5 month buck - urinary calculi ??

Backfourty,MI. · #41 07/12/09, 09:38 AM

Yes, please let us know how he does.
When I say it took 2 people, I have Nigerian Dwarf goats. Didn't know what kind of buck he is. If he full size buck might take more people your right about that.
I sure hope he pulls out of this & soon.
Once he's all better, I would make his maintanence dose 1 & 1/2 tsp per day.
Minelson has a good recipe that she makes up into a ball & gives them to her wether like a treat. I tried it & mine like it too. Much better when your on the everyday maintanence rather than drenching him daily.

3crow · #42 07/12/09, 02:17 PM

This morning he wasn't looking good and wasn't peeing and not interested in his special munchies. So well you all know what we did (Backfourty-thanks for the help, it worked). It took three of us but the deed got done. Not to be graphic but we did clean out chucks of gunk out of there. It seemed to be old bloody material and grayish stuff. This afternoon, he seems a little better, back to trickling and more eager to eat his special munchies. I just don't know at this point what is going to happen.

I am wondering if the problem is higher up above, the pizzle had stuff on it but not that much, this is something the breeder wondered too.

deetu · #43 07/12/09, 04:23 PM

sorry i didn't come on sooner. it is better to separate and spread it into twice a day.
(according to Cornell and personal experience)
did you use the vinegar and water for the cleaning?

3crow · #44 07/13/09, 12:10 AM

It is 12:50 am, and yes I was out in the barn doing the night check. He was waiting for me at the door. I gave him his night routine - pain med, electrolytes and munchies, he trickled peed. Things seem the same. Tonight in the pasture I saw him play butting with the one doe and believe it or not, showed some interest in the girls.

Deetu- We have been using vinegar water since you mentioned it, great tip, thanks. Today, we really cleaned things out with the vinegar water, he really was "thrilled" but it had to be done. I will start him tomorrow with the split dosage, I kind of wondered if I should do it that way but I couldn't find info on it and the directions didn't state anything in regards to that.

Starsmom · #45 07/13/09, 12:50 AM

I would stick to cleaning his sheath out daily. What the AC does is dissolves the stones and it can turn into a pastey looking stuff and get all over the outside when he urinates. As he strains and pushes, it will push it outward and eventually as he trickles, it will get all over the outside, so keeping it clean is important. I've dealt with this with goats and cats. Everytime I cleaned off my cat, he immediately urinated, so I did it several times a day in order to provide relief and prevent bladder rupture. Good luck and I hope he continues to improve.

hoofinitnorth · #46 07/13/09, 12:01 PM

Perhaps he had pizzle rot?

Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians · #47 07/13/09, 06:44 PM

You can't OD ammonium chloride, it is not a drug it is a simple mineralized salt. You can use 1 tablespoon several times a day to drench him, which also increases his water intake. Giving subq lactated ringers also gives him more fluids so he has to pee. Banamine is key, if it keeps him relaxed he will pass the stones more freely.

Biggy is to fix this in your management. There is no natural way to raise a show wether, once you give them grain of any kind their phos balance is way out of whack...grass hay, browse and BOSS is all phos, and his grain mix contains very little in the way of calicum, mostly calcium carbonate and calicum sorbate, which we know doesn't really add to the calcium in the blood due to uptake being scewed from other mineral defficencies. There is just no better way of a raising out bucks or show wethers than all the alfalfa they want to eat and a good medicated meat goat pellet that contains AC in it.

Maintenece is 1 teaspoon per head per day be it a little buckling or a big ole 200+ pound nubian buck.

Sheath cleaning is fine, but cutting the pizzle off is much better, it's nearly always the place some of the stones first clog. The pizzle is that little alien piece off the top of the penis. More than that and you are not doing anything but torturing him....buck urinary health is so important because you can't catheterize bucks, you can't flush them.

Once you have urinary calculi on your farm, if you don't fix your management it will effect other bucks. Vicki

susanne · #48 07/13/09, 09:33 PM

banamine is a key for treatment. it not only relaxes as it takes the pain, it also is inflamatory and helps to minimize the swelling in the urethra, which makes passing of the blockage easier. like vicki mentioned, cut the little worm like tip off. he does not need it.
i had a buck with uc when he was ten month old. i spent a lot of money for surgery to get the blockage out. he spend seven days at the MSU. today he is three years old and has no problems peeing or breeding. i think he was worth every penny i spent, as he produced some beautiful daughters for me

needles to say, he does not get any grain.

