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Posted by Jodi Waits on August 11, 2002 at 16:03:14:
I have a pair of 4 month old Pygmy Goats. They are and wethers as well as littler mates.
Saturday morning at 5:00 a.m. I was awakened by a terrible pathetic cry from one of my babies. I went out with a flash light and observed him trying to "potty" but he couldn't. I thought that he might be constipated so I gave him 6cc of Milk of Magnesia orally. He quieted down and I went back to bed.
When I observed him later that morning, I noticed his abdomen was very swollen, much more than usual, and noticed crystalized dried blood at the opening of his penis. It scared me to death.
I immediately jumped on the net and went to Goatworld. UC seemed to fit the profile. So I began calling vets in our area. Of course NO ONE is in on a saturday, so it became a wild goose hunt for a vet that would look at my baby.
I finally found one at 3:00 that afternoon, and she had to manually drain his bladder via a needle through his skin. It was bloody and smelled terrible. We did all kinds of tests and she determined that surgery or death were the 2 choices we had.
I packed him up and drove 2 1/2 hours to the University of Georgia, in Athens and the Vets there tested, poked, prodded and finally decided to create him a new, larger uruethra. There was a blockage in his urethra in the sigmoid flecture that could not be removed and they were concerned it would rupture and that would mean certain death.
They performed emergency surgery Sunday am at about 6:30, and he will now drip urine thru a small opeing in his abdomen. His "whizzer" will no longer function, but UC is no longer and issue either.
The cause, they told me is from them eating the grass that is grown in their pen, as it is grown in in nothing but sand.(Where we live is the land of sand in sunny SC) Too much silicate in their diet causes UC, and once they have it, you can't just "get rid of it" by treating it. The calculi don't ever completely disolve, even if you add amonia chloride as a top dressing to their food. On top of that, I was giving them about 1/3 of a cup of sweet feed per day as a treat. That only made it worse.
They are going to recommend me a feeding regimen when I pick him up from the hospital on Tuesday. I will be elated to share this with all of you when I get it.
I also would like to thank all of you that have posted articles about UC on this site. I feel like that is what really saved my little baby as I had NO CLUE what was going on when I saw him all bloated like that. You are all a blessing to every goat owner out there, new and experienced alike. Thanks for all of the invaluable help. I just hope I can give something back one day!
Jodi
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