ksalvagno
Alpaca Master
Glad to hear your goat is doing better. I hate it when any of my animals are sick!
Daggone it...urinary calculi
- Thread starter cmjust0
- Start date
Roll farms
Spot Master
One of our bucks got UC on a Friday night several years ago. My vet was out of town, no others were interested in helping, so I got online, read as much as I could in a short time (he was nearly dead by this point) and my dh and I plopped him on his rump, got him to extend the pizzle, cut it off, and drenched him w/ Fruit Fresh, of all things.
(Some site I researched at that time suggested it in a pinch.)
4 yrs later he's still doing the buck job for me, peeing fine, and gets AC sprinkled on his feed daily...as do our other 4 bucks.
Am I right? Dunno.
Is it working? So far.
(Some site I researched at that time suggested it in a pinch.)
4 yrs later he's still doing the buck job for me, peeing fine, and gets AC sprinkled on his feed daily...as do our other 4 bucks.
Am I right? Dunno.
Is it working? So far.
- Thread starter
- #13
Well, the little guy was doing really well until Saturday afternoon, but he plugged up again. I had reserved a 0.2cc syringe of Acepromazine, so he got that and 4 gelcaps of Ibuprofen (anti-inflammatory) emptied into 20ccs of water.. He got Ammonium Chloride, as well.. No help...just dribbly.
I drenched him again with Ammonium Chloride late that night, though I was beginning to get concerned about ammonia toxicity.. Didn't feel like I had a choice, though.. A friend happened to have something akin to Ace, though we weren't entirely sure of the dosage nor if it would work. It was pretty much a desperation attempt, so I shot him with a scant 1mg of it...I won't say what it was, but he stood there high as a kite and drooled for about 15min afterward. He got a good night's sleep, too.
By mid-morning Sunday (we were up 'till 4am, didn't rise till after 11am), he was dribbling much faster. When he strained, he could get a pretty decent stream going for a second or two. He'd do that four or five times over the course of a minute or so until it was visibly less productive, then go back to eating like he felt fine. He was obviously emptying his bladder -- with difficulty -- but that was a HUGE improvement. That morning, he got more Ibuprofen (3rd dose of 4 caps, I think) and I drenched him with 1tsp Acid Pack 4-Way 2X in about 60ccs of water.
He spent the rest of the day just kinda lounging...eating hay, laying down with a cud. Didn't seem to be hurting at all. He got another tsp of Acid Pack last night and we saw him do the dribble/strain/stream thing again, but the drips were getting even faster and the stream was more persistent. Again, he we saw that he was able to empty his bladder.
When I got up this morning, he was already out and about and didn't seem to be in pain. I hit him with Acid Pack again before I left for work. Didn't see him pee, but didn't see him strain either...tells me he's not full, which is good.
My wife asked how long I was going to drench him...my response was "Until he either dies or gets better."
We'll see which comes first.
btw...I think I know why he plugged up Saturday: we had a cool snap.. I think he'd been drinking copious amounts of water through the week, and I think that kept everything rolling. On Saturday, however, temps barely hit 70 and they hardly touched their (clean, frequently changed) water...BAM...plugged up.
Dang fickle weather..
I drenched him again with Ammonium Chloride late that night, though I was beginning to get concerned about ammonia toxicity.. Didn't feel like I had a choice, though.. A friend happened to have something akin to Ace, though we weren't entirely sure of the dosage nor if it would work. It was pretty much a desperation attempt, so I shot him with a scant 1mg of it...I won't say what it was, but he stood there high as a kite and drooled for about 15min afterward. He got a good night's sleep, too.
By mid-morning Sunday (we were up 'till 4am, didn't rise till after 11am), he was dribbling much faster. When he strained, he could get a pretty decent stream going for a second or two. He'd do that four or five times over the course of a minute or so until it was visibly less productive, then go back to eating like he felt fine. He was obviously emptying his bladder -- with difficulty -- but that was a HUGE improvement. That morning, he got more Ibuprofen (3rd dose of 4 caps, I think) and I drenched him with 1tsp Acid Pack 4-Way 2X in about 60ccs of water.
He spent the rest of the day just kinda lounging...eating hay, laying down with a cud. Didn't seem to be hurting at all. He got another tsp of Acid Pack last night and we saw him do the dribble/strain/stream thing again, but the drips were getting even faster and the stream was more persistent. Again, he we saw that he was able to empty his bladder.
When I got up this morning, he was already out and about and didn't seem to be in pain. I hit him with Acid Pack again before I left for work. Didn't see him pee, but didn't see him strain either...tells me he's not full, which is good.
