# Umbilical cord issue..



## cmjust0 (Apr 29, 2010)

So, the massive buckling we got a little while back...he's got a weird umbi situation.  His umbilical cord was like a fricken rope...huge in diameter...and took forever to dry.

Well...the very upper most part of it apparently took too long, and the umbilical ring didn't/hasn't close(d) [yet].  Lots of weasel words in that sentence, I know, because I don't really know what's going to happen from here.

That's where y'all come in, hopefully.

His umbi, seriously, was probably 5/8" thick.  The doelings had the normal little stringy umbies that dried in no time, but his was like _meat_ hanging off his belly...really took a while, and like I said, the upper part stayed...supple?...probably longer than it should have.  I think it was just too big and perhaps too wet for the umbilical ring to be able to pinch it off..  We iodined it a couple of different times to promote drying, but it just..wouldn't..die.

So, the other night I kinda squeezed on it to see if I could feel anything go back into the body cavity..in case there was some gut hanging down in there..  Well...and this is gross, I know...but it _popped open_ instead of anyting feeling like it wanted to go back into the body cavity.  Like a zit, almost, but instead of pus or anything like that it was sorta just a thickish fluid with a bit of blood.  

As I was looking at what I thought could possibly be innards ready to come streaming out (the image in my head was like hotdogs, when they come flying out of the grinder at the factory..  ), I was kinda like...*uh oh*.  But then I thought...prolly not, else they probably would have been "pushable" back into the abdomen, if that makes sense..

So, we iodined it again and puffed it with NFZ powder...didn't want to put anything 'wet' on it like furazone or neosporin.  I kinda thought...ok...now that some liquid's gone out of it, along with being iodined again and puffed with NFZ powder, maybe it'll finally dry up.

And it started to do just that..  Cool, right?

Well... :/ ...last night I noticed that the _outside_ of it appears to be drying and kinda flaking off, leaving skin underneath.  Like..._skin_...pink, dry, baby-soft looking skin.

I told my wife that I'm almost certain it would be considered a hernia, technically, but...well, maybe this sounds stupid, but it sorta just looks like it's gonna be an _outie._

I'm waiting on the vet to return a call to see what they say, and I suppose I could take this guy in and have them do surgery...  But if it's just an outie -- and I honestly have no clue if that's even possible in a goat -- but if it is, I kinda don't see the point.

And just for the record, it's definitely not infected or anything like that..  It was iodined and clamped within probably a minute of birth, and re-iodined and NFZ-puffed when it split..and it's dry now..so that's not the issue.  He's perfectly healthy and active and wacky, just like a baby goat should be.  And hell, who knows...the ring might even close, now that the outer part's sloughing off and it's finally drying out..

What do you guys reckon?


----------



## Roll farms (Apr 29, 2010)

Wellllll....I reckon, in this case....I'd be calling the vet as well, because it beats anything I've ever stuck my fingers in.

eta, I probably would have done all the things you've tried as well...just never had THAT particular issue....YET.  Please keep us posted.


----------



## ()relics (Apr 29, 2010)

Well I am a "hands off the attachment stuff" kind of a person.  I very seldom ever clip a cord or rarely dip it.  So the umbilical cord is left alone until I see it has dried and then, only then, do I pcik up the kid to check on it, so umbilical care is foreign to me...But I wonder could the kid have a slight hernia?  Maybe not a full blown hole but just a weak spot?? That may keep enough pressure on the cord to keep it from drying all the way?  Probably be fixed with a stitch or 2...Good to know how this works out for futher reference.


----------



## ksalvagno (Apr 29, 2010)

Probably best to see if the vet says it is a hernia or not. I had an alpaca cria once that had the thickest umbilical cord I had ever seen. Of course he was bleeding through it and it was so thick that I didn't have anything that could get around it and properly cut off the blood. The cria almost bled to death while I was waiting for the vet. All I could do was clamp it enough to slow down the flow of blood. The vet was finally able to clamp off the cord and we had to bleed mom and get a pint of blood from her to transfuse him. Luckily, the cria lived and the huge umibilical cord just dropped off and his umbilical was fine. Never want to see that again. I usually don't freak out about too many things but I was freaking out when this happened.

We use hernia belts on alpacas. I have had a success rate of 100% with them. It would be difficult to use on a goat male though since his private parts are so close to his navel.


