CURE FOR MILK FEVER

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 6100, 10 September 1947, Page 2

CURE FOR MILK FEVER

DISCOVERED BY MISTAKE EFFECTIVE METHODS Milk fever, the result of a temporary lack of calcium in the blood, is still cured on most farms by inflating the udder of the affected cow, the shut-down of milk production allowing the calcium supplies to build up. Science happened on this cure by mistake.

At one time it was thought that an invasion of germs ;the udder caused milk fever. A special preparation was manufactured to kill the germs. After this was pumped into the udder, cows quickly recovered—surely proof that the theory was correct.

All went well till a Danish veterinarian, in preparing to treat some milk fever cases, found that he had forgotten to bring the gerihicide. Not willing to make another trip, he pumped plain water into the cows’ udders. All the animals recovered !

For time the veterinarian enriched himself by using water instead of the expensive germicide. Eventually his secret was discovered, inflation with air was found to be more convenient than pumping the udder with water, and the calcium imbalance, not an infection, was nailed down as the cause of milk fever. Inflation Abandoned Modern practice has discarded the. udder inflation treatment. A calcium solution injected beneath the cow’s skin is considered more satisfactory. Both methods are effective, but the positive action of directly supplying the deficient mineral seems preferable to the indirect and negative plan of preventing a drain of calcium into the milk; also, the danger of injury to the teats cannot be discounted in the older cure. A carefully sterilised pumping outfit may be safe enough, but the more commonly-used bicycle pump and valve are likely to cause complications worse than the disease itself.

Many cases of mammitis, ranging in severity up to gangrene of the whole udder, have followed the use of a dirty pumping outfit. "Wlhen am injection is made the hypodermic syringe also requires sterilisation. Ugly sores and serious infection' are the likely penalites for using an unclean needle, but the danger here is much less than when the udder is inflated.

Once an animal has been given an injection of pumped up, it should be propped on it brisket. Left to lie on its side, it may drown in its own regurgitated food or die of bloat. In no circumstances should a milk-fever animal be drenched when semi-consci-ous. A . drench can do no good, and if administered while the animal is in a coma a portion is bound to enter the lungs. Literally thousands of cows have died from pneumonia following drenching during a milk-fever attack. Not one of these deaths was unavoidable; and, indeed, if caught in time, no cow should die from milk fever, either.