Urinary Calculi Surgery

[DownUnder Gal]

It's taking a while for William to get back to his old self.  Although he was eating his appetite was poor and his gut motility seemed to completely shut down for a week, which had me very worried.  He ended up having a rumen transfaunation on Sunday morning; the theory was that all of his gut bacteria had died and as probiotics hadn't helped, we needed to try something else.  William's dam Penelope was the donor; after Penelope having fasted they were both sedated at the vet clinic (still awake enough to wander around with their heads in their clouds) and the vet stomach tubed Penelope, pumped some water in and then sucked out the liquid from her rumen.  This was then pumped into William via stomach tube.  It's smelled very ripe!  We didn't quite get enough "juice" from Penelope so we weren't sure whether it would work.  In any event William started eating with gusto on Tuesday and rumination started on Wednesday morning.  That may have happened anyway; who knows?  He's almost back to his old self, starting to beat up his sister.  I take him down to the blackberry patch by the dam three times a day which he loves.  Most importantly he is peeing with ease.  We still haven't got the stone analysis back (I think it was sent to the US) so I will be very interested to see what type of stone it is and the extent to which we can limit a recurrence via dietary measures.  I'll need to change all the wethers' diets.  The vet agreed that the baking soda and seaweed meal should be eliminated, so Nanno, you were spot on with your advice there