Doe with swollen lip... :/

[aggieterpkatie]

If you go to this page and read toward the bottom, he recommends giving Tet to preggo animals.

 

[cmjust0]

I've seen that advice before, on that page, and on several others that basically did a copy/paste of it....which, of course, makes it appear as though it's a widely accepted practice...which, of course, makes it nearly impossible to tell whether or not that's actually the case.

Lots of intarweb goat info is that way... :/

I think I'll probably just switch her to Excenel to be safe.

Still don't know what the heck happened to her.. It's like one minute she was fine, then POOF -- lip puffed up. I saw a little sore looking spot in the middle of it, but nothing super nasty looking.. Then it's draining?!?

Just weird.

Dang goats.

 

[cmjust0]

Wife called a little while ago and said she checked in on the doe again.. Said she's still acting normally, and ate some hay. Said the wound itself looks like it may be a bit less grodie than yesterday, but that it's more or less the same..

I could sorta tell by her demeanor -- the wife, not the goat -- that it's getting better. She's obviously rolling it around in her mind, analyzing, trying to do a mental comparison between how it looks today versus yesterday, etc. Still, I could tell by her voice that she's less concerned about it than she was, regardless of whether that registering intellectually or not. To me, that means the first round of antibiotics is working and goat's getting better.

We'll start the Excenel tonight..

Y'all hide and watch, though.....my luck runs such that whatever's caused this abcess will be susceptible to tetracyline and not to ceftiofur, and she'll get worse!

 

[cmjust0]

The swelling was much improved as of yesterday...seemed to be responding well to antibiotics. Main issue now is that she had blood around her vajayginal area.....likely aborted, we think. Could have been from the tetracycline I guess, or from a fever on account of the infection. May never know. Or may not have aborted...could always be incidental bleeding... Probably need to have her blood-tested for pregnancy soon, just to be sure.

Wife went down to give hay yesterday while I was gone to buy more hay ( ) and told me that it appeared there was something 'sticking out' of the wound on her lip.. She couldn't tell what it was..

Well...when we went down later to grain and throw hay for the night, I 'rassled her a little and took a look....sure enough, it was icky stuff poking out a bit. I pressed on her lip every so gently ( yet still much to her chagrin) and WOW.. The hole was about 1/4" in diameter and crap just started popping out like crazy. I had to let her take breaks, then wrangle her up again for several rounds of squeezing before I got to 'bloody juice.' I'd say we probably recovered 2-3ml of crud. Whatever was hung up in there -- thorn, splinter, whatever -- almost certainly has to be gone now.

Had it not been late already, and had it not been 6* outside with a stiff wind, were she not already royally P/O'd, and perhaps most importantly, had I not been flat out of iodine, I would certainly have flushed it. But I didn't.. Could have gone back inside and mixed up a betadine or chlorhex solution, but...well, ultimately I'm lazy I guess.


My guess, though, is that now that all the crap's gone, it'll seal over and she'll be fine. Might go on and give her another day or two of Excenel, though..just to be safe.

I'll keep us all posted.

 

[ksalvagno]

You may still want to flush it out a bit. Sometimes those buggers don't want to quit. I would do a full round of antibiotics to be sure.

 

[cmjust0]

I'll be picking up some gentle iodine on the way home tonight.. If it's not sealed up and/or produces anymore exudate, it'll get flushed.

I've only ever heard three days for a duration on ceftiofur, so that's generally what I do if I have to use it. She's had three...I'm sure I'll give #4 tonight, and may even go 5.

Then again, I've also read 0.5-1mg/lb, a dosing regimen under which a 150lb goat should get AT MOST 3ml.. My personal dosing regimen is 1ml/25lb...so at about 140lbs, mine's getting 5.5ml.

Who knows..

Ahhhhhh, the joys of pioneer doctorin' in goat world... :/

 

[aggieterpkatie]

The swelling was much improved as of yesterday...seemed to be responding well to antibiotics. Main issue now is that she had blood around her vajayginal area.....likely aborted, we think. Could have been from the tetracycline I guess, or from a fever on account of the infection. May never know. Or may not have aborted...could always be incidental bleeding... Probably need to have her blood-tested for pregnancy soon, just to be sure.

Wife went down to give hay yesterday while I was gone to buy more hay ( ) and told me that it appeared there was something 'sticking out' of the wound on her lip.. She couldn't tell what it was..

Well...when we went down later to grain and throw hay for the night, I 'rassled her a little and took a look....sure enough, it was icky stuff poking out a bit. I pressed on her lip every so gently ( yet still much to her chagrin) and WOW.. The hole was about 1/4" in diameter and crap just started popping out like crazy. I had to let her take breaks, then wrangle her up again for several rounds of squeezing before I got to 'bloody juice.' I'd say we probably recovered 2-3ml of crud. Whatever was hung up in there -- thorn, splinter, whatever -- almost certainly has to be gone now.

Had it not been late already, and had it not been 6* outside with a stiff wind, were she not already royally P/O'd, and perhaps most importantly, had I not been flat out of iodine, I would certainly have flushed it. But I didn't.. Could have gone back inside and mixed up a betadine or chlorhex solution, but...well, ultimately I'm lazy I guess.


My guess, though, is that now that all the crap's gone, it'll seal over and she'll be fine. Might go on and give her another day or two of Excenel, though..just to be safe.

I'll keep us all posted.

Is it sick that I find it very satisfying squeezing abcesses? Dairy cows get HUGE abcesses and sometimes when you lance them they'll squirt puss!!

I'm strange. I know. :/

 

[SDGsoap&dairy]

Yuck! I'm a groomer and one of my co-workers just relishes squeezing anything like that on the dogs- Different strokes, as they say.

 

[cmjust0]

No, it's not weird.. Too many people feel that way for it to be completely off the wall.

My personal theory is that we're hardwired to be a little bit curious as to what's hiding in an abscess as part of an evolutionary survival mechanism. Maybe that sounds a little far fetched and ridiculous, but imagine how many more people would have died of septicaemia throughout the history of mankind if there weren't other people standing around going...Pop it! Pop it, you big chicken!! Oh, c'mon...do you want me to pop it for you?!?! I just wanna see what's in there!



Conversely, I can see whole family lines being wiped out for standing around looking at each other like....You touch it. No, you do it, I don't wanna. How about we just leave it alone and see what happens.........

 

[Roll farms]

Y'all ain't right.....I'm just sayin'. Cheese slid off your cracker 'n all that.

(kidding....you're just a little gross, is all.)