I had some really high numbers on a milk shipment. Talk about panic! Anyway, I tested every doe in my miking herd. Wow! What a challenge. Each doe had to be pre-dipped with
an iodine teat dip, wait 30 seconds, wipe off well, strip 6 streams of milk each teat, wipe the teat end with an alcohol wipe and fill a vial- without getting anything in it but milk. (about the size of
2 old 35 mm film canisters). After 55 does- my wrists were shot. (oh, then milk each doe with the machine, of course!) The vials went into an ice water bath kept at 34-36ºF in a cooler. They were then hand delivered to the lab about an hour and a half away. I will test the rest of the herd at a later date- I ran out of time that day. The other half of the herd has had no problems with high numbers
in the bulk tank- I was trying to bring a bunch of does I had at the other farm in to the current herd.
So, I got the results. A few does I knew had some problems, CMT sort of did the gel thing. No clumps, strings or any real mastitis indicators, just the minor gel. So, I knew a couple were problem does. They are also old, last lactation and will be put on the retirement list. What really surprised me were the does I left buck kids on- Terribly high Somatic cell numbers. No more kids left on
does. Wow, those kids destroyed the does' udders!
Now, my question- I have the lab results- but, the lab does not know the values I need to have- they only know the cow values, which don't work for goats.....
Somatic cell- needs to be under 750,000- highest accepted from my cheese guy is 1,200,000. So a really great udder would be 78,000.
MUN is something to do with urea- I know those values- the higher the number the more the rumen wastes- the lower- they are in some sort of negative energy thing.
Anyone know what OS, FrzPT, FFA means? And what values I should look for? This is the first time I had to test everyone. It's also Covid's fault. (I never left all the kids on does like I did
last year, as there was no one buying milk for cheese due to wineries being closed- so why pull kids just to bottle feed back?) BAD idea! Wow, it backfired this year!~ aghhh!
It is amazing that there just isn't any information about goat milk and the lab values. And the lab, which is a big milk lab, doesn't know goat values....
You know those Dr. Naylor cardboard mastitis cards that they sell for mastitis at Tractor Supply? Those are my first go to if I suspect anything is off with the milk. If the circles (you squirt milk on it after stripping 4 strips each teat) stay nice an yellow, things are ok. Light green- you may have some sub clinical mastitis starting, dark green- definitely mastitis. The box talks about turning blue- well, after contacting the company that makes them, they said they don't work for goats, only cows. They do work for goats- I tested 55 goats, wrote down the color change, then got my lab results back. The cards never turned blue like they would for cows, but, any shade of green means your somatic cell count is high.