My wife asked how long I was going to drench him...my response was "Until he either dies or gets better."
We'll see which comes first.
btw...I think I know why he plugged up Saturday: we had a cool snap.. I think he'd been drinking copious amounts of water through the week, and I think that kept everything rolling. On Saturday, however, temps barely hit 70 and they hardly touched their (clean, frequently changed) water...BAM...plugged up.
Dang fickle weather..
- Thread starter
- #14
He was about the same last night..
Stretch...dribble...strain...make a stream...dribble...strain...make a stream...dribble...repeat until bladder is empty and goat is comfortable enough to find something else to do with his time. Takes maybe a minute or so..
My wife drenched him yesterday at 4pm and I hit him again at midnight and then at 8am this morning. I got him with some more ibuprofen last night, too.. My wife will be hitting him again at 4pm today, and I'll probably continue 3x/day acid drench and 1x/day ibuprofen until he either gets better or dies.
Something of interest...I was reading up on ammonia toxicity, and apparently one of the early symptoms is muscle tremors. The little guy laid down and trembled a bit after the very last dose of Ammonium Chloride we gave him Saturday night-- which made 2 doses in a day. At the time, we didn't know why he was doing that.
Now we do. :/
Needless to say, I'm glad I found the Acid Pack.. I thought I was being a little overly cautious in switching him to the Acid Pack from the Ammonium after only seven doses, but now I'm thinking I nipped a case of toxicity in the bud.
Since we have both Acid Pack and A/C, I may even alternate if this goes on long enough..
Anyway...bottom line...he actually seems fairly normal.. Happy, even.. He yells for hay and comes over to be loved on.. He strains and carries on to pee, sure, but he doesn't really seem to be in the kind of constant, searing pain and discomfort you would expect from a condition like UC.. It's hard to guage, but his dribble drips seem to be more frequent and his streams may be getting longer in duration...which would be excellent.
All in all, we're still hopeful.
Stretch...dribble...strain...make a stream...dribble...strain...make a stream...dribble...repeat until bladder is empty and goat is comfortable enough to find something else to do with his time. Takes maybe a minute or so..
My wife drenched him yesterday at 4pm and I hit him again at midnight and then at 8am this morning. I got him with some more ibuprofen last night, too.. My wife will be hitting him again at 4pm today, and I'll probably continue 3x/day acid drench and 1x/day ibuprofen until he either gets better or dies.
Something of interest...I was reading up on ammonia toxicity, and apparently one of the early symptoms is muscle tremors. The little guy laid down and trembled a bit after the very last dose of Ammonium Chloride we gave him Saturday night-- which made 2 doses in a day. At the time, we didn't know why he was doing that.
Now we do. :/
Needless to say, I'm glad I found the Acid Pack.. I thought I was being a little overly cautious in switching him to the Acid Pack from the Ammonium after only seven doses, but now I'm thinking I nipped a case of toxicity in the bud.
Since we have both Acid Pack and A/C, I may even alternate if this goes on long enough..
Anyway...bottom line...he actually seems fairly normal.. Happy, even.. He yells for hay and comes over to be loved on.. He strains and carries on to pee, sure, but he doesn't really seem to be in the kind of constant, searing pain and discomfort you would expect from a condition like UC.. It's hard to guage, but his dribble drips seem to be more frequent and his streams may be getting longer in duration...which would be excellent.
All in all, we're still hopeful.
TxMom
Ridin' The Range
Wow, you're doing a great job taking care of him. I've been worried about my wethers and UC. I don't see AC listed as an ingredient in their food or their minerals, even though they're both for goats. I need to find some, at least to have on hand in case of emergency.
ksalvagno
Alpaca Master
I hope your little guy continues to improve. Good Luck with him!
- Thread starter
- #17
Neogen makes the AC I have (link is PDF) .. It's water soluble and 6g (3cc's, volumetrically) will dissolve clear in a scant 20cc's of water. No odor, no fumes.. The dosage we were running was somewhere around 300mg/kg of bodyweight, 1x/daily. Your vet can get it for you....maybe even your feedstore, but I'm not sure.TxMom said:
The Acid Pack 4-Way 2X is made by Alltech.. Your feedstore should definitely be able to get this for you, no 'script required. The Acid Pack is typically used as a preventative, to acidify their water. If and when this little buck pulls through, we'll be doing that for sure.
As for your feed...would probably be a really good idea to switch your wethers to something that has a 2:1 calcium to phosphorus ratio with added ammonium chloride.. As you can see from my experience, though, even that's not a guarantee...my feed was good feed.
