Ok, so ideally we would never have to use antbiotics but alas, to cure disease they must be used on occasion. I will start with intramammary treatments as I have had too much experience with them. I have found them effective on only 1 occasion in a young goat with her first ever symptom - a pea sized lump. Milk from this goat was never sent for analysis.

In Australia, all antibiotics to be used intramammary must have a blue dye added to them. There are no intramammary treatments available specifically for goats and therefore the only option is to use cow treatments. A Delvo test kit was made available to me by Pauls Milk so I was able to test all goats treated over many years. The following are the conclusions I drew from this testing.

Avoid using dry cow treatments. The antibiotic residue can be found in the milk for up to 3 months after treatment is finished. If you use the dry cow treament, you must have a means of testing the milk before it is made available for human consumption or fed to animals for slaughter for human consumption.

I have used lactating cow treatments as a "dry goat" treatment with moderate success. Many of the goats had a much improved milk yield in the following lactation however, many of them also developed serious mastitis (especially black or gangranous mastitis) within days of kidding. I put this down to the antibiotics having destroyed the natural defense mechanisms of the udder along with the decreased efficacy of the antibiotic by the time the goat kidded.

Treating during lactation with a lactating cow treatment seems to me to be a waste of money. There may be a slight improvement but mastitis never seems to be cured. I now simply stop milking an infected "quarter" or don't milk it into the vat. Some goats come good, some don't. Some appear to be cured by the time the next lactation starts.

On a side note here about sending milk for testing/culturing, my experience is also that this is a waste of money. Results usually come back saying no bacteria were found and it cost me around $30 to find that out. This has occurred in animals who's milk was revoltingly gross curds and in animals who within 24 hours of the sample being taken developed black mastitis. To be able to eradicate mastitis from a herd you need to be able to identify the causative organism. If it is Staph. Aureus, as I believe it to be in my case, you need to be able to cull the goat. To be able to cull the goat, you need to be able to replace the goat. Here in Australia, this can't be done cost effectively at present apart from breeding your own stock.

Intramuscular antibiotic injections must be given at the correct dose for the witholding period to be accurate. I have read many articles that talk about goats of 60kg. My goats average 90kg. You can buy a special tape measure that can be put around the animals chest right behind the front legs which will determine the weight. From memory, some of these only measure up to 100kg.