ouch! nasty wound

poor penny  why can't it ever be one of the stupid wethers that gets hurt it always has to be one of the nicest girls.

    Poor thing, did you cure it how? Your other pictures of goats are of lovely healthy strong looking animals, though then there come terrible stories of ill and dead nannies.
      I have started a list of Juan Orías account of which trees are used to feed live stock and which live stock, on the forum with the strange name "I gave the name of an author and i gave it wrong".

That is a nasty wound all right, and such a problem to deal with at this time of year...flies, etc. Poor little Penny!  Is she one of the newest goats?

You'll have to post some healing progression pix on this one.

I will post pics as it heals. I cleaned it real well with alcohol and put gobs of neosporin on it and wrapped in in vet wrap. she is in a small pen with a buddy on the concrete pad so I can keep the area hosed off and prevent the bandage from becoming too gross and keep her from snagging it on things. at least the wrap keeps the flies off. I am giving her a round of pennicilin too to hopefully keep her from getting an infection. yesterday it looked like it was healing ok when I re-wrapped it , although the nasty hunk of skin didnt' really go back right and it is going to leave a nasty scar. as long as it doesn't make her sick I will be happy. its a really bummer spot to get hurt, the flexion of that joint will probably slow its healing and as you can see on the wrap it is in a spot that gets 'layed on'.

Dang it! That is one of your fancy new goats!

Like you said, (and just like horses) the nice one$ go & get hurt. Unfortunately, (and I know you already know this) you don't have a choice but to keep it wrapped, especially with the joint being involved. One summer, my horse developed a "summer sore" on his fetlock, just a minor injury, not like Penny's...but...I just couldn't consistently keep the flies off, or keep the wood shavings out of it. Being as I was 20 miles from where he was boarded, I couldn't tend to it every day. So I'd go out & clean it and that would just open it up again and again. Keeping it wrapped was my last choice, but that's how it finally healed up. I even have a picture of me jumping him with that wrap on. Fortunately, it was not a severe wound & he didn't get lame from it. How lame is Penny? It looks like she's putting some weight on that leg.

Should you have stitched it?.
  i love pictures of goats its strange how thrillling pictures of animals are. Once not long ago, on the Colbert Report, he put a video of puppies playing on  a lawn behind the man he was interveiwing and it was impossible to listen to the man talking, the puppies so completely grabbed my attention which was Colberts aim apparently.
  Tried garlic on wounds it hurts but it keeps them clean, this is me, experimenting so don't take it as gospel. It seems to work held onto on spots and things of the type where the skin is not broken and so it does not hurt.  I tried it on myself and it seemed to work. Latter on heard I heard they were antibiotic and antiviral. I dont try things on myself unless they are just normal food stuff.  It would really hurt though. What about the outside leaves garlic and things of the type, they keep the bugs off in the earth so they must be good at fending off germs. I would not suggest experimenting on  a big wound like that though. I heard of a french farmer who gave aa clove of garlic a day  to his horse that had had a heart attack and it lived and worked for him for years poor animal.
    What good focus you have in your pics. i haven't examined them with a magnifying glass but they just seem very clear.  rose macaskie.

it probably could have used some stitches and most certainly would heal with less scarring. I didn't find it right away though. I rushed the evening chores after getting home late from being out of town, and then in the morning rushed through morning chores because company was coming. she ate along with the others so I didn't notice. then later I was looking out the window at her and just thought "there is something wrong with that goat" I went out there with my thermometer to check her temp and look for anemia to see what I could figure out and went DUH! no wonder she looks off!!!

the wound was probably 24 hrs old at that point. I feel so guilty. it was probably too late for stitches or at the very least would have required the vet trim away to fresh tissue. I am not comfortable stitching things myself and she probably would have needed a sedative. all in all it would have cost me more than she is worth at the vet  ops:

one of the sad realities with the goats is that unless you have a really really nice one it is difficult to justify much veterinary intervention. that is why most goat owners learn to do most things themselves and find a vet who is willing to sell them the neccessary supplies. of course some have a bit of sentimental value which has its own value and justifies a vet visit....if you can find one that will work on them and actually knows something about them which can be difficult.

