# Limping goat. When to worry?



## Fullhousefarm

So, this morning our LaMancha was limping pretty bad on her front foot. She was 100% fine last night. No obvious injury, swelling, or heat, and she's acting normal otherwise. If I had to guess I'd say anything wrong would have to be below her knee. She still gets around the whole goat yard (an acre at least) and even somehow jumped up on top of her favorite nap spot that's about 36" off the ground. Of coarse, when she's feeling good she can clean a 5' fence.  I have seen her on her knees some when eating some browse, and as I was watching her just now she's more "hopping" on three legs and holding the other one up. She seems to have full range of movement and didn't seem overly bothered when I was feeling up and down her leg, but she's very tolerant of such things in general. Please tell me this is not a big deal and it's happened to you and everything was fine...

To top it off in one week we are supposed to take her and our new ND to a fair 3 hours away- so it's really bad timing. Before the county fair in Oct she knicked her hoof on something and freaked us out too, but by the time of the show it was almost gone and she didn't have a limp except when vetwraped with that. I told my daughter that we are never going to tell her about future shows again. This is obviously the trigger for attention seeking injuries. And, yes she is a drama queen,but she is limping even when I'm not around.


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## 20kidsonhill

You can wash the hoof in some mild bleach water and put some hoof n' heal on it, or LA 200 between the toes.


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## Fullhousefarm

20kidsonhill said:
			
		

> You can wash the hoof in some mild bleach water and put some hoof n' heal on it, or LA 200 between the toes.


Thanks. It seems about the same this morning, so I'm going out to check again in a bit. (Daughter feeds and is watching her now...I"ve been watching her out the window.) Our neighbor is a long-time goat owner and couldn't find anything yesterday either. I don't think it's her hoof- they were trimmed last week and still look very good, but I'm going to poke around some more anyway. 

I've thought about splinting it to see if that helps. I've also considered the vet, but last time I spent $300 and got told the dog had allergies (seriously thought she was dying of pneumonia or something) so it's an option, but not my first choice. I was really hoping there would be some improvement today.


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## Shelly May

might just be scald, this is between the toes or hoof if you will, put 7% iodine in between the toes, this should take care of it.
this is what the last guy was trying to tell you!!!!


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## pdpo222

Make sure when you put the iodine on it you move her to a spot that they can't get toif any falls on the ground which always happens to me..  I always take mine out of the pen so if any falls on the ground they can't eat it by accident.


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## goodolboy

Eat iodine?


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## Fullhousefarm

Okay, I looked into scald. This is our driest season so it doesn't seem most likely, though I'm sure it's still possible. I'm sure I can get LA200 easily enough and it sounds like that's the best treatment. How soon would I see results if this is the problem? I'm wondering if I should just try treating today- then take her to the vet tomorrow if it's not improving.

Unfortunately, after going out there just now, or rather, the goat coming to the back porch I'm leaning toward an injury. She isn't putting weight on it and when she sets it down and is bribed to move she either holds it up totally or it seems to twist a bit when she sets it down. I can touch it anywhere, move it, and she doesn't even blink for a minute. I trimmed the hoof really well, though it wasn't at all overgrown or in bad shape. No smell. No white spot between toes. She stood on it a minute when I picked the other front leg up, but didn't seem comfortable. Now she's out there hogging the branch I cut for them. She feels good enough to remain "queen"- so I guess that's good.


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## goodolboy

Sounds more like an injury to me. Did you ever think maybe she doesn't like fairs. HA


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## Fullhousefarm

goodolboy said:
			
		

> Sounds more like an injury to me. Did you ever think maybe she doesn't like fairs. HA


The thought crossed my mind, but she's such I diva I think she really does like them. I also think she likes all the attention. She seriously looks at me and puts her foot in the air like, "Hey, can't you see this HURTS. DO something stupid! Great, it still hurts. Maybe some carrots and peanuts will help. Yeah, try that. I'll be waiting here."

Pretty much trying to decide if I'm going to try to wrap it and see if it improves, or take her to the vet to make sure it's not anything that needs set.

ETA: We need to get her health certificate for the fair anyway, and a few weeks ago someone recommended a great goat vet to us- so we're just going tomorrow- three days before we were going to go get the certificates. Now to pray we don't end up with a huge bill and she can heal enough to show next week. I don't think a three-legged hop would go over well.


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## Fullhousefarm

Good news! 

This morning she's almost back to 100% normal. I think she heard me say we'd take her to the vet today -3 days before our scheduled appointment- since we need health certificates for the spring fairs anyway. So, we ended up just getting the health certificates since she was fine, but the vet was WONDERFUL! It was our first time at the office that was recommended to us by the farm we got our ND at. She has goats, knows all about goats, and did a whole mini-physical on both goats just for the health certificates. She knew where we had gotten Trixie from just from her name. Previously we went to another office that will sees about everything but the vet just looked at them for about 3 seconds and has his secretary fill out the paperwork. It worked, but it seemed pretty silly. So, it was $25 instead of $10, but worth it in the long run to have someone to call if we ever have a more serious issue. 

Now tomorrow the clipping commences for next weekend.


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