Mastitis In A Milk Goat

If you have goats for milk, it’s only a matter of time before you deal with mastitis in a milk goat. Even if you do everything 100% right, there is a high chance that they will end up with mastitis at some point. But if you are still in the research or preparation phase of goat ownership, this post is also for you. I’m going to go through the ways that I know to prevent mastitis as well as treat it.

Mastitis In A Milk Goat

Mastitis can be causes by any number of factors but the most common is milk retention and bacteria. Usually, if you are milking, and not kid sharing, you are at a higher likelihood for your milk goat developing mastitis. If you aren’t cleaning teats well, this can also cause mastitis. Today, I’m going to first cover the ways your girl got mastitis. Second, how we can help prevent mastitis. Finally, I’m going to cover what to do if your milk goat ends up with mastitis.

Remember, raising goats is hard and you aren’t going to catch everything that happens to them. But mastitis is usually an easy fix if it’s caught soon enough.

Ways Momma Got Mastitis

First and foremost, I want to repeat that you can do everything 100% correct and the goat still gets mastitis. You can do everything wrong and the goat never gets it. However, we want to make sure that we are lowering her chances of getting it. So the important question is what IS mastitis?

Mastitis is inflammation of the udder or mammary glands. The inflammation can be caused by a ton of different reasons but the most common ones are going to be infection, stress, other sickness, milk retention or clogged milk ducts. If you have ever had a baby or breastfed, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Mastitis hurts… A lot.

Bella Got Mastitis

Now, Bella is our best goat. She is a backyard breed and not only is she super hardy, she is a fantastic momma and our best milker. The problem is she is a low rider and only sits about 24″ tall at the shoulder. That means that her teats almost drag the ground. We call her Yams because it looks like she is smuggling yams in her teats when she is nursing/milking. She out produces all of our other goats and gives us about a gallon of milk a day once the kids are off her.

Recently, we had two separate snow/ice storms hit Georgia back to back. Jade gave birth during the first one. Bella gave birth during the second one. But this year, when she had her kids, they died within about 36 hours of being born. While we were trying to nurse them back from the brink, we were milking her out to get colostrum into them. We *think* this is when she got the mastitis.

She could have had it before and we didn’t notice it. She could have just been more suspectable to it because of the stress of losing her babies. It could have been because of the milking. Or it could have been because she’s a low rider and her teats brushed the ground. There’s no way to really know.

Preventing Mastitis In A Milk Goat

There are a couple really important things that you can do to make sure that your goat doesn’t end up with mastitis. First, always have clean bedding down for them while they are nursing or in milk. Second, have good milking practice, which I’ll go over more in the next section. Third, is going to be supportive care.

Clean bedding is important not just for mom, but also babies. Babies have that umbilicus that is usually dragging the ground unless you trim it quickly. By having clean bedding, you automatically reduce the chances of infection.

Having Good Milking Practices

This seems like a no brainer, but there are some people that struggle. I’m not saying it to be mean, either. Because if you don’t know better, you can’t do better. Good milking practice is going to be things like cleaning off the udder and teats from big debris like bedding, poop, after birth, etc. Then cleaning the teats with something. I use a warm baby wipe to make sure that the teats clean. But some people will use iodine solutions to make sure that there is no bacteria before or after milking.

When you are think you are done milking, you should “bump” momma’s udder and then milk out a little more. Sometimes momma’s will hold back a little bit of milk or cream and we want to get that out too. You should wipe off her teats again to make sure that you got everything and the teats are clean. Finally, you should be putting some sort of something on her teats.

This could be udder balm and olive oil. We want something that is going sooth the skin but also create a barrier. If she is nursing, we want to make sure that whatever we use is safe for the baby.

If you are really worried about mastitis in your milk, you can absolutely do a mastitis test like these.

Regardless, making sure that you are cleaning before and after, completely milking her out, and supporting her is going to really help prevent mastitis.

Supportive Care

Initially, I was going to put this with mastitis treatment, but I think it belongs in prevention instead. If we can support her as much as possible, it acts as a preventive. So we are going to talk about supportive care here.

