[Nanno]

For those of you who have not read "Cuzco's Glamour Shots" recently, let me fill you in because I have a few health-related questions after Cuzco suffered a coyote attack last week. He got attacked by a pack of them and suffered bites on his head, neck, and back. Except for some pretty bad muscle stiffness in his neck, he seems to be recovering fine from the bites. But he ran very hard to get away and ended up three miles from our house. At his age (10 years), I'm afraid the run probably took a much harder toll on him than the actual attack.

First of all, he has a dry cough which seems to bother him most when he's chewing his cud. Sometimes when the cud comes up, it comes in more of a hiccough than a burp (although sometimes he also burps normally). And he also will cough when he's not chewing his cud. I checked his throat very carefully to make sure there were no bites, but I can't find any sign that his throat is damaged. No punctures, swelling, or tenderness. All the bites seem to have been concentrated on the top of his head and neck, not underneath. So I'm thinking this is related to his hard run. Phil says he had a persistent cough for two weeks last year after playing football with the youth group while out of shape. What do ya'll think? I'm taking a "wait and see" approach at the moment since it doesn't seem like a serious cough.

The other problem he has is that his poops have been unusual since his ordeal. The pellets are sticky, smaller than usual, and a little deformed. They're also a yellowish color and have mucous in them. They sometimes stick to his backside a little bit. Could this be stress-related? I'm just surprised it hasn't worked itself out by now, since he was chased last Wednesday night and his poops were still unusual-looking this morning (Monday). Also, I'm not sure what he ate for two days while he was gone from our house. We didn't have him back home until Friday evening and I suppose he could have eaten something unusual while he was gone. Still, I would think it would have gotten better over the weekend. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[TDG-Farms]

Here is what crossed my mind first. The swelling you see on the outside may be worst on the inside and or just because there are no bite marks doesnt mean they didnt bit him and as a result, he could have a little bit of damage in there.

Or it could be a parasite load that was kick started due to the stress. Would also tie in to the poo issue. Or the lack of food and or maybe a house shrub / plant not normally eaten that he is still getting some side effects from.

Lastly, if you are not, you should have him on a 10 day cycle of some type of penicillin. Coyotes are dirty nasty animals who will dig up rotting meat and eat it. Not to mention the normal diseased they carry. Although I think the stiffness in his neck is do to muscle trauma, it very well could be an infection setting in. Some baking soad while on the treatment is always a good idea to help with the rumin.

 

[sanhestar]

Hello,

I concur with Dave that there could be internal injury to his oesophagus. The coughing could also be related to damage of the lung tissue after over-exertion - Pat Coleby writes to give Vitamin E which will help repair lung tissue.

Also think of tetanus.

Yellow poop could have to do with liver problems - stress.

I would recommend a thorough check from a vet, x-rays, bloodwork, tetanus prophylaxis.

 

[Nanno]

I think the coughing is from irritation of the lungs, not the throat. All the swelling is on the top of his neck behind his head and on the top of his shoulders. The muscles feel really stiff along those areas, although the swelling has gone down. I think he might be starting a little infection along there as well since the top of his neck and withers felt hot today. I'll take his temperature in the morning. But the wounds themselves look dry and seem to be healing nicely. I'll swing by the vet tomorrow morning and get some antibiotics and a tetanus booster as ya'll suggest. He does have a current rabies shot (got it about three weeks ago).

Since I think this coughing problem is in his lungs, what is the best way to give a goat Vitamin E?

Dave, I did read somewhere on this site a couple of weeks ago how to administer baking soda. I'll look that up and try it tomorrow to see if it helps his digestion any.

I hope there is no damage to Cuzco's liver. We don't have a good goat vet around here who would know what the heck they were dealing with, so I'm not sure it would be helpful to take him to one. I'd probably just get a nice "looks like a goat to me!" and "here's the bill."

On the plus side, Cuzco had a very good appetite today for the first time, and he was even able to put his head down this afternoon for short periods. Before that he was having to eat kneeling or lying down because he couldn't bend his head down past his knees. He also was eager to go for a walk today.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Nanno]

Here are some photos of a few of Cuzco's injuries. A lot of them are hard to see under the hair. Luckily most are very shallow (less than what he gets from running under the barbed wire to visit the neighbors).
[attachment=2:3jtztnpi]Cuzco_Bites1.jpg[/attachment:3jtztnpi]

This is the deepest puncture wound. It bled a good bit because there was a trail of blood all the way down his chest when I found him.
[attachment=1:3jtztnpi]Cuzco_Bites2.jpg[/attachment:3jtztnpi]

This is the biggest, most obvious wound and it's on his back. It looks nasty but it didn't bleed much and doesn't seem to have any heat, swelling, or tenderness.
[attachment=0:3jtztnpi]Cuzco_Bites3.jpg[/attachment:3jtztnpi]

Of course, the most painful part is the muscle trauma along the top of his neck and shoulders. I rubbed his neck and back a bit throughout the day and he loved it. Put his head right down and closed his eyes like he was at the spa.

 

[TDG-Farms]

The poor dear . Ive been posting about the soda so might be me. We just open a box, put it in a lip pan and let em have at it. They will destroy whole nations to get at it (ok maybe not that badly, but they will devour it.) So maybe just a couple of minutes or maybe just a cups worth would be good for a day. Here we put a lip pan up, when we decided to try it and put 4 boxes of soda in it thinking, that will last em. It was gone within a few hours. Ive tasted it after watching em go crazy and its not that tasty. We wanna leave it free choice but going to talk to our vet first to see if there is any bad side effects of doing that. They say to much of a good thing is a bad thing and we try hard not to help bad things happen here.

