Fullhousefarm
True BYH Addict
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2012
- Messages
- 616
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- 886
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- 203
Sharing so this might help someone in the future.
Yesterday was supposed to be out "Stay home and get things done" day here at home. Haha. Of coarse with animals it's always something. One of my son's Sebrights wasn't looking so good so we had to take care of that, one of our boarded horses is healing from a nasty abscess, so I have been doing Epson salt soaks. So, I run outside to put the goat back in the pasture after a late milking, and notice our Nigerian Buckling, in the adjacent pasture is standing with his mouth open funny and slightly drooling. Hm, that's not normal.
I bring him up to the milking porch and consult my daughter who fed him this morning and let him out into the pasture. She says he ate his food like normal, was perfectly fine an hour or two before. He doesn't seems distressed or in pain at all, but he opens his mouth, sort of chews, and repeats. I offer him food, he takes a bite, and nothing goes down. I massage his neck, look in his mouth (with the help of two kids, a spatula handle and a flashlight) and can't see anything. Try to syringe some water down him and it just drips back out. Lovely.
At this point I text one of our goat "mentors" that I figure can text back. Check his temp (normal), and such. She mostly suggests what I've already done. I'm guessing obstruction at this point, but no amount of massaging is doing anything. Call the awesome goat vet, and she says I can bring him in at 3:30, but she's in and out of surgery all afternoon so we might be there a while. It's also 45 min away and I have four kids with me- besides the goat. LOL. Goat mentor #1 and goat mentor #2 both suggest calling local livestock vet, Dr. Y, that does our health certificates. Mentor #2 is worried about tetnus, but I really don't think that's what it is. Call Dr. Y and they talk to vet and say bring him in right now- it's about 12 at this point. I get there as "right now" as I can with my whole crew. And, yep, I was right. Doc says that it was way too far down and he couldn't even see it with his endoscope and it probably wouldn't have gone away on it's own. It was just food and normal goat crud, not anything interesting like he was telling me stories of. They sedated him, tried the endoscope, then tubed him to push it into his rumen. He said it's probably just a random one time thing. If it happens again it is mostly likely some defect in his esophagus, but since he's 5 months and hasn't had a problem that's not a huge concern. Had a nice talk with the vet about wormers and such. Paid the vet bill (always hate that part) and was on our way home with a very worn out but happy goat. He sat on my daughter's lap in the waiting room for 30 minutes while we waited for the fecal to get done (I did it then since I was planning on bringing some in the next week anyway.) and greeted everyone who came in.
He didn't want anything last night so I syringed some electrolytes down him, which worked great. His throat must have hurt because he didn't want to eat. I felt bad, then had a great idea. I have him a bottle of milk. He was never a bottle baby so I wasn't sure how that would go, but he must have been hungry and it must have felt good on his throat because he drank the whole thing with no fight at all. This morning he promptly escaped from his makeshift pen in our back yard and up to the milking porch as soon as I started feeding the girls. He dove right in- so I think he's all recovered.
I'll try to add a photo of what he looked like from my phone in a bit.
Yesterday was supposed to be out "Stay home and get things done" day here at home. Haha. Of coarse with animals it's always something. One of my son's Sebrights wasn't looking so good so we had to take care of that, one of our boarded horses is healing from a nasty abscess, so I have been doing Epson salt soaks. So, I run outside to put the goat back in the pasture after a late milking, and notice our Nigerian Buckling, in the adjacent pasture is standing with his mouth open funny and slightly drooling. Hm, that's not normal.
I bring him up to the milking porch and consult my daughter who fed him this morning and let him out into the pasture. She says he ate his food like normal, was perfectly fine an hour or two before. He doesn't seems distressed or in pain at all, but he opens his mouth, sort of chews, and repeats. I offer him food, he takes a bite, and nothing goes down. I massage his neck, look in his mouth (with the help of two kids, a spatula handle and a flashlight) and can't see anything. Try to syringe some water down him and it just drips back out. Lovely.
At this point I text one of our goat "mentors" that I figure can text back. Check his temp (normal), and such. She mostly suggests what I've already done. I'm guessing obstruction at this point, but no amount of massaging is doing anything. Call the awesome goat vet, and she says I can bring him in at 3:30, but she's in and out of surgery all afternoon so we might be there a while. It's also 45 min away and I have four kids with me- besides the goat. LOL. Goat mentor #1 and goat mentor #2 both suggest calling local livestock vet, Dr. Y, that does our health certificates. Mentor #2 is worried about tetnus, but I really don't think that's what it is. Call Dr. Y and they talk to vet and say bring him in right now- it's about 12 at this point. I get there as "right now" as I can with my whole crew. And, yep, I was right. Doc says that it was way too far down and he couldn't even see it with his endoscope and it probably wouldn't have gone away on it's own. It was just food and normal goat crud, not anything interesting like he was telling me stories of. They sedated him, tried the endoscope, then tubed him to push it into his rumen. He said it's probably just a random one time thing. If it happens again it is mostly likely some defect in his esophagus, but since he's 5 months and hasn't had a problem that's not a huge concern. Had a nice talk with the vet about wormers and such. Paid the vet bill (always hate that part) and was on our way home with a very worn out but happy goat. He sat on my daughter's lap in the waiting room for 30 minutes while we waited for the fecal to get done (I did it then since I was planning on bringing some in the next week anyway.) and greeted everyone who came in.
He didn't want anything last night so I syringed some electrolytes down him, which worked great. His throat must have hurt because he didn't want to eat. I felt bad, then had a great idea. I have him a bottle of milk. He was never a bottle baby so I wasn't sure how that would go, but he must have been hungry and it must have felt good on his throat because he drank the whole thing with no fight at all. This morning he promptly escaped from his makeshift pen in our back yard and up to the milking porch as soon as I started feeding the girls. He dove right in- so I think he's all recovered.
I'll try to add a photo of what he looked like from my phone in a bit.
