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My 9 month old Saanen, Flint, has managed to do something to his leg. When he walks he favors his right front leg, although he's bearing weight on it. When he steps down on it the hoof and leg shake like it's weak and sore and then it rolls out. Hard to explain, but his leg looks like it's slightly popping out on the outside around the same level as his dew claw, and his hoof rolls under and he ends up on his sidewall. He is bearing weight, but won't jump up or down from anything. Nothing is swollen or hot to the touch though, but something clearly is wrong. I don't know if it's a fracture or something else. His Hooves are trimmed and not the issue, it appears something is out of joint or fractured in his leg. I'll be taking him in first thing in the am, but should I wrap it in the mean time? It's pouring rain so he'll be snuggled up in their house and not out moving around.
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If you think it's fractured, you might want to splint it to make him more comfortable. I watched a local vet/friend of mine splint a broken leg on a young goat with a newspaper. She took a whole section, folded it until it was the right size to wrap around the leg, and then wound vetwrap around that. It was nice and stiff but still conformed to the leg and it kept her from accidentally getting the vetwrap too tight.
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Hopefully it is nothing too ssrious. Keep us informed.
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Goats dont tend to swell much when they break a leg. But from what you describe Id say its broken. Without knowing how and the right materials and the rain would be kinda tough to do a splint. The main thing with a goat is after its set right, your splint will need to extend past the toes. So when he puts pressure on it, that pressure is transferred up on the leg past the break. We have used 2" pvc cut in half long ways to achieve this. Should have a wrap under neath the pvc to protect the leg from rubs and then attach the pvc with more vet wrap. You can put score marks in the pvc to give the vet wrap something to grab onto so it doesnt slide up the leg.
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Took Flint in this morning despite my husband and I being pretty sick and didn't get very good news. The said he has angular limb deformity. When we got to the vet we noticed he was already starting to bend his other leg out as well, although nothing like the right leg. Carpal valgus bilateral with fetlock tendon laxity is what he said. He has 35% deviation on the right leg and 20% on the left. They said we can splint him for several weeks and hope to solve the tendon laxity, but he most likely will not have a future as a packer. I'm incredibly bummed about this and don't understand how it happened so quickly. The vet said he wasn't sure as to the cause either, they are usually born this way, but Flint has never appeared to have had an issue before. We did hoof trims on New Years and he appeared normal. I asked if it could be a mineral or diet issue and they said possibly. We purchased him from Carolyn Eddy so I don't think it would be a hereditary deformity. He was raised on his mom and then switched over to orchard grass hay with free choice minerals. The plan for now it to take him in weekly to re splint and go from there. Any insight or thoughts would be much appreciated.
Here's a pic of the poor fellow, just glad to be back home.
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Oh wow. I remember a story about a goat with this back on the old forum. It wasn't sudden onset though. I sure hope none of mine get that!
Frankly its been a bad month for pack goats.
He's such a handsome goat! Perhaps he can just tag along? You know, my goat Amelia Goat-hart is a pretty poor example for packing (I got her because she was cute). She's a she, for one thing, and second she's got small hooves and a bouncy fat belly and isn't particularly large. She'll probably never pack much at all, but she gets to tag along just for the joy of it if there's room. I hope your guy can manage the same with some luck and care.
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Aw, I'm so sorry about the diagnosis. If only it had been a broken leg after all.
He's a beautiful little goat, and perhaps he'll grow out of it with patience and care. You never know.
It really has been a bad month for pack goats! Maybe we're just getting all the bad stuff out of the way early so the rest of the year can be amazingly trouble-free.
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Ill drink to that Nanno! And I have never even herd of the diagnosed problem. Will have to read up on it. Sorry to hear it Alyis.
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Thanks for the encouragement, I sure hope the rest of the year is great a trouble free for everyone!
I found the article that was on the old forum posted by Bwana Ken. I don't think he's found his way here, would love to know how it worked out for his goat. He sounded like bent leg was his issue and I think that is different from this, but am still doing all the reading I can. I'm still confused because it sounds like both are caused by too high protein or calcium/phos imbalance. We decided to raise these kids on only high quality orchard grass hay due to our past issue with AC. The reading I've done suggests high growth rate can be the cause, but I don't think he's spurting up that fast. At 9 months old he's 84 lbs and 29 inches tall. May try the Vit D as suggested in the past post mentioned.
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You know, it might just be more common in Saanans. I like the breed-- My first goat Tina was a Saanan. Its just that I've heard of a lot more things going wrong with them than other breeds.
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