eye injury

[bj taylor]

I wasn't sure which section to post this on. one of my doelings has an eye injury. i'm guessing she poked it in the brush. it's weeping & she's keeping it closed. I don't see any foreign object in it. it's the weekend & no vet available. I think she may lose the eye. anything I can do to help her?
thanks for any input

 

[Southern by choice]

yep... gonna get my farm partner on here. We have had 2 serious eye injuries. One goat we thought would even die. They both made it. Take a breathe. Gonna go get him. t is Straw Hat kikos BTW.
Sorry about the eye.

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

Best thing you can do for any eye injury is to use Penicillin. It doesn't burn the eye and is not acidic but most importantly is it works great with eye injuries.

Right now if she is just keeping it closed and it's weeping it doesn't sound so bad right now. Did you look in the eye too? Can you see a cut or gash, etc.?

I have had several eye issues in the past as my goats live in the woods. One was so bad that I was pretty sure the goat would die. His eye was basically bulging out of his head and the cornea was separated. After some Penicillin treatments and a while of waiting he turned out just fine.

Most eye issues do take care of themselves but if my goats get one I like to treat just because of what I've seen.

What you need to do is buy yourself some Penicillin. I use Dura-Pen with Pen G Benzathine and Pen G Procaine at 300,000 units per mL. What you need to do is give an injection IM in the hip twice a day at a dose of 1cc per 40 pounds as well as a couple cc's squirted directly into the eye once a day. With Penicillin you MUST go at least 5 days. Never go less than that. Go 5 to 10 days. I do 7 myself.

 

[Southern by choice]

When putting it in the eye do not use the neddle, just take the needle off and squirt it into the eye. Slowly

 

[bj taylor]

ok straw hat kikos. doing shots is intimidating. but your advice is very specific and I can follow that. thank you
southern, thanks a lot for getting straw hat in on my question. I appreciate it.

 

[OneFineAcre]

How closely have you looked at the eye? Do you see an injury?

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

ok straw hat kikos. doing shots is intimidating. but your advice is very specific and I can follow that. thank you
southern, thanks a lot for getting straw hat in on my question. I appreciate it.

IM shots are really easy. Just get an 18 gauge needle and a 3cc syringe and a quick stab in the thigh and you're done. IM shots are very easy. Be sure to put it in the eye too.

And again, what exactly did you see in the eye? Why did or do you think she may loose it?

 

[bj taylor]

when I looked at the eye, I couldn't see any foreign object in it. I did not see a tear or what looked like corneal leakage - just heavy weeping and keeping the eye closed. today the eye is open, the pupil looks good, she has vision in it. no swelling & the weeping is gone. I think she may be in the clear.
I don't want to be caught flat footed on this stuff. i'm going tomorrow to start getting some first aid things to keep on hand. if I get a little refrig to keep in the barn, do these antibiotics have a decently long shelf life, or should I wait until I need something before purchasing it? or is it powdered that has to be re-constituted & has a long shelf life?

 

[OneFineAcre]

when I looked at the eye, I couldn't see any foreign object in it. I did not see a tear or what looked like corneal leakage - just heavy weeping and keeping the eye closed. today the eye is open, the pupil looks good, she has vision in it. no swelling & the weeping is gone. I think she may be in the clear.
I don't want to be caught flat footed on this stuff. i'm going tomorrow to start getting some first aid things to keep on hand. if I get a little refrig to keep in the barn, do these antibiotics have a decently long shelf life, or should I wait until I need something before purchasing it? or is it powdered that has to be re-constituted & has a long shelf life?

I would watch it closely, like Straw Hat said, and eye injury can get bad fast. With that being said, goats often get minor injury's scratches etc. They also have two eyelids, and outer and an inner eyelid and very often will get debris (a tiny grass seed from their hay) between the two.

Anytime I see one with a red eye, the first thing I do is check to see if I see an obvious injury that would require antibiotics, or if they have a seed or some other debris between their two eyelids. If not I just give them plain old "Visene", it gets the red out. It soothes discomfort and has an antiseptic property as well.

I see a lot of posts about pink eye. Most of the time I feel that they have scratched their eye, or have debris between the two eyelids.

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

Most eye issues take care of themselves but even when it looks like it's getting better keep an eye out. My goat that had the severe eye injury, I did just that. Didn't look at it for about three days and it was so bad by then. Sounds like she'll be fine buy just watch a little.

@OFA, I agree. Must if the pinkeye posts on here are not pinkeye, just a simple scratch of some sorts.