Bricheze · #49 07/13/09, 09:52 PM

They can't OD on AC?? I totally thought they could!

3crow · #50 07/13/09, 11:21 PM

Just in from the night barn check. He is still holding his own, seems a little spunkier, trickle peeing and eating. I cleaned his sheath earlier this evening and everything looks clean and good.

Vicki-I agree with you about management being key. I was forced to change my grain source in the beginning of the year for my animals and haven't been happy since for many reasons. I have be trying to find the balance since. Can you define what you mean by a "good meat goat pellet"? I mean I relieze it will contain AC but what other ratios do you look for? I know what I look for but just explain what you look for so I can compare with you. So would you recommend a calcium drench since there is so little calcium? I am sending water samples out for testing so I what I have there.

BTW, we did take off his pizzle however, it really didn't look heavily coated. It had a little gray residue at the very tip but was otherwise pink and looked healthy. There was other gunk in the folds but not attached to the pizzle.

Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians · #51 07/14/09, 01:33 AM

A good meat goat pellet would have menued items first, like alfalfa meal, and not just be all byproducts. It would contain ammonium chloride. You would feed it, minerals and hay (browse is best). Mine get equal parts meat goat pellets and alfalfa pellets, when not breeding and after apparisal they go on only meat goat pellets, but my bucks also live in the woods, so they browse whenever they want to. I also have no interest in 300 pound nubians bucks, I keep my guys lean, I want to be able to control them and lift their feet to trim them

Most folks love their bucks and wethers to death, they never need top dressing of anything, in fact if you kept them on alfalfa pellets, minerals and hay in the winter with adequate browse most bucks would grow out and live to ripe old ages. It's when you push young bucks so we can use them to breed that first fall, it's when you want to get weight back on heavliy used bucks (my bucks routeinly use a whole service memo book each fall/winter each) for showing or appraisal, that grain is even needed...and when you choose to use grain you are playing russian roulette if you don't offer AC along with it or already mixed in with it.

Even something as simple as offering them limbs pruned from an oak tree, can so scew the amount of phos they are recieving, because so many folks buy into the whole, bucks can't have alfalfa, that just this tiny limb can bring on UC. It's why I feed alfalfa pellets, calcium. Vicki

fishhead · #52 07/14/09, 06:40 AM

I've read that the calcium

hosphorus ratio has to be AT LEAST 2:1 and can be more because the stones are made from phosphorus not calcium in most cases.

LaManchaPaul · #53 07/14/09, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishhead

I've read that the calcium

hosphorus ratio has to be AT LEAST 2:1 and can be more because the stones are made from phosphorus not calcium in most cases.

oops wrong comment

BethW · #54 07/14/09, 09:17 AM

3crow, where in Virginia are you located? I have a terrific goat vet here in central VA who might be able to help.

Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians · #55 07/14/09, 12:23 PM

My goats diet is more like 5 to 1, calcium to phos. The whole 2 to 1 is really old cattle information, it has little to do with goats, especially does in the last part of lactation and milking, and bucks.

If more folks would worry about feeding calcium via alfalfa in some form it not only would supply the calcium all your goats need, but also the protein without the feeding of soy, or cottonseed meal, or fish and feather meal. Vicki

3crow · #56 07/14/09, 03:52 PM

BethW- PM me with the vet’s number. I am looking for any vet with info that will help me. Thanks.

Vicki - Your advice is very interesting. I am very familiar with feeding alfalfa to my horses back in the day when I had them. But even in those days we had animals that simply couldn’t have alfalfa. You are the first person I have talked to in this industry that actually admits recommending alfalfa (hay or pellets). I have gone to Boer shows and sawing them feeding alfalfa but had them tell me that they didn't recommend it, telling me they only feed it at the shows because many times the animals go off their food from traveling. I have asked many including the extension agents and well seasoned breeders about the feeding of alfalfa. I have had strange looks from the breeders and the extension agents told me not to get so complicated with feeding. I was told, I was feeding goats and not horses. This is my second year of having goats... and I can tell you I have learned a lot. I read a lot and I have read that the ratio is 2 to 1. I try to take good care of my animals; my animals are not heavy, they are just right. Heavy animals don’t necessarily make healthy animals. I don’t have a massive sized herd so we can spend time with each of our animals. The one breeder openly told me that he probably would not have seen a problem like this problem until it was too late. I do give special treats but always in moderation and are natural not man made.

