Uterine Problems in Goats

Annie is one of my sweet girls that is not going to have kids this year.  {If you are squeamish or don’t like medical pictures of a goat’s back end, you might want to just see how pretty Annie is in the picture below and come back tomorrow.  Otherwise, keep reading.}

I did put her with Boeris last fall for spring break babies.  It was about three weeks later though when she came back into heat.  It wasn’t a big deal.  It was a little odd though that she seemed to have a lot of white discharge.

I made note of it, but didn’t think too hard on it.  After this continued off and on for a while though, I called the vets.  They had me give her antibiotics.  That did seem to help.  For a while.  Just before spring break, she really started with lots of white discharge again.  It looked like cottage cheese.  This time, she seemed really uncomfortable and looked almost like one of the girls standing and stretching in the very early stages of labor.  I called the vets again, and they had me do the same antibiotic as before (Nuflor).

It helped, but only for a short time.  When I got home from work one day last week, she had discharge and was laying on her side pushing.  That’s not good when she’s not bred.  The vet and checked her.  He couldn’t feel any opening in the cervix, but he could feel a mass in her uterus.  We set up an appointment for an ultrasound the next day.  She had a lovely shave job so the machine could actually take a picture.  There was clearly a liquid mass in there.  Beyond that, it wasn’t very helpful.  There are four possibilities.

1.  Mummification:  She could have a “mummy baby” in there.  If she were to have been bred and the fetus died, it will sometimes stay there as a mummy baby.  The ultrasound wouldn’t pick this up, however, because the bones would not be solid.  If she were to have a mummy baby, it would require surgery to remove it.

2.  Pyometra:  This is an accumulation of pus in the uterus.  This is extremely dangerous as the infection can become septic and cause death quickly.  It’s highly unlikely that this is what it is because she had no fever.  We took blood, and the results were unremarkable.  No elevated white count.

3.  Hydrometra:  This is a buildup of fluid in the uterus that is non-infectious.  You might have heard of a false pregnancy.  The doe was with a buck and gained weight and filled out, but she never has a kid.  She could be filled with fluid.  This is more common in dairy goats, which Annie is not.

4.  Tumors are always a possibility with a mass, but it would not be as likely to be a tumor when it showed fluid on the ultrasound.

We decided to go with the treatment for Hydrometra/Pyometra.  She was given antibiotics and prostaglandin.  The prostaglandin opens the cervix to allow the fluid to drain.  Hopefully, that’s all it takes.  The shot is best repeated in two weeks.  I did watch closely, and could see that she was passing mucus.

Hopefully this will take care of the issue.  There is no guarantee that it won’t come back.  In fact, with dogs they will usually remove the uterus because it can be a chronic condition.  If this is the case with Annie, I don’t know what I would do.  The vet didn’t know if it was even feasible to do a hysterectomy on a goat.  We would face the same issue if it were a mummy baby requiring surgery.

I will let you know how things progress.

Linking to Homestead Barn Hop.