“HARD” MILKING

Taranaki Daily News, 3 August 1935, Page 12 (Supplement)

“HARD” MILKING

AFFECTIONS OF THE TEATS. CAUSES AND TREATMENT. Rough milking and handling of the teats may result in bruising the latter and a thickening of the lining of the teat canal, making milking both difficult and painful. The whole teat may be swollen and hardened, or a distinct ring of thickening may be felt when handling the teat. The latter is, however, of more frequent occurrence when the injury is inflicted by an over-vigorous calf.

The treatment is to remove the cause and subdue the inflammation by soaking the teat in hot water three times daily, gently massaging with olive oil, and inserting soluble antiseptic teat bougies into the teat canal two or three times daily. In bad cases the cautious use of a milk tube for drawing off the milk without injury to the inflamed teat may be advisable. Before introducing the tube,. .how--1 ever, it must be sterilised by boiling it I for 20 minutes, and the end of the teat must be wiped clean with some cotton, wool soaked in methylated spirit. It is well to wrap the tube in a piece of clean cloth before boiling it, so that it may be taken out of the water and handled through the cloth without the fingers touching it at aIL The tube should be allowed to remain in the water to cool sufficiently to be used. The flow of milk may be obstructed by several different conditions. A common one is an unnaturally small opening to the teat canal, as in the case of “hard milkers.” For this one or other of the teat-slitting operations in vogue among veterinary surgeons is the best remedy, operation having displaced the older and less satisfactory practice of repeated dilations of the opening. In some cases warts attached to the lining of the teat canal, or “peas” as they are called, impede the flow of milk and have to be removed by special instruments designed for the purpose. In others the upper end of the milk canal is blocked by a membrane stretched across it, and this again has to be dealt with by surgical methods by a veterinary surgeon. Sometimes milking is made difficult by the presence of one or more “milkstones” in the teat canal, these socalled stones being composed of a mixture of casein and lime salts. They can be distinguished from warts by being freely moveable up and down the teat canal by manipulation with the fingers. Usually these stones may be forced out of the teat canal by “stripping action with the fingers.” In the case of large stones it may be necessary to have the ] opening dilated and the stone extracted with fine forceps. A thickened condition of the teat canal may remain as a sequel to some injury to the teat. For this condition the alternate insertion of teat bougies containing sulphate of copper, and one made up with boric acid or other milk antiseptic, is the remedy, except in severe cases of practically complete closure of the canal, when surgical methods are demanded.