I think the vet has probably said and done all they can but I would really like to hear if anyone has ever had any experience with mastitis and what the outcome was.
My story is that when her calf was just over two weeks old I noticed the mum laying away from the other cows one evening and the following morning I noticed that one of her hind quarters was "looking different" The vet happened to be nearby and came out confirming mastitis. This was last Tuesday. He milked a small quantity of smelly lumpy clots but we couldn't get anything else out from that quarter which wasn't really swollen but was as hard as a drum. It looked like the calf was sucking from the other three.
She had a temperature over 40. She was given Oxytocin, metacam and combiclav, the combiclav we carried on
Injecting for another three days. We tried stripping out each day as well but only ever got small amounts of the smelly cheesy clots and I felt never released any pressure. So still really worried on the Thursday I called the vet and they gave me more metacam and tubes to inject up her teat for four days. So we carried on with injections and tubes and trying our best to strip out (but never getting any more that say a serving spoon of clots) calf still feeding ok from other quarters.
Now the poor girl sees us coming and she is off! Meant hours and man power have been spent trying to get her in unsuccessfully and although she is a small Shetland we haven't been able to get her into the area with the crush for the last two days. I don't blame her as for eight days (some days it was twice) she has been injected or tubed but the vet said I still have to strip out and now it's two days since I have done it.
I know now that we should have kept her confined in the area with the crush but at the time thought it would be too stressful for her not to be with the other cows. Too late now anyway.
I don't know what to do now re the amount of stress caused to her trying to get her in versus the small amount of clots we get out. If I don't get it out will it end up poisoning her? I think I know the answer is that I have to somehow get her in but any advice or to hear anyone else's experience would be wonderful. It's very upsetting as it's like having a sick child who can't tell you how they feel and doesn't understand that you are trying to help them.