Hard Lump not in CL type place-should I be concerned

[cmjust0]

Ok, I apparently lied. The lump hasn't gotten any smaller, and now the hair is falling out in the center.

Crap.

The seller straight up lied. I asked her if it was CL, and she said "Oh no, I had the vet come out and look at it. He said it was a cyst."

Grrrr.

So I'm going to try the formalin. Any idea where I could buy that locally, or do I need to get it off amazon?

Whoa, now...slow down before you go injecting your goat with formaldehyde.

Seems to me that nothing's changed except that there's hair slipping off it now, but that doesn't prove anything about what type of abscess you're looking at. There's no way to know that "the seller straight-up lied" simply because there's hair falling off of it..

The abscess is still on the cheek, right beside the molars...right?

There's no lymph node there. CL doesn't grow knots where there's no lymph node. That's what CL is -- caseous (cheese-like) lymphaden...(of, or having to do with, the lymphadic system)...itis (inflammation).

Cheese-like inflammation of the lymphadic system.

I'm still gonna say there's about a 99% chance this is NOT a CL abscess. I still think there's about a 99% chance that the goat bit her cheek, but instead of either being re-absorbed or rupturing inside the mouth, it's gonna rupture to the outside.

Get her in a stanchion. Take a sharp knife and and make a small, vertical incision on the bottom part of the lump...think of 6:30 on an analog clock...the hands are where you want the incision. Squeeze out the crud. Flush the hole thoroughly w/ 7% iodine. Turn loose of the goat. Send part of the crud to the vet so they can have it cultured. Burn the rest.

Then just sit back and wait for the culture to return a positive for corynebacterium....not pseudotuberculosis, but pyogenes, yay!...so you can breathe again.

 

[bbredmom]

Ok, so we did what cmjust0 suggested and isolated her. I then really messed with the absess, trying to get it pulled away, see if it was soft, etc.

This thing is still hard as a rock, and very firmly attached to the goat, not the skin. I didn't get anything out of it except some clear liquid and a mad nanny goat.

So, sorry about that. I guess I shouldn't read too many "OMG, I think my goat has CL" stories when I'm half asleep, and then convince myself that I must have it.

Sigh.

Sorry for the drama.

 

[cmjust0]

Did you actually lance the thing, or just squeeze around on it?

 

[bbredmom]

We lanced it with an 18g needle. I didn't have anything I felt sharp enough to cut it with without causing needless pain.

 

[cmjust0]

Ah...you aspirated it.

Were you able to get it to come down considerably, or did you just get enough stuff out of it to see that it wasn't CL before stopping?

 

[bbredmom]

She was not a happy girl, and I was so relieved not to pull out cottage cheese, I just let it be. And I read somewhere you shouldn't aspirate salivary infections.

I'm going to call the vet (yay, she's closer now! 30 min as opposed to 3 hours!) and see what she says to do. If a good dose of penG will fix it, I'll just do that.

ETA: Oh, it was actually this thread. So aspirating is ok, lancing is not. Well, she may just get pissed off again tonite...

Can ya'll tell my brain is in 20 different directions today?

 

[cmjust0]

So it seems to be the salivary thing afterall...

Wonder what the percentage of "obvious" cheek-bite abscesses ( ) are actually salivary abscesses?!?

 

[bbredmom]

Oh you sassy man!

 

[cmjust0]

No, I'm really wondering!

In the past, anytime I've seen an abscess in the cheek area, I've always considered it to be a cheek-bite pretty much right off the bat...but maybe that's not the case, afterall.

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not so hellbent on being right that I'm no longer interested in finding out that something I've long held to be true may be completely and utterly WRONG.

I just like to learn stuff.

 

[Ariel301]

I had a doe scare me with one of those cheek lumps too. It looked and felt just like CL...but she had a recent CL negative test and had not been exposed to anything that I was aware of (I do have a CL doe but she's in my meat pen, not with my dairy does)...turns out it was probably from biting her cheek She gobbles her grain in a panic on the milk stand once I let go of her udder, because she knows she's about to get pulled away from it, so that is probably when she bit herself. It ruptured on the outside and healed right up.