# Bleeding into milk?!



## Molly&Monica

Love this site-thanks to everyone for your kindness and conviction!!

About 2 weeks ago I noticed a brownish-red sediment in the bottoms of my milk jars after they had sat in the fridge for a couple of days. My husband is the most comitted to drinking it and said it had an off taste even before I told him about the rings. SO...I called the vet to make sure we didn't treat for mastitis unneccesarily. Both of the mastitis tests that my vet ran came back negative. But he says that it looks like blood and recommended that we treat with vitamin K for 5 days. She does have a dry sister that we sometimes put with her, but noone has horns. 

Has anyone heard of this bleeding into the udder? Is it genetic? What does the vitamin K do? Thanks!!


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## OhCee

Questions 1 & 2, I have no idea, sorry!

BUT Vitamin K helps with blood clotting  so I'm sure it will help minor(?) bleeding in the udder to clot and heal 

I'm sure someone more useful will come along soon!

Just be careful because Vit K is a fat-soluble vitamin (stored in the body, excess is not eliminated daily in urine) so do not go over the recommended daily dosage from your vet 

Hope she heals swiftly and completely!


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## Molly&Monica

Thanks-I will follow directions closely.


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## ZipperDoo

Goats don't have to have horns to do damage to each other - especially not in the udder! Bleeding like that could be from a very minor internal tear, or bruising if the other goat kicked or butted her in the udder.

One of her teats also could have been pinched in/on something too hard, causing a small tear in one of them, she could have snagged an orifice on something like a thorn... The possibilities are endless.

At least now you know it's not mastitis.  Do the vitamin K thing absolutely... Usually I'm really good with the homeopathic stuff but I cannot for the life of me recall what herbs are good for mammary troubles. :\ I'll post it when it comes back to me.


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## nancy d

Sometimes you have some capillaries that break while milking; resulting in a tinge of blood sediment at the bottom of the jar.


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## lissablack

This happens to my nubian doe sometimes, I never noticed an off flavor, but it really bugs people even if it doesn't taste at all. You can pour the milk into a different jar and leave the settled blood so you get rid of it. In any case when I had it it stopped by itself in a week or two. I don't remember exactly how long, it was a couple years ago. My vet here said it was a capillary leaking and not something to worry about. It's never happened to anyone else, and she is the "big dog", nobody butts her. 

Jan


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## Molly&Monica

Hmmm-that's interesting. I let my 6 year olds milk ANY time they are interested, so I wonder if their (or even MY) milking isn't the proper technique and damaging her capillaries enough to cause bleeding. 

So it's safe to drink even if it's not all that appealling? Then it would for sure be OK to feed to my bottle calves and chickens? I can't get my chickens to drink milk, but if they did......  
Thanks so much!!


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## nancy d

I purchased milk from a goat dairy that had pink residue at the bottom. . I let her know & she had to re-adjust the vacuum part of her milking machines.
No problem feeding it to livestock. Heck I even drank some & it was fine. A little gross when I saw the pink though.


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## Molly&Monica

Well, 5 days of vitamin K shots and the blood was much reduced on day 3 and here it is back again the day after the last shot. I'm really, really not wanting to drink that milk! I don't know what else to do! Anyone else have any suggestions?? :GAAH:


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## liz

I noticed in my FF that she had some red clots in the filter for 2 days, bottom of jar was pink too. I tested for mastitis, all was clear and I continued to milk her...after 2 days she cleared up on her own.

I'm at a loss as to what could be done for your girl, I hope she can heal on her own though my guess is that she has broken cappillaries...if she is getting a 12 hour fill, is there a way to try and milk her every 8 hours to reduce the engorgment and maybe help her heal?

As far as the milk goes, heres what I did with Baileys, after straining into a jar I let it "settle" for 24 hours then poured all but the last inch into a clean jar. The milk poured off was white and when in the new jar it didn't have the sediment, the bloody milk was dumped.


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## Realfoodmama

Molly&Monica said:


> Well, 5 days of vitamin K shots and the blood was much reduced on day 3 and here it is back again the day after the last shot. I'm really, really not wanting to drink that milk! I don't know what else to do! Anyone else have any suggestions?? :GAAH:


How are you milking her? I notice that you never mentioned if you milk by hand or with machine.


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## Molly&Monica

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back here! I milk by hand twice/day.

I don't know if she is CAE (or is it CEA) positive, is this one of the symptoms? Can I check that without ANOTHER farm call?

Also, she shares a pen with the latest puny calf that I drag home from the sale barn-yes, I am one of those calf whisperers that can put them back together and usually make a little profit. That I can certainly change in the future but calving season is over around here. I DO NOT ALLOW (or encourage) the calves to suckle from her. 

My husband and I both milk-neither of us is a real brut and we have been real easy on her since this started. If you think 8 hour milkings will help that is an option as I stay at home with my 3 kids (80 laying hens 200 meat birds and 11 head of cattle-heehee)

I have not tried pouring the settled milk into a clean jar. My husband and I are both REALLY grossed out by this one and we are pretty hard to gross out-at least I thought we were. But the idea of drinking milk that has been mixed with blood we just can't seem to get out heads around.

Sorry about the long post! Sorry about being such a sissy-I thought I was tough, but I just have to get this girl cleared up because we can't drink it the way it is!


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## liz

The only way I know of to check for CAE status is with a blood draw and sending it to WADDL or Biotracking.

I don't think this would be considered a symptom of CAE though...usually it's more a full blown mastitis or just a hard udder.
Try the milking every 8 hours and see if it alleviates the problem, worst comes to worst even if you can't bring yourself to drink the milk that puny little calf could benefit from it as I don't think a little blood in the milk would hurt him.


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## Molly&Monica

I will start 3 milkings/day tomorrow. Even though I am home, that will be hard toi get used to! 

She freshened back in September I believe it was. If milking 3 times/day doesn't help..... Should I dry her up and re breed her? As much as I love kids and birthing animals of all kinds-I don''t need kids I need goats milk. 

Is this likely a genetic predisposition that will happen with her next freshening?


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## MiGoat

I have read this is common in first fresheners when their udder stretches cappillaries break. I would google for "sub clinical" mastitits just in case. I have heard it recommended (by Pat Coleby who apparently is a farm animal guru) to feed their milk back to them.
You may want to think about breeding her if she freshened last year. Usually you want 60 or so days between milking and freshening. So breed her now (if you can..if she's in estrus) and then in 3 months start to dry her off)

I don't think I've ever heard of this as a genetic predisposition.


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## spottedpridefarm

our doe lost 2 kids during childbirth a week ago. now we are noticing blood in her milk as we try to relieve her engorgement. what do we do?


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## ksalvagno

You will want to start your own thread. But it sounds like she may have mastitis. You will need to milk her out and use Tomorrow on her.


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## cmcclung

I dont think this is that uncommon. If she is a FF or didnt kid one year. I have a doe that had a difficult birthing so we didnt breed her the next season. The year after she got bred and had twin doelings. For the first couple of weeks we had the same thing. By the 3rd week it was gone and the off flavor had gone too!!


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