Daggone it...urinary calculi

[cmjust0]

Went out to top off our little bucks' water tub last night and noticed the boer/nubi cross standing stretched, straining a bit to pee...but just dribbling. The only thing I could think to do for him was drench with apple cider vinegar and wait until the vet's office opened.

He made it through the night, and his dribbles were a little more productive this morning...but he was hurting. I got him to the vet, they did an ultrasound and said his bladder was pretty full and that there was some kind of 'mass' echoing... Could be cells (infection), could be tissue (fibrin), or it could be calculi. Gave him a shot of pain med and a tranq to get him to keep still.

The tranq actually did him some good...once he calmed down a little, he actually let loose an honest to goodness stream and relieved himself quite well.. Knowing he still wasn't out of the woods, the vet advised that we flip him up on his rump and 'externalize the penis' for a look.

So, out it came. Sure enough, the 'pizzle' was clogged...urinary calculi. Vet clipped the pizzle off and proceeded to do a backflush w/ a small catheter and a saline/lidocaine solution. Emptied about 60ccs into his bladder. Vet then went back inside for a little bit of quick research and returned with a saline/vinegar solution...backflushed again with about 60cc of that, right into the bladder

As you might imagine, the goat is none to happy by this point.

Ugh.. He's still at the vet right now. They were planning to drench him with ammonia chloride -- yikes..burny..but oh well...little other choice -- and I happened to run across a local stash of something called "Acid-Pack 4-way 2X".. If he lives till this afternoon, we're going to try drenching him with a teaspoon of that in 60cc of water 3x daily.

IF he lives.

I always though urinary calculi were "stones" -- like kidney stones -- where once you got the stone out, you were fine.

Not the case..

A better name for this would be "bladder sand." You might clear what's blocking him right now, but there's still a bunch waiting to come down...

Now, here's the really scary part:

He was on a feed formulated specially for goats, mixed 2:1 Calcium to Phosphorus and it has added ammonia chloride to prevent this very thing from happening..............

I think I just fed too much of it... I think this guy got used to two servings a day and I think he just sorta said "screw the grazing and browsing...we'll just wait on the next tub of feed!" -- and I didn't notice.

Anyway...wish us luck. We're going to try our level best to bring him back around.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Good luck.

 

[cmjust0]

Thanks...

I just got a call from the feedmill...they have the "Acid Pack 4-Way 2X" ready to pick up..

I don't have time to go into it right now, but suffice it to say that I've somehow managed to mobilize two multi-national corporations so far, and they've gone well above, beyond, and totally out of their way just to get my little goat about $50 worth of product to maybe save his life -- and it all happened within the span of about 2 hours. And it was unbelievably easy...everybody involved actually seemed really eager to help the little guy!

Alltech Biotechnology Corporation, ltd. --
Hallway Feeds, Inc. --

Boggles the mind...

 

[cmjust0]

Picked him up yesterday from the vet...showed the "Acid Pack 4-Way 2X" to the vet and he couldn't advise one way or ther other. He did, however, manage to find a tub of water soluble ammonium chloride and drenched him with that.. He advised that I continue that for the next three days.

Anyhow, he was still alive and kicking this morning. Seemed to be peeing like normal, too. I was supposed to give him some Acepromazine and a shot of Ketofen, but he only got the Ketofen...most of the Ace wound up being a yellow spot in his hair, since he jerked just as I was pushing the plunger. I got a tiny bit in him, but that was really aggravating. I think Ace is what made him pee yesterday and I debated on giving him the other syringe....I wish I had, but this morning it made more sense to reserve it just in case he spasmed again.. Now I wish I'd just given the other one and called the vet for more...or something, I dunno.

Man...I really, really dread drenching him with ammonium chloride this evening. I know it burns their throat and is really rough on their lungs and sinuses..

Oh well...gotta do what I gotta do, I guess.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

I'm glad he's doing better. Yes, sometimes the treatments are not pleasant but, need to be done.

 

[helmstead]

Ask your vet to order Uri Care tablets. You can bolus these in tablet form to avoid the liquid drench...altho I disagree that it burns - if it did, they wouldn't be willing to just eat a bolus ball of the crushed tablets out of my hand twice a year! Perhaps the stuff you're getting your hands on is different than what I have used?

 

[cmjust0]

I looked up the Uri Care...appears to be some type of herbal supplement.

Ammonium Chloride, on the other hand, is ROUGH... It's basically water-soluble ammonia...ya know, that stuff that burns your nose and throat when you clean out the stalls? It's also an 'irritant to gastric mucosa,' which basically means it burns your guts if ingested... All the literature on urinary calculi calls ammonium chloride drenching a "desperation treatment," meaning that if the goat's gonna die anyway.....why not give it a try?

