Buck lost a scur...bloody mess (pics)

[Chickenfever]

Just thought I would share my experience with losing a scur. Got a call two weeks ago when I was at work from a neighbor saying my goat was bleeding profusely from it's head. My DH raced home and discovered he was missing a scur and his head was bleeding with a steady drip. He rushed him to the vet where they cauterized the bone and wrapped his head. I then gave him Pen G shots for 4 days. The vet said this likely would have kept bleeding.
If this ever happens again in the future I think I'll try to deal with this at home with blood stop powder and wrapping. (see if I can save a $120 dollars). You live and you learn with goats. He's doing fine now, we re-wrapped his head after a week per the vet (it started bleeding again when we unwrapped it and he started bawling, poor guy), it's due to come off now for good.

Good thing he doesn't have ears (mini mancha), made wrapping a little easier

 

[SarahFair]

 

[helmstead]

All bleeding stops eventually <smirk>

Really, it would have quit. This happens to bucks all the time. I know it looks like a lot of blood, but it's a head wound. You should have seen us descurring one of our senior bucks...

 

[glenolam]

What's that on the other side of his head? From this angle it looks like a full blown horn!

The blood stop powder really does work - my kid last year had a bud fall off and it was a soppy bloody mess. I thought it would never stop. Poor kid looked red, dark red and black for a week, but it stopped and he didn't seem to mind.

Poor boy - give him hugs from me!

 

[cmjust0]

I know this will probably induce a giant "UGH. " but I'd wash all that dried blood off his face.

Not for aesthetics, either...if it were winter, I wouldn't bother. But, well....flies.

I know, I know..

 

[helmstead]

Yeah I'm a little surprised with all the vet DID do, that they didn't clean him up...:/

Just a side note, instead of that bandage, try Shut Eye patches for cattle. They stay on w/adhesive just long enough for healing, and if when they fall off, it's not healed enough...you just apply another one.

 

[cmjust0]

A shut-eye patch...I probably wouldn't have thought of that, Kate! Good idea!

 

[Chickenfever]

The blood actually came off within a day or two and he's back to white now, I was surprised.
Good idea with the patch. His other scur is very loose like a loose tooth and I'm worried it's only a matter of time, so anything I can do by myself next time is great. I don't want another vet bill. They even injected him with lidocaine before cauterizing. My DH said he was crying and putting up a good fight until the lidocaine, I'm guessing that bone being exposed hurts pretty bad.
It's hard for me to know what I need to worry about. It sounds like you seasoned goat people wouldn't have stressed over this at all

 

[cmjust0]

Could be the crying was more related to the fight than the exposed bone, as I'm sure they were attempting to restrain him. Prey animals that they are, goats don't care much for being restrained.

Indeed, most kids in the disbudding box start crying LONG before the iron hits their heads, and the application of the iron doesn't seem to intensify the crying much at all..

Frankly, I don't think goats have much feeling in their heads. I like to think of it as "elbow skin." Go ahead...try it...pinch the crap out of your elbow skin and tell me how bad it hurts..

Doesn't, right?

Well...to me, that's how goats' head skin is..



Then again...maybe that's just my way to rationalize disbudding without anesthetic.

 

[Chickenfever]

Frankly, I don't think goats have much feeling in their heads. I like to think of it as "elbow skin." Go ahead...try it...pinch the crap out of your elbow skin and tell me how bad it hurts..

I wonder how many people are pinching their elbows after reading this, I know I did

I don't know, when we changed the bandage after a week, he was fine until we came to the telfa pad the vet had placed directly on the bone, he didn't want us touching it and cried when it came off. I just thought maybe exposed nerves?