2018
Dr.Vividha charate
It is very difficult to give all details of 8 types of mastitis including blood in milk (Normal milk is white).
A write up done for veterinary students recently is added here.
Gist from the book Winning the fight against Mastitis: W.Nelson.Philpot, Stephen C Nicerson
Experience of Bangalore Milk Union Doctors (23 members) has been clubbed
Symptoms in Mastitis (one or more of the below symptoms are seen)
1. Callus formation or crack of the teat pore
2. Swelling
3. Hot or warm
4. Hard
5. Pain
6. Blood or pus
7. Bad smell
8. Milk is watery, curdled, ropy
9. Fever
10. Anorexia
11. Not drinking water
12. Prostrated
13. Drop in milk yield
14. Change in the taste of milk
15. Increased respirations
16. Increased pulse
17. Dilation of pupil
1.Per Acute mastitis: Symptoms develop within 8 to 12 hours. Often follows after calving.
a. High fever (103 to 105oF), hurried respirations.
b. Don’t eat fodder and may not drink water.
c. Severe drop in the milk yield, animal can go dry.
d. Animal is quite weak, may lie down.
e. Affected quarter swollen, quite hot, painful and very hard.
f. Milk is watery sometimes blood tinged.
g. Pupil of the eye dilated, sunken eyes, may show severe diarrhea.
f. Feet and ears can become cold; animal may die between 12 to 24 hours.
2. Acute Mastitis: Within a day Mastitic udder becomes quite red
a. High fever (103 to 105oF), shivers, hurried respirations.
b. Don’t eat fodder and may not drink water.
c. Severe drop in the milk yield, animal may go dry.
d. Animal is quite weak.
e. Affected quarter swollen, quite hot, painful and hard.
f. In the beginning milk is watery, turns to yellow, scum forms, and may have pus.
3. Clinical mastitis:
a. Fever (103 to 104oF), may be noticed or not.
b. Eats less fodder, but drinks water.
c. Drop in the milk yield.
d. Animal is apparently healthy.
e. Affected quarter apparently normal.
f. First strips of milk with flaky particles, watery sometimes blood tinged.
4. Chronic Mastitis:
a. Repeated attacks. No fever.
b. Animal will be eating and drinking water.
c. Gradual drop in the milk yield.
d. Udder looses normal softness and becomes hard
e. Milk can curdle, or sticky or has pus.
5. Sub-clinical Mastitis:
No symptoms. 15 to 40 cases for every clinical case. Milk appears normal. Only change is detection of pathogenic agent in analysis and increased somatic cell count. Mostly caused by Staphylococcus aureus.
a. No fever.
b. Animal will be eating and drinking water.
c. Gradual drop in the milk yield.
d. Udder don’t show any swelling may lose normal softness of udder.
e. Milk normal for physical appearance but curdles after boiling or milk clots appear
f. Teat pores may show plain or raised callus.
g. Mastect or Maastrip test paper can be used, electrical conductivity increases
h. SSC over 2 lakhs/ml. 35 to 40% of milking animals do suffer from this.
6. Gangrene Mastitis: Just before calving or soon after it can appear. Can affect 1 or more quarters. Appears in certain months of the year. Caused by Bovine Herpes virus II.
Affected quarter is blue and cold to the touch. Progressive discoloration from the tip to the top. Necrotic parts drop off. Cow often dies.
a. No fever.
b. Animal will be eating and drinking water.
c. Gradual or sudden drop in the milk yield.
d. Milk emits bad smell Coli forms and Streptococcus bacteria causes the disease
e. In early stages udder may be warm, handling the teats the skin can peel off and causes pain.
7. Fungal Mastitis:
a. No swelling
b. Milk appears yellow and curdled or watery.
8. Haemogalectia: (Still not considered as Mastitis)
Caused by Bovine Herpes Virus II.
a. May affect one or more quarters
b. Udder normal, no swelling is seen
c. Milk is blood tinged or blood clots may appear in the milk.
9. Contagious: Mastitis caused by bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus agalactiae, of which other infected cows are the main source.
10. Mastitis caused by bacteria such as Coli forms, of which the main source is manure, as a contaminant
Per Acute Mastitis:Treatment: If Initiated within 4 hours after the onset and complete treatment for 3 days if is done there is good chance of total recovery.
1. Milk out the contents. Check the pH of the milk. Wipe the teat pore with an antiseptic. With a sterilized syringe inject normal saline in to the affected quarter. Lift the udder up by holding a cloth or gunny underneath the udder and massage the quarter/s. Inject 10 to 20 i.u. of oxytocin intra muscularly and animal lets down the milk, drain out the contents. Sterilize the teat pore with antiseptic swab.
