04/07/2026
(Gnarly pics of Daisy's teat injury in comments)
I said I would share the good and the bad on this page. This one has left me feel helpless and sad and if there's a word that means discouraged, but more than that, that's how I feel.
Thursday night Phill came out to milk and found that Smooch had a small cut on her teat and we were extremely worried about it. She's healing nicely but we are drying up that quarter and soon drying her up as she is due to calve in August and has been in Milk for 18 months already!
Now for the really hard stuff.
Saturday morning I woke up and went out to check on the cows and Daisy has a seriously injured teat. I mean the end almost lacerated off.
I called a vet that day. He wasn't any help at all. He told me to "keep it clean"
We will likely never be able to milk from that quarter again because it's damaged all the way into the milk canal. I'm doing my best to keep it clean but she kicks every time I come near her. Vet agreed that it looks like she stepped on her own test trying to get up. He said he worked at large dairy farms and saw it happen frequently but that this one was particularly gnarly π
Meanwhile we are milking both girls, but only on 3 tests each. Unsolicited advice, don't get dairy cows unless you're really really ready to deal with all of the issues that accompany having them.