----------



## cmjust0 (Apr 29, 2010)

I just talked to a buddy of mine who's seen similar situations before...but he was mostly stumped, too.  I think he was kinda expecting the whole "hotdog factory" situation too when I told him it popped, so when I mentioned skin he was like.....huh?  

I said the word "outie"...kinda embarrassedly...and he said "Dude, that's just what I was thinking as you said it!"

Something else I'd thought about earlier and mentioned to him was the fact that I was using gentle iodine, since the good stuff's gettinghard to find..  Gentle, meaning _non-irritating_.  Well, irritation and drying is kinda what you want when you're dipping umbies.  He agreed.

There's lesson #1 from this little debacle -- always have 7% iodine on hand.  Had we been able to make this thing dry up whether it wanted to or not, we may have been able to avoid the whole situation..

What we concluded...or, more like, what he mostly agreed with, is that the cord was just too dang thick and started drying from the bottom up...naturally...and the ring was kinda pinching from the top down, so we got a little bubble of fluid/umbi tissue that just couldn't go anywhere and couldn't dry in time for the ring to close up.  

He also agreed that the ring may still close now that it's popped the fluid out and is beginning to dry in earnest...but who knows.  Since there was no infection and it wasn't wet or bleeding, though, my buddy seemed to think it would either work itself out or turn out not to be a big deal anyway..  An outie, basically.

I'm sorta in that camp too, at this point..

Still...I'm anxious to talk to the vet.  

ETA:  He also said "You know it's just you and me who have these problems, right?  This stuff *never* happens to anybody else."

  I think he's right, though.  :/


----------



## cmjust0 (Apr 29, 2010)

Roll farms said:
			
		

> Wellllll....I reckon, in this case....I'd be calling the vet as well, because it beats anything I've ever stuck my fingers in.
> 
> eta, I probably would have done all the things you've tried as well...just never had THAT particular issue....YET.  Please keep us posted.


I'll keep ya posted.  

Something I forgot to mention was that a quick google search brought me an excerpt from "goat medicine" which reads:  "Umbilical hernia caused by the incomplete closure of the umbilical ring (in the absence of omphalitis) is rare in goats."

Well..._of course it is_.  Which is why I'm looking at it.  :/

Probably also why I had not one, but two cases of entropion in our very first ever set of kids.

It's all just experience to me at this point, though..  The 2nd doeling out of this batch actually had a watery eye the afternoon after she was born.  I pulled her eyelids six ways from Sunday until I could see all her teeny little eyelashes, and her eye dried right up.

Had I never seen it before, though....

It's always something.



			
				ksal said:
			
		

> We use hernia belts on alpacas. I have had a success rate of 100% with them. It would be difficult to use on a goat male though since his private parts are so close to his navel.


I considered that and I think I could have managed it, but I was torn between letting it continue to air out or bandaging it and running the risk of it staying moist and _never_ drying out.

Obviously, I went with airing it out.  That may turn out to have been the wrong path, or perhaps it may not have mattered either way..

 

Oh well.  I raise goats...on purpose, even.  I figure I deserve what I get.


----------



## ksalvagno (Apr 29, 2010)

I would only use the hernia belt if I was sure it was a hernia. In your case, it sounds like it possibly is not a hernia.


----------



## cmjust0 (Apr 29, 2010)

ksalvagno said:
			
		

> I would only use the hernia belt if I was sure it was a hernia. In your case, it sounds like it possibly is not a hernia.


Well, that's just it...at what point do you stop calling it an "outie" and start calling it a _hernia_, or vice-versa?

Perhaps the answer is similar to what Temple Grandin had to say about autism spectrum disorders..."At what point does a brilliant computer programmer or engineer get labeled with Asperger's?"

I'm a programmer...I also tend to score pretty highly on Aspie tests...does that mean I'm an Aspie?

Meh....maybe.  

The key, though, is that even if I am, it doesn't affect my day to day...which I'm thinking may be the key for this little buckling, too.  Whether it's a hernia or an outie wouldn't matter, so long as he's unaffected.

I guess.

Hell, I dunno.

Vet hasn't called back yet.


----------



## ksalvagno (Apr 29, 2010)

Personally, I stop calling it an outie and call it a hernia when the vet looks at it and says "it's a hernia" 

Most of the time, hernias are very obvious but in your case it sounds like it is not.


