I Thought Midge Had Mastitis

Yesterday when I tried to milk out Midge, the teat and lower udder felt really thick and hard and I couldn’t get the milk to start flow at all.  She had been fine on Thursday and it looked like the injury was improving, although she still wasn’t letting the kids close.  I rang the breeder, Andreas from Koonac, and he came up in the morning to check her.  To our huge relief he got the milk flowing and said it wasn’t mastitis, but more likely she had a congested udder with possibly some scar tissue from when she scraped herself.  He gave me some teat care cream to massage into her wound and udder twice a day and advised me to keep milking her until the wound healed and we could get the kids back on.  If we didn’t keep milking her, that side of her udder could dry off which would mean less available for the kids as they were growing and less for us when we start milking later in the year.   Crumpler stepped on her injured teat when climbing on her and poor Midge shot to her feet.  I hope we can fix her soon.