My old goat (aka dear husband ) had to go to urgent care today. Came home yesterday with a cut on his thumb knuckle (not stitchable, but definitely infectable!). By midnight, it was swollen and scary looking. He is picking up his antibiotics as I type this. Cutting sheet metal for a living and playing guitar for a hobby go together like oil & water! 

ooooh! never thought about that but you're right! not a good combo!

penny's leg  approx 6 days  post injury. I wish I could have got the flap of skin better positioned but with her kicking and flailing I was doing good just to get the wrap on. definitly not movable now!

WOW!  It has healed amazingly well in 6 days. When you compare the 2 pix, well, there's no comparison! You have obviously been very diligent in caring for it. Nice job! Can't wait to see how it looks in 6 more days!

I have been ribbed and jeered for it before (I'm so cruel ) but I swear by cleaning wounds with alcohol. yeah it hurts like hell for a few seconds but things heal up sooooo much faster. what I can't stand is when people insist on trying to use all the gobeldy gook that they sell at the feed store (mostly seen this on horses). all those ointments and salves whose active ingredients conisist of chamomile or tea tree oil just give bacteria a nice moist place to grow and don't really effectively help speed healing. if a wound needs something...anything...than it needs something strong enough to really get the job done...not all that the feel good snake doctor stuff that they sell at the feed store. and if it doesn't need real antibiotics or treatment then it is better off just cleaned and left alone. I have seen so many people make things so much worse trying to treat their horses wounds.....get it clean, keep the flies off, you want it to be DRY and then let the body do its job (big hint that your salve sucks for wounds if it says it is going to 'moisturize' it.......moisture = bacteria feast)

Well, I don' t think you're cruel! My open wound treatment experience comes from treating horse wounds. I have only used the basics to do so. Most of the gobbledygookey, moisturizing wound care products weren't around, back-in-the-day, so I never got in the habit of using them. Keeping the flies off was always a challenge though.

Gosh the goat heels well. good for alcohol.
    I read in a cook book that new cooks want to know exactly how many ounces of each ingredient to use, exact quantities make novice cooks more confident. If i had a goat i would like to know how much alcohol you put on and how often and such, you were so successful! I would want to know every detail of what you did. Did you use lint as well as a bandage how often did you change the bandage etc.

    Here in Spain, in the old days, they used oxycedrus oil  cadda, cade, tagga, that comes from cooking the wood of juniper oxycedrus, which cooking makes it sweat its oil i suppose. It is called juniper of the myrrh here, though real myrrh comes from a different tree. It is a tree that grows from here, Spain to India, China may be and so must be useful for a great part of the world. It keeps off insects as well as being antiseptic. It used to be used for wounds, on hunting dogs feet and from the yoke of oxen that draw carts for example. If alcohol works you don't need anything else though. It was also used for, mange, nits, and embalming so its pretty all over type of essential oil,  mite killer and insecticide and antiseptic, deadly.  If you use it you repell insects as well as it being antiseptic, which gives it an advantage over alcohol.They sell it as aftershave in new chain of french Provencial shops that sells articles for your bath and such but it is very expensive, an article for rich goat owners. I suppose it is your bandages that keep flies of your goats wound.     
      They use the detritus leaf, etcetera, fall, of junpiers as bedding in stables to keep flies out of the stables which i thought interesting. This type of use of the fallen leaves and bits and pieces of trees can be one aspect of desertification. It reduces the material that would form soils on the ground below the trees.

      Here they use hydrogen peroxide on on the cuts of children and adults which does not moisturise and is cheap and also stops the blood flow. It froths up in contact with blood which is fun and, unless the liquid in the bottle has evaporated to a great extent so that what is left is concentrated,  it does not hurt, though anything hurts children.
      They also use  iodine for cuts here in Spain which is not moisturising, it is liquid, not greasy and is used before operations so it must be good. Both are cheap and bought at the chemist without a recipe here. I imagine that iodine, that dies your skin yellow, as well as being an antiseptic when applied goes on being one when dry but that is just what i imagine.  In my head the problem with alcohol is that it cleans when put on but does not have an action afterwards. Still if you clean the wound every so often that might not matter. Someone else might know more about this aspect of antiseptics.
    They used to use gentian juice, a bright blue substance on animals, i had it prescribed for a wound on my dog, it came as a spray, it wasn't cheap as far as i can remember. I don't know if this is talking to talk or if it might be useful, like if someone has hydrogen peroxide and not alcohol, then if they know it can be used for cuts, which i did not know in England, they can use that until they got their hands on some alchool all this might have been usefull for them. rose macaskie.

