Help desperately needed

[blueprintminis]

I have a mare who is due to foal the first week of June. 2 weeks ago I decided to check to see if she was bagging up at all because last year she had her foal a full 4 weeks early (he was "done"). Well, when I reached under her, she went ballistic! I realized that the left side of her udder had a very hard very tender knot in it about the size of a woman's fist. I called the vet immediately and she came out and examined the mare. We decided that this must have been an ongoing situation from last fall when her 2007 foal was weaned. (Shame on me.

I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention.) The vet put her on a broad spectrum antibiotic, which she has been on for 14 days now and I am seeing little improvement. I am starting to worry about her ability to nurse her expectant foal and will the colostrum be effected? I spoke with the vet again today and she talked about "milking" the infection out of the udder, which I think my mare will not be too agreeable about. And she talked about trying to infuse the udder with antibiotics, a procedure that I guess is used on dairy cattle.

Is there anyone out there who has any first hand experience with mastitis in an expectant miniature mare? Any/all info you can share with me would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MountainMeadows]

I can't help you with the "expectant" part, but I had a mare with mastitis after weaning last year -- not fun to deal with. Lots of antibiotics, we did infuse her, and actually had to lanse the "knot" and inject antiobiotics right into her udder.

I suspect that with my mare that I will lose production in one of her milk glands from all of this -- BUT mares have 4 milk glands, so I suspect that your mare will be able to nurse just fine. I would be prepared to have some colustrom on standby, or be ready to do a plasma transfer just in case her milk is affected by the antibiotics --- if you can hot pack her udder and milk out only the side with the puss in it until it runs to just milk it would help a lot, but I know my mare wasn't very ready to let me do this procedure - it is really painful for them -- poor girl

- I feel for her and for you.

Good luck and please keep us posted - this is a valuable piece of information for all of us.

Stacy

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

This is going to sound a bit odd but if you can find a way to hold warm blanched cabbage leaves on the mares udder it might help. I was advised to do this for my Bullmastiff when she developed what was the worst case of mastitis the vet had seen. Apparently women use this to help reduce the engorgement that comes with the infection.

 

[RobinRTrueJoy]

I work as a nurse in a human nursery with newborns. The lactation consultants there recommend COLD moist cabbage leaves applied to the breast for engorgement.Wash thehe leaves, shake off excessive moisture and keep them cold in the refrig. When the leaves get warm, its time for new cold ones. I think they have a tendency to dry up the milk. Can you call a local Leche league person to find out if they dry milk up?

Good luck

Robin

 

[blueprintminis]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Poor mare. She's just miserable.

Laura

 

[Mona]

So sorry to hear of your mare's problems. I hope you are able to get this all sorted out before she foals and everything goes well. Good luck to both of you!

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

I work as a nurse in a human nursery with newborns. The lactation consultants there recommend COLD moist cabbage leaves applied to the breast for engorgement.Wash thehe leaves, shake off excessive moisture and keep them cold in the refrig. When the leaves get warm, its time for new cold ones. I think they have a tendency to dry up the milk. Can you call a local Leche league person to find out if they dry milk up?

Good luck

Robin

Hmmmm...now I wonder which way is correct. The vet was pretty clear on the instructuions she gave me. Blanche them and use them warm, remove when they got cold. Maybe it was because the warmth would encourage blood flow which would help carry away the infection. Then again the dog did end up in surgery 3 days after it started getting an entire breast and the ducts in 2 others removed so maybe she got it wrong. I have to say if nothing else the warm leaves seemed to soothe the discomfort some what.

blueprintminis how is your girl managing today?

 

[RobinRTrueJoy]

I spoke with a HUMAN lacatation consultant. She told me ( at least for humans)that cabbage leaves are used cold and changed once they become warm. But they do DRY UP milk so I don't know if this is a great idea,( I suppose the vet's the best one to give advice). When I asked her about mastitis( IN HUMANS) she said that a course of antibiotics and continuing to pump or breast feed helps along with cool compresses... however I must again state that this is human advice.

Wishing you all the best with you mare.

Robin

 

[Stephanie]

We bought a mare in foal and she had mastitis so bad that there were holes in her udder where she was dripping exudate. We tried antibiotics and infusions per the vets advice. The mastitis did not clear up before the foal was born so the foal had to be bottle fed. After the foal was born we were able to use stronger medications but the mastitis was so bad the vet had to do surgery on the udder. We ended up retiring the mare from breeding.