Tuesday 16th August 2016
Happy, healthy (not quite) Goats!!
Happy goats: chewing the cud, half asleep, soaking up the sun... except we have a problem. Curds, Cheddar and Gorge are all having difficulty walking and Gorge is in fact VERY lame.
There is a history here in that Curds, (who came to us in 2009 via the RSPCA) has always had slightly dodgy feet and joints which we (and our last vets) concluded were as a result of poorly trimmed feet. Over the years, she has had periods of lameness which after an injection or two of Metacam (pain relief and anti-inflammatory) have, on the whole, been resolved. Cheddar and Gorge (who are her daughters from 2012) have generally been fine although we have had feet issues with them (which we put down to the fact that our last smallholding had very wet ground).
Gorge developed a slight limp the day before we moved. It had seemed to settle down in the first couple of weeks here but then got worse again (despite giving her an anti-inflammatory injection or two) and so we asked Rachel from Market Vets to look at it when she was here on 3rd August. Things then seemed to get a little better again but now Gorge's walking is worse than ever, to the point where we can actually see that BOTH her front legs are giving her problems. Serena from Market Vets came out today and in the absence of any clinical signs, suggested that x-rays and blood samples from Gorge 'might' enable us to figure out what is going on. Curds and Cheddar are a bit stiff legged too and very clicky in their knees.
The BIG issue we have however, is that as the THREE affected goats are related, we are worried we may have something hereditary going on OR it may be that it is environmental (change of diet, too much exercise or even stress). Whatever is the cause, we could be faced with the question as to whether we should be breeding from them again (either because they are not healthy enough OR because they may pass something on to their kids) and then the even bigger question as to what should then happen to them if we don't use them for breeding?
Lots of unknowns and then possibly some hard decisions to make….
There is a history here in that Curds, (who came to us in 2009 via the RSPCA) has always had slightly dodgy feet and joints which we (and our last vets) concluded were as a result of poorly trimmed feet. Over the years, she has had periods of lameness which after an injection or two of Metacam (pain relief and anti-inflammatory) have, on the whole, been resolved. Cheddar and Gorge (who are her daughters from 2012) have generally been fine although we have had feet issues with them (which we put down to the fact that our last smallholding had very wet ground).
The BIG issue we have however, is that as the THREE affected goats are related, we are worried we may have something hereditary going on OR it may be that it is environmental (change of diet, too much exercise or even stress). Whatever is the cause, we could be faced with the question as to whether we should be breeding from them again (either because they are not healthy enough OR because they may pass something on to their kids) and then the even bigger question as to what should then happen to them if we don't use them for breeding?
Lots of unknowns and then possibly some hard decisions to make….