My mistake was not noticing that this guy was taking the lion's share of the feed and skimping on browsing, grazing, and hay, so watch your wethers closely even after switching to a safer grain...if you have one or two that are really hogging it and taking it easy while the others forage or eat hay, you could still have a problem.
Best of luck to you!
- Thread starter
- #18
- Thread starter
- #19
The U/C diary continues...
Had a really experienced herdsman out at the house yesterday for something totally unrelated. He's been keeping up with the little U/C buckling's saga, so we stood and talked and watched the little guy for a minute.
This time when he pee'd, it was....fastdrip.. strain.. stream.. stream.. strain.. stream.. stream.. repeat until it basically faded off in drips.. If not for the intermittant straining and somewhat weakened stream, you'd think he was just flat out whizzing.. He had a sustained stream going for probably 15-20sec at one point..
I looked at my buddy and noted the improvement even since yesterday...my buddy was surprised, never having personally known anyone with much luck saving a U/C buck -- especially not one that was twice reduced to a very scant drip..
I believe his words were "Dang, man...he very well could make it!"
Had a really experienced herdsman out at the house yesterday for something totally unrelated. He's been keeping up with the little U/C buckling's saga, so we stood and talked and watched the little guy for a minute.
This time when he pee'd, it was....fastdrip.. strain.. stream.. stream.. strain.. stream.. stream.. repeat until it basically faded off in drips.. If not for the intermittant straining and somewhat weakened stream, you'd think he was just flat out whizzing.. He had a sustained stream going for probably 15-20sec at one point..
I looked at my buddy and noted the improvement even since yesterday...my buddy was surprised, never having personally known anyone with much luck saving a U/C buck -- especially not one that was twice reduced to a very scant drip..
I believe his words were "Dang, man...he very well could make it!"
- Thread starter
- #20
Rainy and cool all day yesterday... Like most goats, my little guys just kinda hung out in their hutch/mini-shed all day. I didn't think much of it until I went out last night and found the little U/C guy standing humped up with his head low, trembling and twitching, acting a little "drunk," looking back toward his belly occasionally..
I had another dose of Acid Pack in my hand, but I dumped that right away. He was in no shape for having more acid dumped down his throat.
I studied on him for a minute, just trying to get a best guess as to what it was.. First thought was...maybe he finally burst his bladder. Second thought was...toxicity to something in the Acid Pack..
My wife said she saw him pee at 5pm, though, and he hadn't had much water all day. He had pee on his sheath, too, so I knew he was still moving fluid.. I ruled out a busted bladder. (we saw him grunt out a decent little pee later to make me even more sure that the bladder was still intact...)
Gotta be toxicity, I thought... If that were the case, there's nothing much to do except let it run its course and hope it doesn't kill him..
I was just about to leave him be and then it occurred to me...acid drench...not much water...not much activity...ACIDOSIS.
I looked up the symptoms: hunched stance, head low, drunken behavior, muscle tremors, and a few other things..
I went back in the house and put about 8tsp of baking powder in about 100cc's of water...enough to be fairly thick...and managed to get about 70cc's down his throat before he decided he'd rather choke to death than take anymore. I'm usually pretty good at getting liquid in a goat, but he was DONE with that. Almost choked him out twice, so I was done too..
We left him alone for a few minutes and when we came back...no more twitching. Head was up.. He was still obviously feeling pretty blah, but he seemed better, and I didn't necessarily expect it to work miracles. I actually considered trying to put even more baking soda down him, but I knew he wouldn't take it. By this point it's about 2:15am anyway...I had to get up in a few short hours, so I thought I'd just re-evaluate him in the morning.
Woke up early enough to treat him with...whatever, I dunno...again this morning.. When I looked out the window, he was out of his hutch and seemed to be acting fairly normal.. I smiled and went back to bed for a while, thinking that if he were going down with acidosis, he wouldn't probably be out walking around.
When I got back up, he was back in his hutch looking a little humped up again! Grrrrr.. So, I got ready for work, went out to check, and he was laying down... More grrrrrr.. He didn't necessarily look rough, though...just sorta looking up at me like "What? Here to waterboard me again, jerkface?"
I had thrown some hay, so I literally dragged him out to it just to see if he was interested.. If he wasn't, I was gonna hit him again with baking powder.
He started eating hay, though.. At this point, I don't know up from down but...whatever...if you're ok enough to eat hay, I'm going to work.
Then I noticed that he had blood and urine on his sheath...but it couldn't possibly be a burst bladder because we'd seen him pee himself empty late last night.