----------



## SDGsoap&dairy (Apr 30, 2010)

Hmmm... 

Whatever it is I hope the little guy does ok; it certainly sounds like a learning experience!


----------



## cmjust0 (Apr 30, 2010)

Still no word from the vet..  Who knows if they actually get their messages..  :/

Last night, it looked a little worse...but maybe a little better.

The worse -- what had been looking like baby soft pink skin under the flaky part was pretty irritated looking.

The better -- it appeared as though the umbilical ring had made some progress in pinching the cord off.

The irritation...well, it didn't look great.  Not sure it looked infected per se, but...I dunno, it just didn't look great.  He got a shot of PenG, though I think I'll keep it at a subtherapeutic level -- 1x/day instead of two -- unless/until he actually shows signs of having an infection.

Iodined it again...more NFZ powder.

He's perfectly fine, btw..  Running, jumping, acting crazy.  Very, very sweet little guy too, and gorgeous.  Good length...big boned...super long ears.  If we can get this worked out (and I *think* we can), I expect he'll make someone a nice buck.


----------



## cmjust0 (Apr 30, 2010)

Jeez o pete..  

I called four different places looking for 7% iodine until I finally found someone with the guts to carry it.  TSC doesn't..  Southern States doesn't.  A little feedstore (where I found Levasole!) doesn't...but!...at least they directed me to a little horse shop that still goes to the trouble.

I called the horse shop and asked if they had it...the lady kinda sighed like "...crap..." and then went directly into how it's a DEA controlled substance and how they'd have to get a photocopy of my driver's license, along with personal information, and how they would not sell very much at a time, so on, so forth..  She was very matter-of-fact about it, almost like someone gets when they're feeling a little nervous.

I don't blame her.  She doesn't know me from Adam.  I could be anybody..

I told her providing info was no problem, and that I didn't need much, then explained to her what I had going on with my little buckling..  Her tone of voice changed and she said "Awww...yeah, we can sell you a pint."



That's when I got nervous...because I had to ask how much it was!    See, the guy at the little feedstore had just told me that retailers have to pay like $2,000 to the federal government just to be licensed (I guess?) to sell the stuff, and everytime they sell it they have to go to all kinds of trouble, etc..  

"It'll be high" he said..

I said to the lady "I figure it'll probably be pretty high, but how much is it?"  

She told me it was $12.50. 

Um...OK!...  ...considering a pint of gentle 1% is $5 at TSC...and that this is 7%...and that 5*7=35....$12.50 kinda seems like a steal.

So, I'll be picking that up this afternoon.


----------



## ksalvagno (Apr 30, 2010)

That's great that you found some. Hopefully the vet will call too. At least the little guy is acting normal.


----------



## DonnaBelle (Apr 30, 2010)

Glad you found the 7%.  Yesterday it was my turn to run around and "find something." 

Had to get the Cydection Sheep Drench from the vet.  We had just been to town in the morning. It's a 14 mile trip one way.  Had to do it again yesterday afternoon.  No worries, just mo money for the oil companies.

Gotta do it for the goaties.

DonnaBelle


----------



## cmjust0 (Apr 30, 2010)

Got my iodine.  

I walked up to the counter and told the lady there that I'd spoken with someone earlier about it.  Another lady piped up and said "For the goats?"  

Yep, that's me.

The first lady said she'd be right back and disappeared to the stockroom.

The other lady said "So, do you raise goats?"

Yep.

She told me that her brother has a couple of pet goats, and that one just kidded on the 19th.  She asked me "Do goats have a 'foaling heat,' like horses?"

Um..    What's a foaling heat?

She explained that a lot of mares will go into heat right after they foal..  I said I wasn't aware of goats doing that as a practice, per se, and explained that most are seasonal breeders...except certain types...swiss breeds and the 'ber' months...some boers being year round breeders...etc..  Then I asked why the doe was suspected of being in heat.

She said she'd had some discharge..  

I asked what kind of discharge...

Pink discharge.

Oh...in that case, if she just kidded 11 days ago, discharge is pretty much normal.  Except, of course, if it's foul and/or the goat's off feed and/or has a fever, in which case it could be metritis, blah blah blah...but if it's pink and she's OK otherwise, it sounded absolutely normal to me.