2. If the pH of the milk is alkaline orally administer sodium citrate 30mg/kg body wt in 250ml of water. {Mammidium – Intas; MastiGard feed cake – Neo Spark; Ban Mast 50-Rathna biotec etc,}
3. Antibiotics have to injected intra mammary in water or an emollient and sterilize the teat pore with antiseptic swab and massage the udder.
4. Parentally inject antibiotics, antihistamines and liver stimulants.
5. Few liters of 5% DNS is advised by intravenous injection. Never inject just glucose as it can cause hypoglycemia.
This intravenous fluid therapy has to be continued for 24 hours through ear vein.
6. Intramammary and parentally betamethazone or dexamethazone or triampicilan injections are advised. Few animals may abort, if animal is pregnant above 6 months age there is possibility of retension of foetal membranes.
7. To control temperature and pain Novalgin/Esgepyrin/Diclofenac sodium/Melaxicam is advised. Few veterinarians have noticed haemogalectia after Diclofenac sodium injections. Read information on haemogalectia.
8. Above treatments have to be done once in 12 hours for 3 days.
9. Injecting immunoglobulins intramammary increases resistance of the udder tissue.
10. External application of ice cubes or Mammital ointment or ethno veterinary practice like 60 ml of aloes vera sap, 10 to 15 ml of lemon juice, 25 grams of slaked lime and 10 grams of turmeric powder is mixed and application is advised. This has to be done every hourly minimum 10 hours in a day.
11. In acute mastitis cases, homoeo drugs- Mother tincture Echinacea and Apis mellifica of CM potency each 15 to 20 drops-are being used orally 3 to 4 times on 1st day and on subsequent days 3 times a day.
12. Few other homoeo drugs that are used in acute mastitis are Belladonna 200, Phytolacca 200, Pyrogenium 1M, Gunpowder 6, and if the animal is in a lateral recumbence Conium 30 is also used each 15 pills QID or TID for desired number of days.
13. Resque remedy (Impatiens, Clematis, Rock rose, Cherry plum, Star of Bethlehem and Crab apple) each flower remedy 2-3 drops in 10 ml of water 4 times a day give good relief.
14. To increase the immune resistance, feed ground and boiled germinated horse-gram (salt or jagerry is added while boiling). Vitamin C and Levamisole injections are of some help. Homoeo Mother Tincture Withania somnifera (Aswagandha) can be used as immune modulator.
15. Feeding garlic cloves from 2 to 3 bulbs of 2 inch size is also advised.
2. Acute Mastitis: Same treatment as in per acute mastitis can be adopted. If the milk has curdled and dark yellow in colour homoeo drug Kali bichromicum 30 has to be used 3 times a day.
3. Sub acute mastitis: Treatment: 1. Milk out the contents. Check the pH of the milk. Wipe the teat pore with an antiseptic. With a sterilized syringe inject normal saline in to the affected quarter. Lift the udder up by holding a cloth or gunny underneath the udder and massage the quarter/s. Inject 10 to 20 i.u. of oxytocin intra muscularly and animal lets down the milk, drain out the contents. Sterilize the teat pore with antiseptic swab.
2. If the pH of the milk is alkaline orally administer sodium citrate 30mg/kg body wt in 250ml of water. {Mammidium – Intas; MastiGard feed cake – Neo Spark; Ban-Mast 50 etc,}
3. Antibiotics have to injected intra mammary in water or an emollient and sterilize the teat pore with antiseptic swab and massage the udder.
4. Parentally inject antibiotics, antihistamines and liver stimulants.
5. 5% DNS is advised by intravenous injection. Never inject just glucose as it can cause hypoglycemia.
6. To control temperature and pain Novalgin/Esgepyrin/Diclofenac sodium/Melaxicam is advised. Few veterinarians have noticed haemogalectia after Diclofenac sodium injections. Read information on haemogalectia.
7. Above treatments have to be done for 3 days.
8. External application of ice cubes or Mammital ointment or ethno veterinary practice like 60 ml of aloes vera sap, 10 to 15 ml of lemon juice, 25 grams of slaked lime and 10 grams of turmeric powder is mixed and application is advised. This has to be done every hourly minimum 10 hours in a day.
9. These homoeo drugs can be used Echinacea Apis mellifica of CM, Belladonna 200, Phytolacca 200, Pyrogenium 1M, Gunpowder 6, each 15 pills QID or TID for desired number of days.
10. Rescue Remedy (Impatiens, Clematis, Rock rose, Cherry plum, Star of Bethlehem) and Crab apple each flower remedy 10 drops in 10 ml of water 4 times a day give good relief.
11. To increase the immune resistance, feed ground and boiled germinated horse-gram (salt or jagarry is added while boiling). Vitamin C and Levamisole injections are of some help. Homoeo Mother Tincture Withania somnifera (Aswagandha) can be used as immune modulator.
