Are there any organic dairy farmers out there that have a good cure for mastitis?

Answer 1

Since they are not allowed to use antibiotics, all they can do is to hire a virgin to suck on the affected tit until it gets cured.

Answer 2

If you have an infected animal, first thing is to take her out of the herd and have a vet take care of the issue. Make sure that the inoculations are up to date for her (and the rest). By inoculation now for the herd you will keep the problem to a minimum if it occurs. Your maintenance and care before a problem will keep the incidence to a minimum or not at all, depending on herd size. Yes there is a cost, but it is less than having a problem which will happen if you don't.

Organic solutions in agriculture regardless of the form of agriculture are generally ones that rely more on labor intensive methods and an almost "Far eastern" approach of prevention and monitoring. That said;

Everything clean- dress right dress. If you know what I mean then you're one step ahead already. Quarters and conditions need clean, dry, and ventilated.

Feed needs to include vitamin and mineral supplements, one article I read specified A and E and selenium but a bit more rounded is better all around. In times when good green grazing are not available, and this is where a lot of vitamins and minerals are found along with grains, consider the following. A project done in Spain many years back looked at the ways to increase milk production and increase milk fat content. As my research book was stolen by a colleague (may he choke on it in hard times) I can't quote the milk fat content increases, but they were huge. The feed was grown hydroponically (now wait because you're thinking chemical). The grains which would have been fed to the animals are sprouted in trays and grown under lights to form mats of green vegetation. Well you don't need lights and the solution can be prepared organically. If you want organic this is a great way to get that vitamin and mineral supplement, especially when grazing is limited by season. Email me for more info on this, but back to the problem.

After addressing feed, look at care. Clean your milking equipment each and every animal, and make sure it is dry and no residue and lose the Goof who speed milks and gets the equipment all twisted up. They are just gonna hurt the animals. Clean each and every animal before and after using the equipment and make sure they are dry. Take care to make sure no damage to the teats occurs, and keep the teats from any exposure to anything after milking, especially bedding for the time it takes the animal to recover, may be as long as an hour in some cases. Standing and feeding may be the best with clean dry teats for this time period.

See, you know all this, and I don't want to insult your intelligence. You asked for organic cures, it is mostly in prevention and that is the clean issue and the healthy animal issue. When you have a problem, you call the vet, find out what organism is causing the issue and deal with it. Keep that cow out of the herd until the problem is past. And now that you see the problem, look at the cost to monitor the situation. If labor is an issue and your close to a university, get some kids that have agro majors and put them on it and the payroll. At least to get a bit of control.

Answer 3

If you don't consider antibiotics to be organic you may as well cull the cow. Otherwise, quarantine the cow temporarily and treat her with antibiotics.Treatment of mastitis is sure to advanced greatly in the last 40 years. Check with your Veterinarian. When only penicillin was available, sometimes you ended up culling the cow anyway. It's a shame to lose an animal, especially a good producer, needlessly.

Answer 4

Hi , I would like to share what I learnt over the past 6 years, working with vets/DVM, professors, hygiene advisors and farmers. To answer your question we have to define which type of mastitis you are talking about: if it's subclinical verus clinical. Or chronic, which requires you to have an individual (cow, animal, even per quarter) medical record. In the majority of chronic cases, whether subclinical or certainly clinical, culling is the only viable option. For subclinical cases, treatment with antibiotics (cf. conventional dairy farming) is often not successful in any case. Treatment options depend then on the type of pathogen. For (accute) clinical cases, treatment can be via early dry-off, feed additives and vitamins, oils, cannula (painful), garlic etc.
In both cases, hygiene conditions in the barn and the milking equipment (pulsation, vacuum etc) should be checked.

Finally, I learnt that curing mastitis should also include trying to avoid new mastitis cases (IMI, whether during lactation or dry-off). In other words, prevention and monitoring is essential. This is what I'm working on (Ekomilk Horizon) via somatic cell count (abbrev: SCC) you can detect any new infection (inflammation), early and on-farm, before it gets clinical and before other animals get infected (separate infected animals and milk these last). In that context, pre and post dipping of teats is also essential (cf. milking routine).

Answer 5

I would treat the cows with antibiotics or by having the vet come out and band their legs. Mark them some how and just make sure, that the milk does not go into your bulk tank.

Then their is no antibiotics in your milk and once the cows are better you can begin using their milk, but be sure that all off the antibiotics are out of her system.

Other wise ship them, it is more costly in man power and time to treat mastitis by other ways than antibiotic.

Answer 6

the best way to cure mastitis is to use an intramammary antibiotic. especially early.

Answer 7

Sure, ship her. Permanently cured. Otherwise it's just a matter of time until it comes back.

Answer 8

put 3 or 4 calves on the cow and let them nurse .they will keep her milked out and the nursing action will loosen the inflammation up .