The night went well, but then Christina went down again this morning. Last night she ate constantly and stayed on her feet all evening. My husband got up once to check on her. I feared she would be laying down sleeping and then we'd worry, but instead she was out in the pasture grazing.
This morning we went out to milk for the first time. She was really full. We planned to only take two quarts to decrease the draw on her body, but it seemed that we needed to take the fullness off. After five quarts it finally seemed like she wasn't totally full. When I filtered the milk, it had lots tiny clots, which can be a sign of mastitis. Oh... dang... now what? The best treatment for mastitis is to fully milk her out but the best treatment for milk fever is to not fully milk her out. Our friend from the dairy said, it really comes down to which do you want to treat: milk fever or mastitis. Well, since we have some experience with milk fever...
We decided on a compromise. We went back and fully milked out the one quarter that seemed the hardest, and therefore might be the one infected. If it is mastitis, it's still pretty mild.
In the midst of all this, we noticed that jerky sounded gurgly when he breathed. He's at risk of pneumonia because he didn't get the colostrum as quickly as he should have, so we took his temperature to see if he was developing an infection. I am getting way too experienced at taking cows' temperatures. It was normal, thank God.
After milking we let jerky go with Christina and he immediately started suckling. Two hours later we noticed that she had stopped eating. Uh oh. I ran to the store and bought extra of everything, including four bottles of calcium. When I got back she had laid down and wasn't doing anything. Her nose was dry but her head and ears were up. We prepared for another under the skin injection, but this time with a cow who had a bit of spunk in her. We would tie her up but we needed to be able to release her quickly if she flopped around. First I searched the internet for quick release knots and then we practiced tying them. Finally, we headed out, ready for a fight.
Our older daughters were stationed at her back end to push her down if she tried to get up. We tied her to the post and got the shot going. She actually didn't fight too hard, but she did jerk her head and the needle pulled out. My husband stuck her again and this time the fluid started dribbling out of the first hole. So he had one hand holding the needle and the other one pushing on the first hole. It would have been funny if she wasn't so sick. He finally gave up and went to the other side of her neck.
That shot went better, but the first shots were still leaking a bit. Again he had one hand on the needle and another hand on the two leaking holes. Toward the end, Christina leaned her head over on me as if to say, "I don't feel good." My older daughters spent the whole time watching, trying not think about the needle, but they didn't have to shove a cow back to the ground.
In half-an-hour she was still laying down, but chewing her cud. In an hour and a half, she got up and has been eating ever since. Until she is completely out of the woods, we will keep the calf away from her. At least we have the milking area gated off so we have a place for him where they can be separated but still see and smell each other.
Yesterday her head was all the way down and it took two bottles of calcium and six hours to get up. Today it was one bottle and one-and-a-half hours. We're looking forward to a no-bottle day. Then we'll only have mastitis to fight... and a calf to feed... and keep healthy...
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