What did you do today?

[Nanno]

We had a scare today. I got a call from the fellow I sold Max to a couple of years ago. Apparently Max (now called Axel) came back from a pack trip on Thursday and was not feeling well by the end of it. He was under the weather all day Friday and was still not well this morning so his owner called me to see what I thought. At first I agreed with the owner that it could be dehydration and an upset rumen. He hadn't drunk much on the pack trip and now his temperature was 98* and the owner couldn't hear any rumen sounds. I grabbed a box of medical stuff and headed over to Beulah where Axel lives.

When I got there Axel sure didn't look good. He was very lethargic and didn't flinch when I gave him 12 cc's of Vitamin B complex under the skin. That's a bad sign right there! I also gave him 20 cc's of C&D antitoxin without a reaction. He made faces when I squirted probiotic paste into his mouth, but a goat his size (over 200 lbs and he's only two years old!) should be really hard to medicate if he were feeling himself. I also gave him 2 cc's of banamine (and I was able to use a leg vein which I hit with the first poke--happy dance!!!). We got him up and walked him around a little and I was able to hear rumen noises. Also, his temperature had gone back up over 100* so I hoped he was over the hump but as we walked him he started stretching. As the banamine kicked in he started stretching more often into the sawhorse position and looking as though he expected something to happen, but nothing ever did. It was looking more and more like he was blocked.

I had the owner call his vet's emergency line and he was able to get Axel in this afternoon at 4:00. I heard back a couple of hours later and they'd removed the pizzle and Axel had been able to relieve himself, passing several stones in the process. I hope the owner is able to have the stones analyzed to see if they are calcium or phosphorus. That should offer clues as to what might have caused them and how to prevent them from forming in the future.

This really concerns me because Axel's half brother who is one year older got stones this past April, also right after a pack trip. He had to have surgery to remove them. I hope this is just a nasty coincidence and not a genetic problem related to their sire, Rambo, because I used Rambo extensively in my herd for a couple of years and I have a lot of his daughters and granddaughters.