A Congested Udder

Poor Splat.  The girl's udder was ginormous just for one kid, and although I milked her out a bit on day three, I waited until day six to try again. Two lessons:  one, I needed to milk her out sooner than day three to save better milk for the antioxidants to freeze.  And two, I should not have let her go that long before trying to relieve the poor dear.

In any case, trying to milk her out on day six was terrible!  Her udder was so swollen I couldn't even get a grip on her teats!  I worked on her for a while (staying low on her teat) and managed to get her milked out about a third of the way before we (she and I) were both *done*.

Twice more that day I went out to milk and thankfully by that evening she was looking (and I bet feeling) much better.

One of her teats was giving me some clumpy milk however, that would stop up her flow and I had to gently strip it all out.  Uh oh, I thought.  I tested her for mastitis and thankfully that was negative.  But I still had to deal with the clumps and the fact that her udder was not in primo condition.

This is what I did, other than milking her out multiple times and gently getting those clumps out.

I made a herbal batch with 8oz molasses, 4oz seaweed, 1/2TB of my ImmuniTea herb mix (with immune supporting herbs), 1/2 TB powdered ginger, 1/2TB marshmallow root, and a chopped up raw garlic clove.

Then I added warm water to the mix, to make a slurry consistency.  I gave Splat some of the mix as I was milking her. To it I added a strong herbal wormer, some probiotics, vitamin C and a teaspoon each of Diamond Yeast and dolomite.

Onto her udder, I massaged her first with warm water with Thieves essential oil, and then with a comfrey salve.  It's a nice consistency and gives my hands a better grip.  After milking, I massaged her again with UdderMint Balm, which has eucalyptus (amongst other things) in it.

All to say, at the end of the second day, things are looking much, much better.  The clumps are almost all gone and there is still plenty of milk.

As I say, lessons learned!  I will be more careful with my doe's udder next kidding.  Only three more does to go this spring!