thats definitly true about he alcohol being short acting. for anyone intersted I simply poured the alcohol over the wound. probably a good 8-16 oz each time I take the bandage off. at first i did that daily. now everyother day as the wound seemed to be doing well I decide wether or not it needs a good cleaning with the alchohol. the bandage is holding up well and serving its purpose to keep flies and gunk out of the wound. I put a human version of "triple antibiotic ointment" available at any market or drugstore on it before rewrapping it at first. I totally covered the wound in a thick layer before re wrapping with a stick to itself wrap that we call vet wrap. now I am using a product called wonder dust. this is my first time using it. and I am very pleased. it contains copper, tannic acid, charcoal and some other things and seems to be doing a superb job getting it dried out and healing over now that danger of infection has been minimized with the initial cleanings and antibiotics. 

I want to caution anyone about the peroxide. it is good for a one time cleaning but will supposedly inhibit regrowth of new tissue. as would probably too much continued use of alcohol.

it looks like the flap of skin will come off soon. it did not adhere like I thought it was at first.  I'll get a pic tommorrow.

double ouch!!! when it rains it pours I guess. one of my other doelings took a trip to the vet after hours last nite to have her lower EYELID sewn back on!!! argh. she is one of my pain in the rear doelings but when I came to my husband and said "well, I have to decide, I either need to shoot lisa or take her to the vet" my daughter overheard and tearfully said "I, I, I, think you should take her to the vet....... " ack......I can't turn down those big blue eyes......so I paid the vet double what she was probably worth to have her freakin eye lid put back on!!!


no before shots of this. she was loaded right in to the car and hauled to the vet. I can dig around in their guts and treat nasty wounds but that big 'ol flap of eyelid hanging exposing the whole underside of her eye gave me a major case of the icks.

  Leah Sattler, what a pirate you are, cleaning out house that have been foreclosed and about to shoot your does. Reading your things reminds me of girls i knew years ago. Your little girls  blue eyes would not have affected you if you had been a real bother girl, a cousin of my husbands shot a dog in front of his little boys of five to make men of them. He would never talk of anything tough, he is a smoothy, he  was just  brought up a brute, he is tough uncounsciously. I don't mean your a softy, just not a real bother girl, i suppose, maybe you are a real bother girl. Those boys as a result were very aggressive to dogs in the village or used to be agressive to dogs.  When my husband learnt to drive his cousin told him to just drive in the middle of the road, the other cars woud get out of the way, tough proposition. This is probably meaningless drivel for a permi page. agri rose macaskie.

With any luck, that doeling will be a good milker & pay for her vet bill eventually! I must say, the vet did a really nice job of stitching that up! Looks like it will heal really well.

yeah I try to pretend like I am tough but when I get it in my head, or my little girl does, that one of the goats gets a free pass then it is hard to change my mind. especially knowing that other than this she is (as far as I know now) perfectly healthy. she just had the misfortune of getting a rather small injury in a really bad place! it is so sad to see some of the guys who feel that to be a man is to be mean. I have known way too many men that are like the one you describe. and they insist on passing the traits on to their little boys

gwen- unfortunatly this is not a dairy goat and will be a miserable milker. and she could be CAE positive, I can't check her until she is a minimum of 6 months old. I am kicking myself for not being a bit stronger knowing that as an adult she is probably (because of her breeding) going to turn out to be the worst I have as far as quality goes and that is if I don't have to put her down because she comes up CAE positive. I am also pouring money into her as far as feed goes because the stupid #%^*& won't stay in the electric fence so that I can turn her out to go rustle up her own grub.

this whole situations boils down to - I am a soft hearted fool  ah well. I sure felt a whole lot better after those stitches were put in. so I guess I just bought myself some relief. that is worth something I guess.

You are no fool! With a young impressionable daughter watching, you are doing the right thing. Daughter is so young, this time in childhood should be soft & sweet, if possible. Life may become tougher later. Hopefully not soon at all!

It's a tough situation. My dh would have made the same choice...and he's a man. Yes, he's soft hearted, but this is a rough world. I would trade the softies in my life for anything!