Katie kidded 3/6 with 2 bucks. Two weeks later she had a sore on her udder from rough nursing. Didn’t think much of it, it happens all the time. It hurt so she didn’t let them nurse as much. She would get overly full so I had to milk her. It bled a bit when I milked her. One day, it was notably swollen and seemed discolored. Katie seemed a little quiet and didn’t eat as much. I should have aggressively treated that day but explained it away. The next day she was off feed, clearly depressed and I knew she had a major problem - gangrenous mastitis. The little cut turned black and a red fluid that was not blood (serum?) started coming out.

I treated with Today infusion and LA200. The area turned black & dried out. The rest of the teat became discolored, it was spreading inside. Eventually the whole teat turned black. The dead tissue was drying but infection was clearly now trapped, since I couldn’t milk it out. Infection has to come out & the dead/dry tissue was preventing drainage, so I cut the tip of the teat off, with very liberal margins - just incase, with hoof nippers… what drained that came out was horrific… damn did it stink! Even thru gloves my hands seemed to smell, or maybe it was just stuck in my nose. Katie was on banamine for pain control (and omeprazole for stress / digestive health management - stress causes acid, acid jacks up digestion, bad digestion makes things worse). I flushed the udder using a 60cc syringe with chlorhexidine solution multiple times a day.

At some point, the chlorhexidine ‘pickled’ the internal udder tissue. I flushed with (expired) penicillin every 3rd day (don’t throw expired out, awesome topically!). This seemed to make a huge difference based on the nastiness of the drainage. The stink had resided but the internal milk tissue had to come out… so I pulled it out…

So that chunk of tissue going across… I think that udder support tissue… doesn’t look like a blood vein.. getting that funk out was clearly the ticket, as next pic was taken 12hrs later. I’ll continue to flush at least once a day until I can’t.