# Goat with huge lump under ear- possible tumor - Graphic picture added



## babsbag (Jun 3, 2013)

This is really just posted for education. 

I have an 18 month old Apline buck. Last Wed. I noticed a big lump on what appeared to be the lymph node below his ear. He is in a closed and tested herd, and came from a closed and tested herd. I have owned him since he was 10 weeks old and  he has not been off our land so my first thought of CL was "what the heck". Over the next few days this thing grew; almost doubled in size from a lemon to a softball, and it is rock hard. He acts fine, mostly. He eats a little slower and won't fight my other buck for feed.

So today he went to the vet. She tried a needle aspiration, thinking abscess. Got nothing out but a clearish liquid. So she did a field incision and all that is there is a hard mass. She is going to be looking at the fluid under a microscope today but it may have to be sent out for testing. Then the next thing is to do a biopsy.

She is starting him on a 5 days on Pen G just in case it is a migrated foreign body but her suspicion is a tumor 

I will post updates as I get them.


----------



## DonnaBelle (Jun 3, 2013)

Very interesting.  That is strange I am anxious to see what you find out.

DonnaBelle


----------



## babsbag (Jun 4, 2013)

Goat is home with a one inch incision in the lump. It is not draining at all. The slides that the vet stained showed nothing so he is on antibiotics and if that doesn't help we will do a biopsy. He is eating and drinking and being goat like. I think the lump bothers me more than it does him. I am going to call the vet tomorrow and ask about giving him some dexamethasone in case it is bite of some kind but since that drug suppresses immune system it may not be a good idea in case this is an infection. Goats are complicated.

The upside of this is that I had to find him a pen to live in so now my boer buck is alone. I can now breed my yearlings and not have to worry about who the sire is. I needed this pen, just couldn't find the time to build it until I REALLY needed it.


----------



## alsea1 (Jun 4, 2013)

Dang. Thats a big lump. 
Sure hope its simple and easy cure


----------



## Pearce Pastures (Jun 4, 2013)

Gosh, that is a large lump.  I hope the meds clear it up whatever it is.


----------



## babsbag (Jun 4, 2013)

It is a very large lump, more like the size of a grapefruit. Thank goodness it doesn't seem to bother his breathing at all, or anything else for that matter. It came on so fast that the vet is now thinking maybe not a tumor. She didn't get all the history on him until later as I was not the one that took him for the visit. It could be an infected salivary gland or ???. I am thinking that this is going to end in surgical removal and a biopsy. Good way to spend my tax refund, right?


----------



## babsbag (Jun 10, 2013)

After 5 days on antibiotics there is to shrinking of the lump. I will get some pictures tonight, but they won't be for the queasy stomach people. Whatever is growing inside of him is trying to work its way out of the incision and it is pretty gross. I keep expecting a one eyed monster or ailen worm to pop out at me.   Doesn't appear to be infected as it does not smell or look full of pus.

He is going back to the vet on Friday to do a biopsy and remove the growth if it can be removed. Unfortunately that is the soonest I can get him a ride to the vet as DH is out of town having hyperbaric oxygen treatments for a foot wound and my sick leave is all gone since I was caring for DH. *SIGH*

Life sure gets in the way of being a rancher at times.


----------



## frustratedearthmother (Jun 10, 2013)

Good luck!  It will really be interesting to find out what it is... please let us know how it goes.


----------



## babsbag (Jun 12, 2013)

So I can't get poor Zorro to the vet until Friday and in the meantime his lump is getting smaller, but only because whatever is in it is coming out. It is disgusting. When the vet made a 1" incision into what she thought was an abscess there was nothing she could drain out. Now that clean incision is a gooey mess about the size of a half dollar. It doesn't really smell bad, just weird. The consistency of the stuff reminds me of very pale scrambled eggs or chicken fat. This morning he had a huge glob of this stuff hanging out of him but I didn't have time to go into his pen and then get cleaned up for work again, and do other chores. It looked life a stuffed mushroom. When I got home he had rubbed it off somewhere and there wasn't much oozing out. That is when I took these pictures. 