What is supportive care? This is going to look different for everyone but the general gist is pretty easy. After your goat labors, we want to make sure that she is getting plenty of vitamins, minerals, quality hay and feed. But beyond that, I like to do a couple extra supplements.

I will usually give momma an injection of B12 Complex like this or Thiamine (this is a prescription from the vet). I will also give her something with a ton of concentrated minerals like Nutridrench or Power Punch. You can read more about laboring momma’s and all the things I do here. I don’t do all of this right off the bat. Nor will I do this for every goat.

Just doing these types of things will help her bounce back and take care of those babies and produce milk.

She Got Mastitis Anyways

I’ll say it one more time, it’s not 100% your fault that momma got mastitis. Life happens on the farm and despite your best efforts, she ended up with mastitis. Don’t get down on yourself. Now is the time to start learning.

First and foremost, if you are in over your head, go to the vet. Period. The common treatment for mastitis is antibiotics. But I also know that not everyone is as lucky enough to have a large animal vet close to them. The day I figured out Bella had mastitis, I had a vet appointment for her. If that is not possible for you either because of finances or not having a large animal vet, here’s what I would do.

I would go to your local feed store or Tractor Supply and get Udder Balm and see if you can find diluted peppermint oil. You may have to search different stores of the peppermint oil. Some udder balms have peppermint oil in it, if it does, you don’t need to add more to it. I would also get a bunch of garlic. I would recommend whole bulbs but work with what you’ve got.

PS if you can only find pure peppermint oil, you can dilute it yourself in oil. You want something like 2 drops of peppermint oil per teaspoon of oil.

Next, get a bucket of the hot water. If it’s super cold where you are, get it as hot as you can stand. We want to make hot compresses. I take a small bucket of hot water and a rag out with me. That way I can reheat the rag as I need to.

Now, this is the hard part. You have to get your momma to let you put hands on her very tender udder and teats. This is going to be a freaking nightmare, especially if she is not milk broke. I would highly recommend getting at least one other person to help you.

Treatment Protocol For Mastitis In A Milk Goat

First, offer your momma feed and garlic cloves. This will, hopefully, keep her on the stand. Next you are going to milk out as much of that milk as you can. Once you have as much out as possible, you are going to start your hot compresses and massage her udder to help break up all that milk.

As you massage the udder, make sure that you are always moving down towards the teats. We want to make sure that we are working to unclog anything that is stuck. Once the rag gets cool or cold, dunk it back in the hot water and start working to milk out whatever you were able to break up. This can take a long time, so keep at it as long as you possibly can.

Once you have finished milking her out and you are sure you got as much out as possible, slather her udder and teats in that peppermint oil and/ or Udder Balm. The peppermint acts as a vasodilator (widens the vessels) which will increase blood flow to the area. This will help get the blood and milk moving as you are milking. The oil or the balm will not only sooth the skin but also create a barrier.

Miscellaneous Information For Mastitis

It is totally normal to have blood in the udder. In fact, it’s sometimes your only clue that your goat has mastitis. You may find that as you are stripping her udders, you break vessels and she has bleeding. This is normal.

If you can get your hands on a broad spectrum antibiotic like Tylan or LA, it’s not going to hurt. Now, I don’t recommend the use of antibiotics unless necessary. But antibiotics do help with inflammation and obviously infection. So it’s not a bad idea.

No. If momma has mastitis, you should not let the babies nurse. Think about it, if momma has an infection, that baby is basically mainlining the infection straight into their gut. Not good.

Unfortunately, you now have bottle babies. You can read here how I care for bottle babies. This also means that you should not drink that milk, either. I’ve heard of some people drinking the milk from the unaffected side, but I wouldn’t. Sure, it may be fine, but I have enough gut issues.

Lastly, remember that this can take a long time to heal. Don’t panic. At least not yet. It’s a process and you don’t want to push momma to the brink.

If you like the content I put out, feel free to buy us a coffee! It helps keep this site running, marketing and the goats in grain!

Buy me a coffee