udder

udder

(ŭd′ər)

n.

A baglike organ containing the mammary glands, characteristic of certain female mammals, such as cows, sheep, and goats.

udder

mammary gland of farm animals. The cow has four quarters and four teats. The rest of the ruminants and the mare have two. The sow may have as many as 18. See also mammary gland, mastitis, teat.

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udder abscesses

these form at the base of the teat and are usually associated with summer mastitis.

udder acne

see udder impetigo (below).

udder amputation

done in cows with severe mastitis or rupture of the suspensory apparatus (below).

udder caking

a plaque of hard tissue in the floor of the udder in a cow just calved. Makes milking difficult but frequent handmilking and hot water fomentation reduces the swelling. See also blue breast.

udder dermatitis

see intertrigo; flexural seborrhea.

udder development failure

congenital defect of no mammary development in a female.

udder edema

late and recent calving are often accompanied by edema of the udder and the subcutaneous tissue immediately in front of the udder. The swelling may be great enough to prevent the cow being milked or suckled and it may interfere with the cow moving about. Compression of the vascular drainage from the area probably contributes to the condition but there are obviously other unidentified factors which cause a very serious disability in only a few cows in a herd, all of which are being treated in exactly the same way.

udder impetigo

staphylococcal dermatitis of the skin of the teats and lower udder. Transmissible between cows and to human attendants at milking.

udder inflation

useful but no longer used farmer treatment for milk fever in cows; air, filtered through a layer of sterile gauze, was pumped into each of the four quarters of the patient by a hand-operated pump through a rubber tube attached to a teat siphon. Pumping ceased when air began to leak out past the teat siphon. If the teats were tied off with tape the ties were removed after 20 minutes. The back pressure of the air stopped further loss of calcium from the patient's blood which then regained a safe level of calcium.

udder infusion

antibiotic or other antibacterial in water or, almost exclusively, an ointment base used to convey the medication, from the individual container, via the teat canal into the mammary tissue.

udder infusion tube

see teat tube.

udder kinch

a form of restraint by twitch. A loop of rope is made around the cow's abdomen just in front of the udder but the belly of the rope is passed around the udder base before the noose is tightened.

udder suspensory apparatus

in the cow consists of two median sheets of yellow elastic tissue attached to the pelvic symphysis by its symphysial tendon and two less substantial lateral sheets of white fibrous tissue; all four sheets serve to suspend the udder from the pelvic skeleton.

udder symmetry

the front pair and the mammary glands in the two hind quarters are very similar in shape and size; asymmetry usually indicates mastitis in an early hypertrophic stage, or a later atrophic stage.

udder-thigh dermatitis

see flexural seborrhea.

udder washing

see teat sanitization.