Vet on call: When your cow’s milk factory leaks

One of the biggest challenges of being a veterinary doctor is to direct people to visit or call the office during working hours when they want to consult me in social places.

You see, livestock farmers have no working hours. Animals may require attention at any time of the day or night.

The farmers’ work culture presents a huge challenge to veterinary doctors. A farmer will seek a consultation at a party or even in a pub. I have not seen that happening with medical doctors. May be it is because medical issues are very personal and confidential.

I vividly recall my professional ethics professor cautioning us way back in our third year of study at university.

“There are things that you should never do because they are unprofessional, unethical and can bring disrepute to the profession,” he said with a tone of finality. The professor enumerated casual consultation in unprofessional situations such as social gatherings, receiving payment for professional work in a bar and discussing professional fees in social gatherings.

Last week, I met a gentleman who insisted I should give him an opinion regarding his cattle that had “leaking factories”.

This was at a dinner a neighbour had invited us. For starters, I know of two key factories in a cow – the udder and the rumen. The man confirmed he was talking about his cows’ udders. “You see doctor, they keep dripping milk all the time like though the udder could burst but the cows do not even produce much,” he said.

I told the man it would be more appropriate for him to call me in the office so that we could arrange for me to visit his farm and evaluate his animals.

“You know there are many reasons why an udder can have persistent leaking,” I responded diplomatically. He reluctantly agreed to my proposal with a parting shot that livestock health matters did not require confidentiality like human ones.

When I visited his farm two days later, I confirmed his claims to be true. Two of his Friesian cows could not close the teat openings and kept dripping milk in one or two teats.

Ben, the cattle attendant on the farm, told me the cows had had infection of the udders for the past one month.

ANALYSIS OF MILK SAMPLES

Treatment had been done by the local animal health service provider but they were now continuously leaking milk in which metal instruments had been inserted to open them when they were sick. The instruments had since been removed.

The instrument Ben referred to is called a canula. It is made of stainless steel or hard smooth plastic. A canula is used to keep the teat open when the canal swells and blocks milk flow from the udder. In some cases, the udder tissue may overreact and cause permanent damage to the teat canal.

Ben also showed me laboratory reports of the analysis of milk samples that had been collected from each affected udder quarter.

An udder quarter is one of the four compartments of the cow’s udder and each quarter has one teat.

The reports showed that each animal had two quarters infected with both bacteria and fungus. I made a mental note that was difficult-to-treat mastitis as is always the case when fungi are involved.

On examining the udders of the two cows, I found that the leaking teats were still open even though the cows had been milked three hours before. A teat should normally close within 30 minutes of milking.

The observation was a bad sign since it meant the affected quarters would never be free of mastitis. The doors into the quarters were always wide open, allowing germs and dirt to easily get into the udder.

I palpated the teats all the way to their bases and then proceeded to cover each quarter wholly. The leaking quarters were hard with fibrous tissue along the teat canal and also inside the quarters.

The glands above the udder called precrural lymphnodes were swollen, meaning that bacteria may have attempted to leave the udder and get into the blood stream.

When I carried out the California Mastitis Test (CMT), all the leaking quarters turned out to be having active bacterial infection. The milk from the affected quarters, once mixed with the CMT reagent, formed a thick mucoid substance.

From my findings, it was evident the cows would permanently lose the leaking udders. One would lose two quarters and the other one quarter.

FAVOURITE COWS

With the fibrous hardening medically called fibrosis and the permanent patency of the teat canal, the cows would always have mastitis. They would be a big liability to the owner. The best option was to fatten the cows and sell them for meat.

Before writing my report, I checked the animals for pregnancy and fortunately they had not conceived. “Sorry Ben, I cannot save your employer’s cows,” I said as I handed Ben the report.

A dairy cow with a non-functional or poorly functioning udder is no longer productive even if its genetics are top class. The cow should be fattened and sold for slaughter. After many years of practice, I fully agree with Professor Mutiga who always used to stress to students that “a dairy cow without a good udder is simply meat”.

The farmer called me the following day and suggested that he breeds the cows to hopefully get heifers that he could keep as a reminder of his favourite cows.

I discouraged him. You see, propagating the animals could mean conservation of unfavourable genes. While mastitis is caused by bacterial and fungal infections, genetic make-up is also known to play a part in determining the ease of infection.

Farmers should always remove from their herds or flocks any animals with undesirable traits to build superior livestock.

It is always good to remember that the quality of an animal is a product of its genetics, environment, management and nutrition.