At this point, I become unsure if it was even acidosis at all... Almost everything fit, it made perfect sense at the time, and I'm glad I hit him with Baking Soda..no harm in it, anyway, because he didn't take nearly enough to make him alkaline to the point of obstructing his urine flow or anything like that.. But some other symptoms of acidosis are diarrhea and bloat, and there was no evidence of diarrhea and I know he never bloated..
So now I'm kinda wondering now if what we thought was acidosis was actually a big UC stone on the move....or if it actually was toxicity..
Who knows...I don't...all I know is that he's had a lot of crap shoved down this throat over the last 10 or 11 days, and he's got every right to not be feeling the best ever.. I also know he had some pee -- albeit bloody -- on his sheath, so he's still moving urine. And I left him eating hay.
Good enough for me...for now, anyway.
I'll have him off the acid for 24hrs, at least...if he gets better and the daggone sun comes back out tomorrow (sun = water intake) I'll try it again. If he trembles again, I may switch back to ammonium chloride and see what happens.. If he can't tolerate that either...I'm pretty much out of options except to slightly -- ever so slightly -- acidify his water and hope he doesn't plug up again.
I had another dose of Acid Pack in my hand, but I dumped that right away. He was in no shape for having more acid dumped down his throat.
I studied on him for a minute, just trying to get a best guess as to what it was.. First thought was...maybe he finally burst his bladder. Second thought was...toxicity to something in the Acid Pack..
My wife said she saw him pee at 5pm, though, and he hadn't had much water all day. He had pee on his sheath, too, so I knew he was still moving fluid.. I ruled out a busted bladder. (we saw him grunt out a decent little pee later to make me even more sure that the bladder was still intact...)
Gotta be toxicity, I thought... If that were the case, there's nothing much to do except let it run its course and hope it doesn't kill him..
I was just about to leave him be and then it occurred to me...acid drench...not much water...not much activity...ACIDOSIS.
I looked up the symptoms: hunched stance, head low, drunken behavior, muscle tremors, and a few other things..
I went back in the house and put about 8tsp of baking powder in about 100cc's of water...enough to be fairly thick...and managed to get about 70cc's down his throat before he decided he'd rather choke to death than take anymore. I'm usually pretty good at getting liquid in a goat, but he was DONE with that. Almost choked him out twice, so I was done too..
We left him alone for a few minutes and when we came back...no more twitching. Head was up.. He was still obviously feeling pretty blah, but he seemed better, and I didn't necessarily expect it to work miracles. I actually considered trying to put even more baking soda down him, but I knew he wouldn't take it. By this point it's about 2:15am anyway...I had to get up in a few short hours, so I thought I'd just re-evaluate him in the morning.
Woke up early enough to treat him with...whatever, I dunno...again this morning.. When I looked out the window, he was out of his hutch and seemed to be acting fairly normal.. I smiled and went back to bed for a while, thinking that if he were going down with acidosis, he wouldn't probably be out walking around.
When I got back up, he was back in his hutch looking a little humped up again! Grrrrr.. So, I got ready for work, went out to check, and he was laying down... More grrrrrr.. He didn't necessarily look rough, though...just sorta looking up at me like "What? Here to waterboard me again, jerkface?"
I had thrown some hay, so I literally dragged him out to it just to see if he was interested.. If he wasn't, I was gonna hit him again with baking powder.
He started eating hay, though.. At this point, I don't know up from down but...whatever...if you're ok enough to eat hay, I'm going to work.
Then I noticed that he had blood and urine on his sheath...but it couldn't possibly be a burst bladder because we'd seen him pee himself empty late last night.
At this point, I become unsure if it was even acidosis at all... Almost everything fit, it made perfect sense at the time, and I'm glad I hit him with Baking Soda..no harm in it, anyway, because he didn't take nearly enough to make him alkaline to the point of obstructing his urine flow or anything like that.. But some other symptoms of acidosis are diarrhea and bloat, and there was no evidence of diarrhea and I know he never bloated..
So now I'm kinda wondering now if what we thought was acidosis was actually a big UC stone on the move....or if it actually was toxicity..
Who knows...I don't...all I know is that he's had a lot of crap shoved down this throat over the last 10 or 11 days, and he's got every right to not be feeling the best ever.. I also know he had some pee -- albeit bloody -- on his sheath, so he's still moving urine. And I left him eating hay.
Good enough for me...for now, anyway.
I'll have him off the acid for 24hrs, at least...if he gets better and the daggone sun comes back out tomorrow (sun = water intake) I'll try it again. If he trembles again, I may switch back to ammonium chloride and see what happens.. If he can't tolerate that either...I'm pretty much out of options except to slightly -- ever so slightly -- acidify his water and hope he doesn't plug up again.