Now here are some questions for you. If you live in an area that has a deficiency in the soil and you feed alfalfa from this area.....how would you know if the hay isn’t deficient? For instance, I live in the Piedmont Plateau region of VA known to be deficient in selenium depending on the location of the farm. The grains and hays produced on certain farms are said to be deficient in selenium as well. The same is true with water contents, there are places that have high concentrates of various minerals due to farming that occurs. Unless you get your water tested you simply don’t know what is in your water. We just had a new well drilled on our farm. We use the new well for the house water and the barn has remained on the original well. We do have cross links that allow us to switch between the different wells when needed. Could the fact that the water source isn’t being as depleted affect the water content? I am thinking yes. Also, if the one well is a shallow (a surface) well and there’s farming going on around you it will affect what is in the water. Right? You can test your water a couple of times and get a different readings in one week depending on what is being put down on the crops and how much rain you are getting. Anyway, I have switch the barn over to our new deep well just in case I was having a water issue that I wasn’t detecting.

There are a lot of variables I have to sort out to figure it out what went wrong. I don’t think it is as simple as that I messed up on grain. The grain is according to what you described a good meat goat grain and has a 2 to 1 ratio. He wasn’t getting that much in pellets according to what they say I should be feeding because we just got him three weeks prior. He was herd fed and I wanted to build him up slowly so I could avoid problems. He is (was) 57 lbs and was getting about 2 ½ lbs of the pellets and letting some lay. The amount of BOSS I was feeding wasn’t that much just a small hand full a day (roughly less than ¼ cup). He has free choice minerals, grass hay, pasture and browse. So I think the problem lays deeper. I am not sure I will really know but I can investigate the water anyway. I have another buck that was a bottle baby and he is doing fine on the very same regiment. For all I know, he may have had this underlying and I didn’t detect it. So, I just don’t know.

Backfourty,MI. · #57 07/15/09, 09:51 AM

I also have been in the same boat as you 3crow. It is really confusing sometimes. I too don't think when our buck came down with UC that we were feeding much grain at all. We have 10 acre's of alfafa planted here so we use alot of alfafa hay & I buy grass &/or grass alfafa mix from other farmers so they have some of all of it year around. They can browse in the alfafa feilds twice a day, bucks, wethers & doe's.
I have always been stummped & never quite figured out what went wrong here either other than we have a very high iron content in our water. I make sure the goats get the water run through the sftner but I still wonder sometimes.

I was always under the impression (don't remember where I read it) that too much alfaf was also the problem but the boys seem to want that hay & fresh aklfafa as much as the girls so I thought that was my problem.

I sure don't ever want to go through that again, I just keep reading & try to do what I think is best for our animals also. There are alot of very knoledgable folks here & I really try to listen to what Vicki, Susanne & Alice in Tx(Rose) has to say & try to follow them.

I have a wether that was born here 3 years ago & ate the same way as our buck. I banded the little guy at 2 weeks old & he has always been just Great! I will proble never know for sure what or where I went wrong but I still blame myself.

So glad your little buck is doing better & I hope he makes it through this.

3crow · #58 07/15/09, 10:37 PM

Katie,

I totally agree, there is a wealth of knowledge among the folks here. I have read many threads here and learned tons. I only hope to be as knowledgable as some here. I ask a lot of questions so maybe I can figure things out and learn. You also get a lot of support here when you become unsure of things, for this I am truly thankful for. I had so many tell me I was wasting my time tryig to help him, and was told to put him down. In my heart I have to know I tried everything to help. That is the only way I can make peace with myself in those times when things go wrong and I have to make difficult decisions.

He seems to doing better. He is getting back to himself in some ways. He actually peed a stream today. So maybe we are heading in the right direction now. I will keep you all posted.

Thanks

Minelson · #59 07/16/09, 06:37 AM

I am so happy he is doing better!