By that time, the first lady had come back out with the iodine and set it on the counter.  After I'd answered the question, they looked at each other, kinda grinned, and the first lady said "Yeah, I didn't think he looked like a meth cook."

WOW.   

Now I honestly don't know if the lady's brother has goats or not...or if she even has a brother for that matter!  

Word to the wise:  If you want strong iodine, you'd better be prepared for a pop quiz on raising goats!

She went on to say that the DEA had been by in the past to look over their records..  Said they usually just came in, looked around at the file, then left...although...  ...there was one time where they had some folks buying iodine who they thought looked a little fishy, so they told the DEA agents about them specifically.

DEA left with photocopies of those folks' drivers' licenses.


----------



## cmjust0 (Apr 30, 2010)

Just talked to the vet...who said he didn't know he had a message from yesterday.    (Kinda what I figured...)

Anyway, he said they see stuff like this sometimes in calves, but it's usually progressed to the point that they'll have abscesses and so forth..  Rarely do people dip a calf's umbi, I guess.

Anyway, he said the umbilicus does a _lot of_ stuff and can have vessels inside the body cavity that run to the liver, the kidneys, etc, and can involve the bladder and all sorts of badness..  Even talked about umbies that drip urine.  



Said what they usually try first is to clean out any abcesses that have formed, and then they shoot iodine INTO THE UMBILICUS to irritate it into closing up.  

He said "We usually use a _tincture of iodine_, which is 7% and much stronger than the 1% you find in stores...but it's hard to find these days."



I told him I had just managed to wrangle up a pint, which he thought was great, and advised that I poke around a little to see if I could find any remaining openings in the umbi area..  If so, he advised taking maybe 3ml and pushing it slowly into the opening...just get as much of it in there as possible.  Also, dress the crap out of the exterior with the 7%.  He said that if the kid's still up and about and isn't acting like he's got any other problems, he thinks it'll eventually close up and be fine so long as we keep on top of it and don't let it get too bad.

So that's good news.

I also said to him "Well, I kinda think if I'd had the 7% to begin with..." and he stopped me mid-sentence and said "...yeah, you probably wouldn't be having this problem."

So, there's the lesson of the day:  When dipping umbies, only 7% will do!

I'm gonna keep the little guy on preventative PenG, just in case..  Didn't look like an abscess last night, and I hope he's not setting one up now, but...better safe than sorry.

And I'm gonna LIGHT HIM UP with 7% tonight.  He's not gonna like it, and I'm not either, but....oh well, it's happening either way.


----------



## Renegade (Apr 30, 2010)

Hey CM,

Long time no talk to. 
What ever happened with your friends Boer goat that was A.I.'d to Bo Jangle. Did he get kids? My B.J. son is huge. He just turned a year old nd is 250lbs.

I was going to come in earlier on this one but didn't get a chance. I was going to ask if your baby was leaking urine through his umbilicus. I had one 3 years ago that did this. It wasn't obvious what was going on at first but the umbilical cord would not dry out. No leakage until one day it opened up and was a small whole where the umbilical cord was. Every time the doeling urinated she would leak a few drops out through the whole in her abdoman. I called my vet and he said he had never seen it in a goat (he says that often when he talks to me) but had seen it in a few calves. He said what they have been doing with the calves is taking silver nitrate sticks and rubbing them on the edges of the hole a couple of times a day. It irritates (burns) the edges and inspires them to heal. If this didn't work my only other option was surgery. It took a few weeks but it did work. That doe is currently out in my front pasture with a set of twins.
Good luck with your baby. keep us posted.

Donna Finley
Finley Boers


----------



## cmjust0 (May 3, 2010)

My vet actually mentioned the exact same thing...said he's seen umbies leak urine and that they use silver nitrate sticks when iodine won't close things off..  They usually start by shooting 7% iodine _into_ the umbi, and if that doesn't work, they proceed to silver nitrate.  If silver nitrate doesn't work, they excise it.

Speaking of...  ...my little buckling now has a little meatball hanging off him.    

It's not a string or cord or anything like that.  It's the remainder of the little bubble that was giving us problems.  The umbilical ring has cinched it down pretty tight, but it looks like the daggone thing is trying to heal instead of die..  I swear...it's like a little meatball.

