Goat masectomy?

[Deborah Stephenson]

This may seem like a dumb question, but has anyone ever heard of a goat masectomy? We have a fairly young 6 year old doe - never bred - who developed mastitis. She has been repeatedly treated, but seems not to respond. Her udder has grown very enlarged and is making her uncomfortable, but we just don't know what to do at this point. Poor thing is getting pretty miserable. (A couple of years ago, her mother developed the same problem, and after months of unsuccessful treatment we ended up having to put her down. We're thinking it may have been cancer and not just mastitis.) At any rate, this is not a valuble doe - she is an accidental Boer/Nubian cross, so I'm sure most of you would say cull her. However, we never got goats to use them for meat or milk - they are rescues and pets, so it isn't as if we are trying to "improve" the herd or anything. Problem is, even if we could get a vet in our area to do a masectomy, I'm sure we couldn't afford it. Is killing her to put her out of her misery our only option? Any other ideas?

[sunnygrl]

i know my cousin had a goat the they did a mastectomy on. She got her in an auction last year and she was so huge that her udder drug on the ground and was the size of a beach ball( or bigger!). They gave her the mastectomy and she kidded this year and they bottlefed the little guy. I don't think she had any problems after the surgery, but as far as the cost I don't know what it cost. you could call your vet and ask what they would charge for such service.

[Sweet Goats]

I have no clue on what to say other then I am really sorry that she is doing this. I hope there is something you can do for her.
I have never heard of a goat getting it and never been bred, but hey I have never heard of a lot of things. Good Luck.

[AnnaS]

first, I would get a milk or fluid sample from the udder & have a vet or dairy lab do a culture and a antibiotic sensitivity test to determine what is causing her mastitis & what antibiotics may work. There are environmental staphs, for example, that are multi- resistant. It's possible that you haven't hit the right treatment yet. This test is pretty cheap- I had one done and it was less than $20.

If the infection isn't treatable, have your vet talk to Dr. Joan Rowe at U of California-Davis. I believe she has done goat masectomies; she has managed masectomized goats. she can be hard to reach by phone but is very nice and extremely knowledgeable once you get her!

[lasergrl]

They do masectomies at Ohio state. One of the doctors at the vet clinic where i work always talks about her favorite goat in vet school, fancy, a lamancha who needed a masectomy. This goat died after but she was very sick from it before the surgery.

[Deborah Stephenson]

Thank you all for your help. We live so far from a large animal vet here that it is usually impossible to get any help from a professional, so this forum is a real boon. You'd think in such an agricultural/rural area as SW Missouri, someone would set up a practice, but we have to drive over an hour to get to the nearest REAL clinic. (Nothing else remotely close except for a couple of fancy clinics that only treat pedigreed cats and dogs. There is one here that even does acupuncture and hypnotism for pampered pets - with bills to match - but for livestock? Forget it!) We use to have two large animal vets here in town but about 8 years ago, one retired and the other (a young man) committed suicide. Nobody ever came in to replace them.

Anyway, I think we will do as you suggested, AnnaS, and get a sample to the vet. Maybe we are dealing with staph as you suggested. I hope that is all it is because she is such a sweet thing and we have had her from birth as a pet. We really think her mother had breast cancer though, and this looks so much like the same course developing, that we are afraid it may be too. I don't know how likely it is that two females so closely related would both get cancer, but it sure looks like it. In addition to the increasing size of the udder (one side only), she is losing weight fast and seems really under the weather and tired. Before her mother finally was put down, she did the same thing and nothing we did beforehand had any affect at all. (We tried several antibiotic regimes; wormed her; even tried the canulas to see if we could open up the affected teat in case scars blocking the opening were a problem All this was done under a vet's telephone supervision - since we couldn't get her to him, and no one would come this far to look at her!)

Anyway, thanks again to all of you. Keep your fingers crossed that it is something treatable because I'm pretty sure we couldn't afford a masectomy for her, and the alternative is not something I want to think about right now.

[coso]

Have you tried this lady
Delinda Volskay, DVM
3871 County Rd 130
Carthage, MO 64836
(417)358-6479

She has goats herself and I've heard she's pretty good.

[deafgoatlady]

Deb. I can talk to my vet and see what he says and maybe give me the informations for u. Okay.

[Cygnet]

Might check for CAE & CL as well. Just as a thought. Both can cause mastitis type symptoms.

Also, some does will produce milk even if they've never been bred. (Heck, I've seen a buck with an udder.) If she's making milk, you might want to consider milking her out every day and seeing if that fixes the problem.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

Alot of teaching universities will do surgeries like this as teaching projects.

You do know since this mastitis was passed from dam to daughter that she is passing this to her daughters also who nurse this udder?

CAE can cause a very hard udder with no colostrum, but CL and CAE don't have anything to do with mastitis.

LSU (we have the info on goatkeeping 101 on dairygoatinfo.com) does test for free, but you have to get the sample to them cold which means 1 day mail. Make sure your vet knows who to send the samples into before you take them to her/him. This isn't a test normal vets would know how to run. Vicki