Oh, and if I accidentally get it in his lungs....

Needless to say, I'm not at all looking forward to this evening.

But, again....he's peeing OK for now, so I can't complain too much.

 

[helmstead]

Sorry I had to go grab my bottle as I spelled it wrong - it is UriKare made by AmVet and it IS AC...and AC is not IMO any kind of 'drastic treatment' and has had absolutely no ill effect on any of my goats, or fellow producer's goats that I'm aware of.

It is salt of ammonia, used for it's acidic qualities and is even used in human medicine.

 

[cmjust0]

By golly...now THAT'S helpful!

The vet mentioned some kind of tablet they used to try for cats with struvite stones, but said they didn't really work for cats because they had to be given with every meal...and cats eat like 10x a day. Anyway, he said he didn't think he could get it anymore.

Here's the kicker...the animal sciences headquarters of Neogen, the company that makes UriKare, is literally on my way home from work! In fact, the A/C powder tub I got was made by NeoGen.. I may just call the vet and see what he thinks.

Thanks very much!

ETA: I just noticed you said it was made by AmVet...the site I found it on listed it as NeoGen, then it said "formerly an AmVet product..." Betcha that's why the vet didn't think he could still get it!


ETA (again):

Well, maybe that won't work afterall.. According to some literature from Texas A&M, the dosage for a goat is somewhere around 250mg per kg of bodyweight.. This guy weighs probably a little over 20kg, which means he needs somewhere around 5000mg/day of AC.. At 400mg/tablet of the UriKare 400, he'd need to eat about 12.5 tablets a day to be helpful. I guess it could be done, but the UriKare page recommends powder for anything over 40lbs...he's probably closer to 50.

I'm going to have to look more closely at the tub of AC I got...they stuck a big vet's office label over the front, and the label may very well be concealing a "UriKare" label...afterall, it did come from NeoGen. All I really knew was that it was Ammonia Chloride, and that the vet said "he didn't like it very much."

On the bright side...we have a cat with struvite problems. Maybe I'll cram a few UriKares down her gullet one day.

ETA (one more time )

Ok, so...no, my tub is 99.5% pure ammonia chloride...not UriKare. And I remembered that the vet said 6g/day, not five...so they're using a bit higher dosage. The UriKare 400 powder makes 1600mg of AC per teaspoon.. So...two teaspoons drenched twice a day would actually be about 400mg too much (which would probably only account for what he spits back out, etc)..

Two teaspoons of powder fills a 10cc syringe... That's a lot of powder.. Would require probably a 30cc drench...

The straight AC, on the other hand, is a 3cc syringe full of powder, once a day, with just enough liquid to mix it...maybe 20cc..

So...lots of less-irritating liquid twice a day, or a little bit of really rough liquid once a day.....tough call.

Why does everything have to be such a PITA?

Again, thanks very much...I might get some UriKare to keep on hand, just in case I have a smaller kid go down with this one day..

 

[cmjust0]

Well, the little guy's still doing well so far today. Peeing like a racehorse whenever and wherever he wants, so that's good. He actually seems to be peeing a bit more than usual, though I'm not entirely sure what to make of that.

I figure that could either be due to the fact that he had his urethra manipulated six ways from Sunday and was catheterized several times, making him a little sore "down there" and less willing to hold it...or perhaps it could be the AC drench making him want to drink more than usual. Pure speculation, either way.

The bottom line for me is that his urinations are now frequent, start quickly and easily with no apparent straining, are nice and clear to pale yellow, and seem to flow quite nicely. I can't ask for much more than that right now.

The ammonium chloride drench wasn't nearly as horrific as I thought it was going to be, either. The powder is 99.5% pure AC, and I had it in my head that it was going to be super strong and really caustic...nah. Mixing 6g of AC powder with a mere 20cc of water yielded a crystal clear, odorless solution. Once the drench gun was behind his teeth and I started squeezing, he actually drank it right down without too much resistence at all.

Of course, he foamed a bit at the mouth and slung a little snot when it was over...but then he went right back to his old self.

Vet said he should get another drenching today and again tomorrow, but I'm going to call and ask if I could continue for an extra three days to make a solid week of treatment.. Texas A&M recommends a week or more to help ensure there's no blockage from leftovers of the 'batch' of stones which caused the first round...so if the vet OKs it, that's what I'll do.

I know there's such a thing as Ammonia poisoning, though, so if the vet says no....I guess I'll just be nervous for a few days.

Once the drenching stops, though, I'll be adding Acid Pack 4-way 2X to the bucks' water to bring the pH down as a preventative measure. Hopefully that will prevent us from seeing this again.

Man...I never, ever wanna see this again.