Treating Hoof Rot on Annie, The Nubian Goat

We started noticing that Annie, our Nubian dairy goat was limping.  After closer inspection, we could smell a powerful stench.  Yep, you guessed it, foot rot.  Foot rot is a condition that goats and cows get between their hooves.  It is caused by bacteria and high temperatures and humidity causes the skin between the hooves to crack and then the bacteria infect the foot.  Moist, warm conditions make a perfect environment for the bacteria to grow and that is exactly what we have.  Hoof rot makes the animal feel really bad.  They stop walking and spend a lot of time sitting down because their feet hurt.  Therefore they don't eat and become skinny and sickly.

Annie exhibited all of these symptoms and ALL of her feet were infected.  Tricia was very concerned about her.  We quarantined her in the barn as we didn't want her out walking in the ankle deep mud.  Tricia brought clippers out to the barn and began clipping privet and other browse from the woods in back to feed her.  At first she wasn't eating very much.  We drenched her with a molasses/water solution to get her rumen active.  Then we mixed up a 10% solution of copper sulfate with water along with two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and gave her foot baths for 10-15 minutes a night.  The ACV is supposed to increase absorption.

There is likely a much easier way to give the foot baths, but we normally choose the most difficult way, unfortunately.  Tricia mixed up the copper sulfate solution with apple cider vinegar and poured it into a yogurt container.  Then we put her in the goat stanchion and hobbled her legs to the side with a lead rope. 

• Yes, she kicked a lot and carried on, but we dunked her feet in the cup of copper sulfate solution and held her feet submerged in the solution for between 10 - 15 minutes.  Opportunistic mosquitoes swarmed and bit us menacingly as we held her feed down with both hands.  Unable to swat the mosquitoes, we resorted to blowing them off of each other as sweat trickled down our noses.  Each night we repeated the process, but on different feet.  All this for a smelly goat.  You've GOAT to be kidding me, right?

Each night we would trudge out to the barn and repeat the process and we'd sprinkle lime down on the floor of the barn.  Over the course of 3-4 days, we're seeing great results!  Annie's feet don't have a foul odor any longer, she's no longer limping and she's begun eating again with great vigor and is even being bossy again to Oreo, our La Mancha goat.  Thank God Annie is back to her normal self again.

Pasty Butt

We've experienced a little problem with our chicks.  Last week we had 60 meat birds shipped to us. The day old birds arrived all healthy with only one dead.  Then sickness swept through the fledgling flock of feathered fowl.  We began losing chicks.  Darn it!  Tricia did some research and diagnosed the problem - Pasty Butt.

That doesn't sound nice.  What happens is that the chicks get diarrhea and the poop gets caught in the down that is around their butts.  That poop clogs up their vent (butt), and causes a blockage and they die.  Who knew?  Chickens get constipation that is fatal.  So what are the causes?  Well, it can be caused by stress, by the chicks getting too cold when shipped through the mail, or with the chicks getting too warm under the heat lamps in the brooder.  Or it can be caused by viral/bacterial infections.  The latter, we think, is the culprit.  The chicks are comfortable in the brooder.  If they were too cold, they would be piled up in a bunch to try to stay warm.  If they were too hot, they would be away from the lamp.  The chicks are evenly dispersed and seem to be happy with the temperature.

Pasty Butt

So what can you do to combat pasty butt?  Well, you can wipe their "business end" with a Q-tip moistened with water/oil.  That will unplug things.  You can hold their bottom under running warm water and then blow dry them.

To combat the infection by helping their immune system, you can mix a little apple cider vinegar in their drinking water.  The recipe Tricia found online calls for 1 Tablespoon per gallon.  Our waterers are much smaller, so Tricia used 1/2 teaspoon in our quart sized waterer.  Is there anything Apple Cider Vinegar can't do?

Apple Cider Vinegar - a cure for pasty butt 

To help with the diarrhea, you can feed the chicks ground raw oatmeal with a little grit.  We used sand.  We began this regimen yesterday and today was the first day we didn't lose a chick.  Hopefully Tricia has put an end to the epidemic of Pasty Butt Syndrome that was running rampant in the brooder.

Get well soon, pasty butts

We will continue to keep a close eye on the chicks as we don't want to lose any more birds.  Cleaning birds' bottoms who are afflicted with Pasty Butt is not something that I look forward to.  But I'll check them out tomorrow and, if necessary, I'll do what it takes to save them.