Watery Mastitis

This month I have been to treat several cows with E Coli mastitis infection. The infection can occur at any time during lactation, it is more severe close to calving and can easily be mistaken for milk fever. This infection comes from the faeces of the cow. Sometimes it gets help to get established in the udder if the teat end has been damaged. Often the end of the teat will be normal particularly in newly calved cows and it will not be obvious how the infection has gained entry to the teat canal. At first there is only a subtle change to the milk and swelling starts in the quarter. Within hours the udder will be hot and swollen and the milk would have changed to a watery secretion, perhaps with some blood staining present. As well as the changes in the udder the infection will also get into the blood stream of the cow and cause a septicaemia. That is why the cow is so toxic and why there is a need for aggressive antibiotic and suportative therapy to help the cow. There is often a problem with E Coli infections as they are often resistant to the commonly used antibiotics. Sometime we might use a combination of drugs to heighten the possibility that one of them at least will be effective.

Cell Counts

Although there is a severe reaction to this infection in the udder most of the damage is done to the teat canals and the milk ducts that supply it. If you get the right treatments in early enough we can get good results with little long term affects on the cell count and milk production from the gland.

Gas Gangarene

From time to time what seems to start off as an E Coli infection will soon turn into something far more serious. If you are not getting a response to treatment and the surface of the udder is starting to go cold you may be dealing with a clostridial infection. Soon gas will be present when you strip out the infection from the teat. This is never a good thing to treat, some young cows may survive. They will need a lot of drugs to get them through the toxic stages of the infection before the gland sloughs off. It is difficult to justify the cost of treating cases of clostridial mastitis unless it is a particularly valued individual.

Preventing ORF

Orf can be a frustrating disease to treat as it seems to go on and on if it crops up at lambing time as it is difficult to stop it spreading when the lambs mix together. It is not easy to spot the dormant lesions on the skin of brought in ewes and these readily spark off the infection once they mix with your flock. It is one of the infections that you should not try and prevent by vaccination if you do not have it yet. There is only one vaccine available that you scratch onto the skin, this gives the ewes a small dose of the infection so that they can react to it and shed the dormant lesions. This process can take some time so it is best to start at least seven weeks before the lambs are due so that the sheep will be clean before the lambs arrive. Because it is a live vaccine it is important to treat the whole flock or the un protected animals may catch the infection from the vaccination sites.

Controlling BVD

Bovine Viral Diarrhoea is a complexed disease because of the way in which it presents it’s self on different farms. It has an effect of damaging the immune system of cattle and can reveal itself as pneumonia, diarrhoea, infertitity or abortion. Sometimes it is just there in the background and stops cattle performing to their full potential. I am never sure how scientists calculate the cost of different diseases in the National Herd. BVD is reckoned to cost you farmers £60m each year, just how that is calculated in not clear. We lag behind many of our European neighbours as far as disease control matters are concerned. Many countries have BVD disease programmes in place, some are now to all intents and purposes clear of the disease.

Co operation between Farms

Small schemes have been tried on some of the Scottish Islands and pilot schemes are underway in Norfolk, Suffolk and Somerset, though these have only just been set up. For BVD to be controlled and eventually eradicated all of the farms in an area must be monitored and vaccination programmes started. It is difficult to organise this in an informal way as only one or two farmers in the control areas can undo the good work of others if they refuse to co operate. It is cost effective in any herd to try and identify persistently infected cattle and vaccinate the rest. Herds that are not troubled by BVD benefit from vaccination as it keeps the disease out and stops the infection getting established. It is going to take us a long time to catch up as Tuberculosis continues to spread and Leptospirosis is still out of control on many farms. Some dairy farms will find it difficult to control these diseases if they are in the habit of buying in adult cattle directly into their herd. BVD and Leptospirosis are not usually taken into account when replacements are purchased.

Is it getting Warmer?

It is always a dangerous thing to comment on the weather as it has a habit of catching me out. We keep getting record breaking months for temperatures and record breaking months for lack of effective rain. I do not recall the trees holding on to their leaves as late as they have done this year and even now some are reluctant to go into winter. Some farms have been able to make silage in November and still get the grass to recover afterwards. The grass is still managing to grow. Something is going on. We have never managed to keep the flowers outside the surgery growing throughout November and they have not finished yet.

This year for the first time Blue Tongue, which was previously forgotten here as it was considered to be a disease of Tropical Countries, established itself just over the Channel in Belgium.

Fleas and Ticks

Many of the Cats and Dogs that came to our Surgeries in November were found to have substancial flea burdens. We have been treating more patients for fleas in recent weeks than we were in the summer.

Also it is quite noticeable that ticks on companion animals are increasing year on year. This is a cause of concern because of the serious diseases that they can carry to domestic pets as well as people sometimes.

It is not a bad thing in some ways that our climate is getting warmer. What is alarming is what appears to be the pace of the change and the way that we are not doing anything to try and slow it down before we fully understand what is happening.

Agata Klimczyk

There is a new Vet starting at the Malthouse this week. Agata comes from Poland and is keen to work with both small and large animals during her stay in Shropshire. We are pleased that she has come to work here and share her experience with us

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