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Owners of private and farm farms are often faced with various diseases of cattle. To provide first aid, you need to know the symptoms of various pathologies. One of the most common diseases is abscess in cattle. Read more about how to deal with the disease.
What is an abscess in cattle?
To understand how to treat pets for an abscess, you need to know what kind of disease it is. Abscesses are boils or ulcers that appear on different parts of the body of cattle. These neoplasms are a cavity that fills with pus. It is formed due to purulent inflammation of the fiber, organs or tissues of the animal.
There are types of abscess:
- acute, subacute, chronic stage;
- infectious and aseptic;
- deep and superficial;
- benign and malignant;
- metastatic, cold and edematous.
Specifically, the udder abscess is a consequence of complications after catarrhal mastitis. Animals have problems with their milk ducts, which become clogged with pus.Milk production becomes lower by 15-30%, but at the beginning of the disease the udder is not much different from the normal state. That is why it is not always possible to notice the onset of the disease.
If treatment for udder abscess in cattle is not started in a timely manner, the disease will begin to progress. The animal feels uncomfortable, as the temperature of not only the inflamed udder, but also the entire body, rises. Upon transition to the chronic form, the indicators return to normal, but the part of the udder that was affected by the abscess becomes smaller, and the production of pus decreases.
Causes of udder abscess in cows
To understand what an udder abscess is, you need to know for what reasons the disease begins. Most often it occurs after purulent catarrhal mastitis. In some cases, the disease may be a consequence of an inflammatory process in the genital or other organs of the cow. Ulcers can arise from incorrectly placed injections, as well as bruises and various types of injuries.
When the inflammatory process begins in the mammary glands of a cow, cavities form in them, in which pus accumulates. If there are several abscesses, they can connect so that the affected area increases significantly.
It is not so easy to immediately see inflammation in the udder, because most often the abscess begins not on the surface of the mammary glands, but deep inside. But what makes the disease dangerous is that when the abscesses mature, they can burst, and the fluid accumulated in them ends up in the milk ducts.
Symptoms
In order to promptly identify the disease, seek help from specialists and begin treatment, you need to know the symptoms.
After purulent accumulations from the cavity enter the blood, the disease can be determined by the condition of the animal:
- The cow begins to feel chills and trembles all over. This is due to a sharp increase in temperature.
- Depressed breathing and increased heart rate are observed.
- The portion of the udder in which the cattle abscess began increases in size, compactions are noticeable on it, and tubercles appear.
The onset of the acute stage of the disease can be recognized by the altered composition of the milk: pus appears in it. In addition, cattle abscess leads to a sharp decrease in milk yield. When the disease becomes chronic, the general condition of the cow deteriorates sharply.
Treatment of udder abscess in a cow
Real owners who care about the health of their pets find it difficult to look at sick animals. If you have the above symptoms, you should call a specialist. It is important not to delay treatment, as pus from the cavity enters the blood and can be fatal.
Unfortunately, in many rural areas there are no veterinary hospitals, so help cannot be started right away. A specialist who does not have the opportunity to immediately go to the farm will give recommendations, and the owners must independently provide pre-medical assistance.
Help before the doctor arrives
Until a veterinarian arrives to examine the sick cow, the owners must take care of it.
To do this, you need to place the cow in a separate stall and lay down fresh bedding. Then, if the cow is not aggressive, apply lotions to the inflamed area. They are applied until the seal becomes soft.
You can make hot lotions for treating cows yourself:
- From dust from hay, bran, sawdust. These ingredients are steamed with boiling water, cooled slightly and applied to the sore spot.
- Lotions made from alcohol or ozokerite (mountain wax) help well.
- If there are medicinal muds in the area, then before use they need to be heated to a temperature slightly above room temperature and applied to the udder of cattle in case of an abscess.
Until the veterinarian arrives, it is advisable to feed animals with an abscess a few Sulfadimezin tablets along with liquid food to reduce the inflammatory process. The number of tablets will be indicated by the doctor, as it depends on the body weight of the cattle.
It is not recommended to carry out any cold compresses or massages on the cow’s udder, since such procedures can provoke the migration of harmful microbes throughout the body.
Veterinarian help
Arriving at the farmstead, the doctor carefully examines the cow. Depending on the condition and form of the cattle abscess, he makes a decision on treatment.
Treatment for mild forms
If a cattle abscess is fixed immediately and goes away in a mild form, then it is often enough to inject the site of the disease with novocaine and penicillin or give an injection at the border with a healthy area. Before capping, even if the cow is calm, she must be tied so as not to cause additional injury.
When the cow’s udder “freezes” a little, which means the animal does not feel pain, you need to open the abscess with a sharp scalpel. You only need to make one incision to then collect the pus. After this, the wound is treated with special preparations and the animal is placed in a dry, clean room.
Deep abscess of cattle
If the cattle abscess is deep, it will also have to be opened with one movement of the scalpel.Then a sterile needle is inserted into the abscess. It helps remove dead cells.
In any case, bleeding begins, which must be stopped. After this, the site of the cattle udder abscess must be treated with a chloramine solution. Regular hydrogen peroxide is also suitable for destroying pathogenic microbes.
After opening the abscesses that arise from a cattle abscess, treatment is continued with the help of medications. Here are some of the most popular medications for cattle abscess:
- "ASD-3" (100 ml);
- balm “Dorogova” (No. 10);
- "Desi spray" (100 ml);
- "Genta-100" (100 ml).
Many veterinarians prefer to treat cows for udder abscess using the well-known Vishnevsky ointment. This drug is much cheaper than other medications, but the effectiveness of its use is excellent.
If time is lost
It often happens that cattle owners do not notice an abscess on the cow’s udder in time, especially when the cow is not milked. An abscess is noticed only when the abscesses become large. In this case, the veterinarian will first have to pump out the contents of the cavities using a rubber tube, which must be treated with antiseptics.
When the liquid is pumped out, the abscess is opened in the usual way. The wound with a cattle abscess is treated with agents that include antibiotics, then healing ointments are applied.
To avoid death from cattle abscess, it is necessary to provide timely and correct assistance to cows. But preventive measures play a significant role. Cows grazing can injure their udders on branches of trees and bushes.If scratches or wounds are noticed, they must be immediately treated with antiseptics so that suppuration does not begin.
Preventive actions
As already noted, prevention should be the bovine owner's trump card to prevent infection. The same applies to cows that have had an abscess, since their immunity is sharply reduced:
- Cattle must be kept in clean and dry stalls.
- The diet of cows should contain not only high-quality and varied feed, but also a sufficient amount of vitamins and mineral supplements.
- The condition of cattle should concern owners in order to prevent the development of purulent mastitis not only in dairy cows, but also in barn cows and pregnant first-calf heifers. After all, it is this disease that provokes an udder abscess. Cows and calves need to be examined daily and any wounds treated.
It is important to understand that the resulting abscess can burst at any time. If you do not open it, the pus will flow into neighboring tissues and can cause the formation of phlegmon, leading to general blood poisoning. In this case, it will be impossible to save cattle from abscess.
Conclusion
Abscess in cattle is a fairly common disease in both personal and farm households. You should not start treatment yourself if the owner does not have veterinary knowledge. This can only make the situation worse. You need to immediately contact a specialist and get advice from him so that before the veterinarian arrives, you can begin to provide assistance to the cow for an udder abscess.
