12/09/2025
Let's talk about dairy cows. More specifically mastitis, sub-clinical mastitis, and most importantly Staphylococcus aureus (Staph A). 🫨
Firstly, it's important to understand that not all mastitis' are equal. A cow can get some form of mastitis for a number of reasons.
Secondly, it's imperative to know your cows' SCC numbers. (Somatic Cell Counts) give you a glimpse into the health of her udder.
👆 Cows have 1 udder & 4 quarters. 🫣
Let's jump to Staph A. It's a cow-killer. Not that it kills cows, but many dairies big & small cull these cows, due to the fact most staph a is super hard to treat with typical antibiotics for its a Gram-Positive bacteria, meaning it's super resistant to antibiotics.
Most antibiotics used in/on dairy cows have a hard time breaking the cell wall of the staph a. bacteria essentially not able to 'kill' the bacteria.
But.... There have been several new studies on alternative treatments that have been able to get through the bacteria cell wall.
As many of you know.. I love reading medical studies & journals especially ones involving cows and treating them holistically. 🙌
Black Seed oil aka black cumin seeds have been showing positive results when it came to treating staph a.. It's able to get through the bacteria cell wall and after 3 of 7 day treatments, scientists had seen positive (as in wonderful) negative results (test results). 🤣 Funny how in Science Negative is good... and Positive is bad.. 😄
Okay okay.. I know everyone wants to know where do I get this, and how do I treat?
You can either buy it already infused as an organic-food grade oil. Or you can make it..
If you have a cow you need to treat immediately then buy it. If time isn't a concern, you can make it. I'll make a post tomorrow on making it and where to obtain the seeds. This post is getting a little long as it is.
But for those needing a solution now, I've added a link at the bottom. I'm also including two medical studies about treating cows if you're like me and like to read them for yourself.
In a nutshell: The black seed oil was an infused solution of 2mg per every 1ml which means for every 1 ml of oil it had 2mg of black seed. Don't ask how they measure it, that is way above my pay grade. 🙃
Cows were treated with 10ml intramammary with a 200mg/10ml or
2mg/1ml. (Which math tells me it should be 20mg/per 10 MLS but that's straight out of one of the studies. 🤷♀️
So the solution given to the cow had 200mg of black seed oil for every 10mls. This was done for 7 days. Testing was done at 3 and 7 days.
The link I provided has 4.6mg per every 5 ml. I'm not certain why the scientists didn't try higher MG per ml? Seems 50% of the cows were negative after 3 to 7 days.
If you infused the cow with 10mls she'd only get 40.6mg/per ml. Being it's a natural remedy and is still being tested, you cam ask your vet which strength would be best for your cow based on her actual SCC and staph a. Numbers.
I'd personally inject intramammary 50 MLSper infected quarter which would equal 230mg total per treatment. It just seems like the scientists were right there, and the lower staph a.'s, were affected in a good way resulting in a negative test result, but the harder cases needed a stronger dose.
That's my two cents atleast.
Here is the Organic (food grade) black seed oil.
https://amzn.to/4rJvXh0
Here are the links for the medical studies:
https://jarvm.com/articles/Vol18Iss1/Vol18%20Iss1Kamboh.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272322738_Effect_of_Intramammary_Injection_of_Nigella_Sativa_on_Somatic_Cell_Count_and_Staphylococcus_Aureus_Count_in_Holstein_Cows_with_S_aureus_Subclinical_Mastitis
Hayes Valley Farms
