My Irish Dexter cow calved a week ago for the first time. Only the back two sections of her udder have milk. Shouldn't they all have milk? Or does it take a while for all four to develope? I've milked goats for years, this is my first cow.

-- Pamela J. Scott (cavemtdexters@cavenet.com), June 10, 2001

Answers

Hi, Pamela~ Yes, a cow should milk on all four quarters from the get- go. Sounds like your cow has what they call "blind" quarters on the front, if you get no milk from them at all. This is usually caused by mastitis in the undeveloped udder, and that's usually caused by another calf sucking when they are both young. There are probably other causes as well, but that's the one I see most often. A few years ago I had three heifers out of seven or eight freshen with one or two blind quarters each, caused by an animal that sucked. The good news is cows do compensate a little when they lose a quarter, so that the others give a bit more milk than they would have if she still had four good quarters. But of course they don't give the amounts that they would have been able to with a whole udder. Also, a normal cow gives 40/60, 40% from her front quarters, 60% from her rear quarters, so you'll still end up with quite a good percentage of her potential.

Jennifer L.

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@imcnet.net), June 10, 2001.

Jennifer, I just wanted to say I know absolutely nothing about cows but thought your posting was very informative. Just thought I would let you know that you gave a little education to someone other than the original poster. Thanks.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), June 11, 2001.

If those front two quarters are swollen, you probably should get the vet to check to see if they are blocked. If they could be unblocked by the vet, you could save them from going blind. You also might be saving her from getting a bad case of mastitis in there, which could mean actually saving your cow!

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), June 12, 2001.