It doesn't seem to bother him, and no, there are not maggots in it...yet. On the lookout for that and will start treating with fly spray in the morning.


----------



## SuburbanFarmChic (Jun 12, 2013)

And he personally has been tested for cl?


----------



## Cricket (Jun 12, 2013)

Have you tried Ichthamol?  I love that stuff.  We used it on cows where I used to work and it's wonderful.  (I also use it on myself for cuts that get semi infected).  You can get it at the pharmacy for humans, but it's a lot runnier--the animal stuff is thicker.


----------



## babsbag (Jun 12, 2013)

SuburbanFarmChic said:
			
		

> And he personally has been tested for cl?


No he has not been tested. My vet, who has her own herd, and my mentor who has 20+ years with goats both assure me that this is not a CL abscess. I have never seen a CL abscess when it is open so I have no clue. 

The thing about CL is that if that is what he has then this is truly a case of contracting CL with no possible exposure. I have had him since he was 10 weeks old. He came from a closed tested herd with never a case of CL on thier land, ever. Same for my herd. And no deer in my pastures. He was also a bottle baby and separated from all the adult goats at birth. 

He has been off of my property twice, once to a show where he left my trailer, entered a ring for a few minutes and went back into my trailer. He wasn't even penned at the show.  The goats at the show are vet checked before the show, by my vet so I know there was nothing there of danger to him.

The other time he left was to service a doe I had sold. He was in the pasture for maybe 30 minutes, and then back home. The doe was tested clean when I sold her a few months before his visit. No other goats in the field with her or him.

I just sent this picture to my vet so we will see what she says next. She has drained many a CL abscess and she is pretty confidant that this is not what this is. 

If it is CL then there is an obvious problem with blood tests and the notion that it can only be passed from an abscess or an internal abscess.


----------



## babsbag (Jun 12, 2013)

Cricket said:
			
		

> Have you tried Ichthamol?  I love that stuff.  We used it on cows where I used to work and it's wonderful.  (I also use it on myself for cuts that get semi infected).  You can get it at the pharmacy for humans, but it's a lot runnier--the animal stuff is thicker.


I have never heard of it. I will have to look it up. Thanks


----------



## SuburbanFarmChic (Jun 12, 2013)

Yeah, with that kind of back history I would doubt cl too.


----------



## Hillsvale (Jun 12, 2013)

Looks like the mastis two crappy sheep we bought had... hope your guy feels better.


----------



## xa.logan (Jun 12, 2013)

Ew.. That's definitely infection. It's probably best to flush all that mess out of there. I'm not a vet, but that's just what I would do. In most cases, masses that recede with antibiotics are foreign bodies. Anything that is a tumor will not react to antibiotics, since a tumor isn't itself an infection. 

We once had a salivary abscess on a dog (mucocele) that didn't draw any sample. Put him on antibiotics, the abscess receded but then it came back when the antibiotics were halted. Sent a sample to the lab, came back negative for cancerous. Tried to drain it from the outside, but it ended up looking like yours. So finally, the doctors put the dog under anesthetic and opened the thing up. It was full of serum and... a piece of a stick that the dog swallowed.


----------



## babsbag (Jun 12, 2013)

xa.logan said:
			
		

> Ew.. That's definitely infection. It's probably best to flush all that mess out of there. I'm not a vet, but that's just what I would do. In most cases, masses that recede with antibiotics are foreign bodies. Anything that is a tumor will not react to antibiotics, since a tumor isn't itself an infection.
> 
> We once had a salivary abscess on a dog (mucocele) that didn't draw any sample. Put him on antibiotics, the abscess receded but then it came back when the antibiotics were halted. Sent a sample to the lab, came back negative for cancerous. Tried to drain it from the outside, but it ended up looking like yours. So finally, the doctors put the dog under anesthetic and opened the thing up. It was full of serum and... a piece of a stick that the dog swallowed.