I actually went down yesterday afternoon with latex gloves, a 6ml syringe, and a pocketknife to do a little two-bit surgery on him..  I split the bottom of the meatball, thinking that if I split it, it would drain, and he'd have an easier time cinching it off..  So, I did...and it bled and wept and bled and wept some more.  I shot iodine on/into it as much as I could once that was done.

No infection..  No weirdness from him at all, other than this.  

And when I split it, I split it pretty deep...almost to the umbi ring...no gut in it (thankfully) so it's not a gut hernia.  

When I went down later to see if it was drying, it looked like the wound where I split it had just sorta come back together..  Fat lotta good that did.

So help me...if it's not healed up in the next day or two, I think I'm just gonna hack it off and see what happens.



(btw...no clue what happened to the Bo Jangles baby.  Probably sold, I'd imagine. )


----------



## cmjust0 (May 7, 2010)

Well...I considered hacking it off, but didn't.  I've just been iodining it regularly and waiting to see what happens.

Seems to be shrinking, shriveling, and drying up very slowly.  He's totally unaffected.  No blood, no pus, no leaky/weepy...  At this point, I'm not really even all that concerned with it becoming infected, since the outside of the little McNugget thing is actually pretty crusty and dry.  The inside's still squishy, I think....but oh well.  

I think if I could just ignore it for a couple of weeks and stop screwing with it, I'd pick him up one day soon and find that it's turned into a rock-hard nugget chunk..

Hopefully, anyway.


----------



## ksalvagno (May 7, 2010)

Sounds like it is healing up just fine. Just one of those that will take longer. Always something!


----------



## cmjust0 (May 11, 2010)

Cracked his little umbi nugget open again the other night...  Not really intentionally; I just wanted to know if it was "done" yet.

Turns out, it almost was..

The outer layer cracked and, lo and behold, there was nearly nothing inside..  Just a teeny tiny bit of flesh, but the little nugget thing was mostly _empty_..  So, I picked some of the crusty off off, iodined him yet again (his belly's yellow..  ), and let it go at that.

Looked again last night and there's hardly anything left at all.  I could probably pick the whole thing off at this point if I really wanted to.

  

BTW...those kids will be 4wks Friday and he's a BRUTE.  Came out 10lbs, and he's gotta be 20lbs by now..  Big, wide boy, and looong..  Thick legs, too, and you can really see his shoulders working when he walks.  I think he's gonna be just a monster buck..


----------



## glenolam (May 11, 2010)

This might be a silly question, but when are the umbis _supposed_ to fall off?

I have two kids who are 5 wks - one has the black, dried up cord still hanging there and the other doesn't.  Neither look infected or anything, but I figured they'd have nothing by now.


----------



## cmjust0 (May 11, 2010)

glenolam said:
			
		

> This might be a silly question, but when are the umbis _supposed_ to fall off?
> 
> I have two kids who are 5 wks - one has the black, dried up cord still hanging there and the other doesn't.  Neither look infected or anything, but I figured they'd have nothing by now.


I dunno, actually..  Never really thought much about it before, as they just kinda seem to disappear at some point.

We took a few-weeks-old kid to the vet once and one of the techs twisted his umbie a few times and it fell off.  Guess she just didn't like it hanging there.


----------



## cmjust0 (May 21, 2010)

Quick update.. 

Little guy's umbi nugget totally dried up.  I'm sure I could pick it off if I really wanted to, but...meh.  He never got an infection or anything like that, which I take to mean we handled it OK.

I think these guys are...uh...five weeks now?  Something like that.  He was born about 10lbs, and I swear he weighs as much as a sack of feed right now!  

Well...maybe not that much, but he's gonna wean > 30lbs, gauranteed.  I wouldn't doubt he's closer to 40lbs by then..  He TOWERS over the other kids..

He'll make someone a nice buck, I think..


----------



## ksalvagno (May 21, 2010)

Glad to hear he is just fine.


----------



## donkeyboy (May 24, 2010)

We had a nubian doeling born.  We dipped hers in iodine 2 times. 1st time about 30 min after birth and the other about an hour and a half after birth.  Her twin brother we did rthe same way.  His cord dried to a thin stringy cord and hers stayed very thick.  About a week or 2 later it looked like she had a hernia because her cord was still think and protruded out not skinny like his.  She is a couple of months old now and her cord has done just fine.  Looks just like her brothers.  We didn't do anything different it just healed up on it's own.


----------

