HELP!! Kid with a lump... is it CL?

[helmstead]

Some of my fat babies still have remnants of their milk goiters (Tambora for instance) at a year old

A hard swelling is SOME kind of abscess. I would get it to a vet and have it lanced/tested.

 

[SDGsoap&dairy]

Or, more simply, a hard piece of hay can pierce the esophagus and cause an abscess - had two of those in my time so far. GROSS to lance and clean, esp. when the vet finds the offending piece of hay

This happened to us before, too. Our kid was around a month old when it happened. He knew enough to eat the hay but apparently not enough to actually chew it.

 

[jcooke1]

Well, tomorrow is the big day... I am taking my little one to the vet and I am scared of what he might say her lump is. Fingers crossed it is just a piece of hay, but what if it is not. Do you think my other three are infected by now? Do any of you have a herd that is CL positive, if so how do you deal with them? How long does CL stay in the ground for?

 

[Roll farms]

Please let us know what you find out...

I'm betting it's NOT CL, but if it is, you'll have some management decisions to make for sure.

I am down to 1 CL+ doe now and she rarely gets an abscess anymore. If I had it all to do over, though...I would have culled rather than deal w/ it for the last 9 years.

 

[jcooke1]

Update... Well the vet seemed positive today that the abscess is due to CL. He is going to send off blood work for me to confirm if it is or is not CL for sure. It is so hard she is my boyfriend's favorite little girl so I left the decision making up to him. The vet went ahead and lanced it open and gave us acid water to flush it with 3-4 times a day and a bottle of penecilin to give her 2xd. After that I guess she is safe to place back in with the other goats??? Any of you that have had or have CL in your herds do you place the infected back with the rest of the herd once the abscess is healed? If so, do you just wait for another abscess to form and than isolate the goat again? The vet talked like she may never have another abscess again or she may. I thought goats who are CL positive routinely have abscesses. How likely is that she may have already passed the CL to the other goats? I am asking all these questions because the vet didn't seem to have much worry about my situation and like it was not a big deal. As if my poor little girl was just a normal livestock animal that lives in a field. Why is it so hard for some people to understand these little things are pretty much our kids. Everything I have read tells me CL is a very BIG deal. Why is he taking it so casually?

 

[Roll farms]

My vet told me years ago, "You'll have to kill them all and start over." as if she wasn't referring to my children.

If it IS CL, you can put her back in once it's completely healed over. Only leaky, 'wet' abscesses are contagious.

And if it IS, she will get more...some get them more often than others.

I isolate mine when I notice one, lance them, let them heal, then send them back out.

I'm looking at your pic again...is this lump on the neck under the red spot? Or the 'lump' at the jaw line?
Can you repost a pic larger?

eta, if the abscess never busted at your place, then nothing *should* have spread.

 

[helmstead]

WHY didn't the vet test the EXUDE??

I swear it doesn't look in the right 'spot', and is probably a staph abscess...I hope, anyway, for your sake, that the vet is wrong. You simply cannot diagnose CL without the test, so til the results from the blood test come back (still shaking my head on that one).

 

[Roll farms]

Kate, I'm thinking if they didn't know enough to test the pus instead of doing a blood test, I'm hoping they're wrong!

I'm w/ you...it's just not in a CL location...

 

[jcooke1]

I took this one yesterday, I don't know that it is any better. The lump is just at the red and below. Now that it is shaved down the lump is very visible and a little smaller than a golf ball. I will take a picture of it tomorrow now that it is shaved and . I don't know that the vet had the ability to test the EXUDE. The tech said something about it but we went with the blood test for some reason. He didn't even suggest to test for CL, I did. He was happy enough assuming it was CL beca use of the lump. . I really wasn't pleased with the vet at all.

 

[jcooke1]

I really really hope it is only staph.