 

[sanhestar]

I'll add the things regarding vitamine E:

I use vitamine E capsules for humans - it's most often in a liquid state in them - slice them open carefully and extract the liquid with a syringe plus needle. A goat needs between 5 to 100 mg per day and as I can't find my copy of "Practical Goatcare" I can't tell you which dosis Pat Coleby recommends for lung damage. Maybe someone else has a copy and can help out here.

If I remember correctly, you live in a selenium rich area. In that case you should be carefull with adding the vitamine E because it will increase the selenium absorption.

If this sounds too risky for you, you might want to try the homoeopathic remedy Arnica 30M. It's a remedy after blunt trauma, over-excertion (lungs and heart, too) with a feeling of stiffness in all muscles, like having been beaten. Would imagine that Cuzco feels like that right now. Keep up the massage. In fact, if you can get your hand on some information/books/websites about dog massage or horse massage, try that. Tellington Touch might be especially helpfull. Bite wounds repond well to Hypericum 30M.

As for possible liver damage: can you get your hand on milk thistle seeds? These are a great remedy to restore liver tissue and protect the liver from stress and toxins.

 

[ryorkies]

Probiotics? with stress vitamins? Have you givin him some?

I was thinking the coughing could be the throat.
I say this thinking in terms of ME. If I ran 3 miles
I would be gasping for air so hard that my throat would
get very raw. And I would cough.

 

[Nanno]

Cuzco is doing much better now. His droppings are still a little lighter brown than normal but are the right shape, size, and consistency now. He ate about 1/3 cup of baking soda yesterday morning but wouldn't eat any more after that. His temperature has stayed normal, so it doesn't look like he's fighting infection. He's also had a very good appetite the last two days. I had stopped feeding him his soaked alfalfa pellets a couple of months ago because once the green grass started he wanted no part of them. But I've been offering them to him ever since his ordeal, and for the last two days he's devoured them. I'm really glad because he really doesn't have much left in the way of molars, so now that he's eating his mush I know he's getting some good grub in him.

I massaged the stiff, sore parts of his neck with Mineral Ice last night and he's worlds better this morning. The muscles have softened up tremendously. He'd still rather kneel than bend his head down, but he definitely looks a lot more mobile in the neck area today. I'll be doing the same thing again tonight.

Cuzco was coughing worse yesterday, but it had changed to more of a wheezing cough than a hacking one and still dry. This morning he wasn't coughing at all though. I'll see how he's doing throughout the day. Vitamin E sounds like a no go if it absorbs selenium. I'm glad you knew about that, Sanhestar. I'm guessing that the best thing for wind damage is some R & R, which Cuzco has been getting a lot of since he got home! We've been taking him for short walks every day, which he seems eager to do, but he's mostly just been loafing around the house getting spoiled with kitchen treats.

 

[TDG-Farms]

Sounds like you have done everything right and that boy is one tough son of a goat

 

[Rockytopsis]

Happy to read that he is on the mend.
Nancy

 

[Nanno]

Cuzco actually butted heads with Nibbles last night for the first time since we got him back. She still pushes him around when she's on the ground, but last night she made the mistake of challenging Cuzco from the top of the wood box--that put her on his level! Boy was she surprised when he smacked her right back! It may be a few weeks before Cuzco's muscles are back to normal function (I've had muscle spasms in my neck for as long as six weeks, myself, and they were nothing up on Cuzco's!), but I have a feeling that once his neck is in shape, Nibbles is going to regret a few things.

Cuzco's pellets look normal now, he's eating like a horse, and last night he barely coughed at all while I was feeding him his mush. Today he's getting a nice warm shower. I ran out of Mineral Ice for his neck, so now I want to rinse all that crusty junk out of his hair, as well as rinse off the scabs stuck in his coat. He's also just plain filthy ever since we got him back. But he's hasn't been well enough to take a bath... I didn't want to tie him up for that long because of his neck pain. Cuzco loves baths ever since I moved to a house with a warm water tap outside, and I'm sure the warm water will be very good for his neck muscles.

 

[Nanno]

Cuzco is almost completely back to normal now. There are still a couple of holes in his neck, but all the shallower wounds are healed and the scabs have peeled off. Now he just needs to grow hair back in a few places. He's been giving Nibbles the runaround for the last several days and she's had to sleep outside the shed. This morning, however, he finally let her back in with him. I made her a bed in a nook next to the shed so she could still have a comfy place to lie down, but I know she wanted to be inside. Still, I can't feel too sorry for her. She deserves every bit of grief she gets after the way she pestered and bossed Cuzco while he was down and out. I saw him thump her pretty hard several times in the last few days. But as rough as they are, they seem to both be having a very good time.

Cuzco is still coughing a little bit, and since Nibbles also came to us with a bit of a cough I've wormed both of them. I had thought Nibbles' cough might be from inhaling her milk since she was still on the bottle when we got her. Also, she'd had a touch of pneumonia a couple of weeks before we got her. But since she still has this slight cough several weeks later, my next guess is lungworm. None of the other goats where she came from are coughing, but given the fact that she eats every bit of rubbish she can get her mouth on, I wouldn't be the least surprised if she were the only goat in the herd with a worm load. Anyway, both goats got Ivermectin last night and I'll see if this helps the coughing.

 

[Saltlick]

Poor guy! How's he doing these days? We have a pack of coyotes around where I keep my goats, but luckily they are in a pen and the coyotes don't bother them. But when we walk in the field we sometimes spot them. I am more worried about my dog actually, who thinks he is so baddass he can take them on. They would kill him.

I hope he is all better now!