12. Feeding garlic cloves from 2 to 3 bulbs of 2 inch size is also advised.
4. Chronic mastitis: Treatment: 1. Milk out the contents. Check the pH of the milk. Wipe the teat pore with an antiseptic. With a sterilized syringe inject normal saline in to the affected quarter. Lift the udder up by holding a cloth or gunny underneath the udder and massage the quarter/s. Inject 10 to 20 i.u. of oxytocin intra muscularly and animal lets down the milk, drain out the contents. Sterilize the teat pore with antiseptic swab.
2. If the pH of the milk is alkaline orally administer sodium citrate 30mg/kg body wt in 250ml of water. {Mammidium – Intas; MastiGard feed cake – Neo Spark; Ban Mast 50 - Rathna biotec etc,}
3. Antibiotics have to injected intra mammary in water or an emollient and sterilize the teat pore with antiseptic swab and massage the udder.
4. Parentally inject antibiotics, antihistamines and liver stimulants.
5. Above treatments have to be done for 3 days.
6. These homoeo drugs can be used Echinacea 200, Phytolacca 200, Pyrogenium 1M, Gunpowder 6, Sulphur 30, Carbo veg 30, Silicia 30, Aurum Muriaticum Natro Natum 30 and Thiosinaminum 6 each 15 pills QID or TID for desired number of days.
7. To increase the immune resistance, feed ground and boiled germinated horse-gram (salt or jagarry is added while boiling). Vitamin C and Levamisole injections are of some help. Homoeo Mother Tincture Withania somnifera (Aswagandha) can be used as immune modulator.
8. For very hard udders tripsin, streptokinase, and streptodartase enzymes can be injected in to the udder.
9. In one report 0.5 ml of Sulphur CM homoeo drug mixed in distilled water was injected subcutaneously for recurrent mastitis.
10. Hard udder can be rubbed twice with pig fat 250gms mixed with one small bottle of Iodex can soften the udder in next lactation more milk can be obtained provided there was few ml milk was coming before this treatment.
5. Subclinical mastitis:
Treatment: 1. Each animal’s milk from each quarter has to be tested once in fifteen days. Animals which had mastitis in earlier lactations or in this lactation, has to be tested once in a week. In case of doubt the milk has to be tested every alternate day.
2. Sodium citrate is orally administered at the rate of 30 mg/kg for one day. Now a product Ban Mast 50 a micronized coated material as sodium citrate is being sold by M/S Rathna Bio-tech Pvt Ltd, Palamaner, Chittor District, Andhra ( rathnabioteck@yahoo.co.in) which prevents use of Sodium citrate in the rumen and better utilized in the small intestines.
3. Intramammary administration of antibiotics infusions for 3 to 5 days advised.
4. Pulsatilla 200 has been used. (Not advised if AI was done in the last 75 days can cause Early embryonic death)
6. Gangrene mastitis
Treatment: 1. The affected part of the udder is removed surgically and properly dressed.
7. Fungal mastitis:
Treatment: 1. Ampicillin plus Grisiophilivin has to be injected intramammarily.
8. Haemogalactia:
Treatment: 1. Antibiotics plus Stadrin like drugs are infused in to the udder.
2. Drugs like Revici containing n-butyl alcohol and sodium citrate (10ml) is injected intramuscularly.
3. Homoeo drugs like Hamamelis 200 and Bufo 200 each 15 pills TID is used in the first 2 weeks of calving.
4. Injecting 1500mg of progesterone IM once is advised.
5. After 15 days from calving, Hamamelis 200, Arnica 6 and Ipecac6 each 15 pills t.i.d. are used.
6. Drugs like Revici 10ml is injected intramuscularly once a day.
9.Mammillitis: Inflammation of teat which falls of at the base of the teat.
Treatment: 1. Ethno veterinary practice is 5ml of Datura alba or Datura metal leaves juice is mixed with a spoonful Maida (Maida is a wheat flour from the Indian subcontinent. Finely milled without any bran, refined, and bleached, it closely resembles Cake flour) powder and applied to the teat to prevent sloughing. In the absence of the above Soframycin skin ointment is used it may help to prevent sloughing.
2. Homeo drugs Aconite 200 (if fever is there), Ruta or Apis mel 200, Merck sol 200 each 10 pills 3 times a day till recovery.
10.Warts on teats - Contagious so one has to wash hands thoroughly before milking next cow. Such warts are not seen in buffaloes.
1. Autohemotherapy – Drawing 20 ml blood from Jugular vein and injecting 100ml IM and 10ml SC once a week for 5 to 8 weeks.
2. Excising few warts washing several times in normal saline and triturating in normal saline in sterile conditions and store in refrigerator. One ml of supernatant fluid is injected SC once a week
3. Warts with a stalk respond well for Causticum 200 when used 3 times a day for 10 to 15 days
Dr. V N Viswanatha reddy,
Former Professor Veterinary college, Bnagalore