My aunt has some goat that she raised on a bottle from day one. before Christmas she started bagging down and her udder was pretty warm, I told her to get it checked by her vet because I'm a dairy farmer and I was almost sure it was mastitis. Well, Today she got it checked out because her goat was acting really weird, chasing her tail, and kicking at her udder a lot. Her vet took milk samples and they came back mastitis positive. The only problem is that this goat is not pregnant and never has been pregnant. I know this would be caused by a major hormone imbalance but the only thing I can thing of that would cause something like this would be tumors on some reproductive organs. I don't really know so I'm not going to tell her anything until either I have something more hopeful than tumors or that everyone agrees that it's probably tumors because I don't need her getting too upset, she just lost her 13 year old bottle fed sheep 3 weeks ago. Her vet told her to milk the goat two times a day to get the mastitis out and he'd try to deal with her milk production ASAP. The only problem is that he seems to know nothing about goats.

Any help that anyone can give will be more than 100% appreciated.

Thanks, Suzanne

-- Suzanne (R_F_Gymnast@yahoo.com), April 25, 2001

Answers

It could be that she's just from a high production line of goats. Milking virgin does from such families are not uncommon. Sometimes even bucks from these lines will start producing milk and get mastitis. No offense but I really don't think that tumors are the cause of this. As far as dealing with it, milking her will only encourage her to produce milk. How about infusing her udder with Tomorrow ( dry treatment) and discontinuing the milking. Unless of course they want the milk, in which case treat the mastitis and then keep milking her. How old is this goat?

-- Chamoisee (chamoisee@yahoo.com), April 25, 2001.

Suzanne, great call to get the milk tested, so few folks do this. This is called a percocious udder/milker, and is usually seen in families. Especially when both sides of the udder come into milk, choosing to milk it or not is a personal decision, but with it coming in mastitis positive, milking it along with masitis infusions and systemic antibiotics, until you get a clear test, then choosing either to dry the doe or continue milking her if her milk is needed or she is milking enough to warrant continuing. Cysts on the ovaries can indeed also cause this. Did you also know that even a sip of colostrum from her dam that had mastitis could also cause this doe to freshen or come into milk with mastitis? Your course of action with the mastitis totally depends upon what bacteria is the cause. Vets with dairy cattle experience usually have great instincts when helping us deal with our goats. Just out of curiosity what breed is she, and did both halves of the udder come in evenly? In our breeding of LaMancha's we saw two things, hormonoly caused percocious udder that came in evenly, and mastitis caused udder development which caused only one side to come in. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 26, 2001.