Since it did get smaller with antibiotics we are leaning towards the abscess which is much better than cancer. The vet will clean him up on Friday and I am betting there is a fox tail on something similar in there. It sure is ugly, but doesn't smell much, which is strange.


----------



## babsbag (Jun 14, 2013)

He went back to vet this morning. She cleaned out what is now clearly an abscess and sent him back home for another 7 days on Pen G and some Granulex V to spray in the wound. She took some samples and will be sending them off, one of the tests will be for CL 

He has NO possible exposure to CL so  

If it is positive this will be a case of spontaneous contraction.


----------



## babsbag (Jun 19, 2013)

It isn't CL 

The abscess looks good and is closing up. The vet never found anything in it so where it came from is anyone's guess but so glad it isn't CL.


----------



## Pearce Pastures (Jun 19, 2013)

That is great news!


----------



## bonbean01 (Jun 19, 2013)

Back when I was a kid living on the farm, I do remember seeing something like this on a cow once...very gross and my Dad flushing it he took a sample to the vet...no disease...but Dad gave antibiotic shots...after it was almost healed guess what worked its way through and came sticking out????  A mangled large fox tail...guess it ate it, lodged in there after much grossness, it worked itself out.


----------



## babsbag (Jun 20, 2013)

I am waiting for something to come out if it didn't already and I just missed it. The vet said the abscess was about 3" deep. I am thinking that something had to cause it. There was a lot of draining and necrotic tissue the week in between vet visits and there was definitely gunk that came out that I didn't inspect up close and personal. 

I am just thankful that he is healing and that it wasn't CL. While it is a manageable disease, it isn't manageable in my herd or in the herds I share breeding stock with. We are all very adamant about testing and selling clean animals so he would have had to go, and then we would have had to try and figure out the entry point. I have enough to deal with without that right now.


----------



## melody (Jun 28, 2013)

Thank you for this ongoing education. 
One of my nigerians  has just developed a mass that has shown up on her neck near her fore-shoulder. Not enlarging or very slowly if at all. About 1/2 golf ball size. softish...and does not trouble her even when I touch it. Keeping a watch but they are due for a vet visit soon.


----------



## babsbag (Jun 28, 2013)

My buck has healed up just fine. I did another 4 days of Pen G but not really sure that he needed it. The bacteria they cultured out of the abscess was Proteus which my vet says is usually not sensitive to Pen. She is thinking that maybe just cleaning it out gave his body a chance to fight it on its own.

Either way I am glad it is gone. He is still in isolation but only because his buck pen mate is supposed to be servicing my does. Whoever said that boers are not seasonal breeders doesn't know my boer buck. He is not interested in the least in these ladies right now. I wonder if they make testosterone for goats :/


----------



## WhiteMountainsRanch (Jun 29, 2013)

babsbag said:
			
		

> It isn't CL
> 
> The abscess looks good and is closing up. The vet never found anything in it so where it came from is anyone's guess but so glad it isn't CL.


*
I had the same thing happen... a reoccurring abscess in one of my goats lymph nodes... had it drained and flush and tested by the vet, NOT CL, culture came back as a gram anaerobic bacterium. She had got a cut on her cheek and the infection must have moved it's way to her lymphatic system. It swelled back up and I flushed it again, this time it cleared up for good. I also had her blood tested for CL twice while all this was happening. NOT CL. My vet said goats can get abscesses pretty easily, foxtails, sticks, even pieces of hay...  Well anywho, glad that's all it was on your boy too!  *


----------



## babsbag (Jun 29, 2013)

WhiteMountainsRanch said:
			
		

> babsbag said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Glad you aren't dealing with CL either. I spent a few nervous day trying to figure out where this would have come from. Glad I can close that book. I have had other goats with abscesses, usually lower on the jaw where they probably bit their cheek or got a sticker. This was in the classis CL spot so it had me a little freaked for a bit; dang these animals.


----------

