# Blood Loss - Second Round



## sweetmusic (Sep 15, 2009)

Two weeks ago a five day old Saanen buckling had an episode of bleeding from his disbudding burn. I'm very grateful Rex helped calm me down and get through a scary day. Today the same boy had another WORSE episode.

He had seemed to recover from his earlier bleed. The feed store was out of Red Cell so he's been getting 1/2 cc of Geritol in his bottle once a day, plus nibbling grain and hay and loose minerals. He's been eating and playing and gaining weight, although not quite as robust as my other three bucklings. The other boys have grown more rapidly and are noticeably larger now. To make sure the little one gets his fair share, I feed his bottles separately from the other three. 

Today I gave him a bottle, and after he latched on, he suddenly sniffled, snorted, shook his head, and began to spray blood from the same disbudding burn as before. We're talking arterial bleed - about the size of a pencil lead, spraying into the air. 

It wasn't easy to get the bleeding stopped this time. I used direct pressure on the bleed and also pressed the groove below his eye (thank you Carolyn for mentioning that!), only lifted the saturated pads briefly once to slide in about a tablespoon of blood stop powder. 

The kid was terribly distressed and became shocky - gasping and quivering and poor refill when I pressed his gums. At one point I really wondered if the kindest thing might be to lift off the dressings and let him go. I offered 8 oz. of warm Bounce Back electrolyte solution and he perked up enough to get it down.

There is only one animal hospital - halfway across the next county - that sees goats. I was afraid he was too unstable to drive there before they closed, and the local night emergency vet won't see goats. We can try to get to the vet in the morning. For now he's snuggled in a dog crate over a heating pad and has sipped a little more milk and electrolyte. He lost a lot of blood and is noticeably pale.

So now the questions:
Last time I thought he may have head butted another kid, but what could have caused this time? Is there a goat version of hemophilia? Lab tests the vet should consider? See if somebody could re-burn the area to cauterize?

I appreciate any thoughts and suggestions.
Thanks,
Elizabeth


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## Rex (Nov 30, 2008)

Wow... that is truly weird. I would have guessed that it was the artery to the horn that had been ruptured by rough housing the first time. A spontaneous gushing from an artery is pretty serious. I would guess that a goat could have hemophilia, though I have never heard of it personally. He has had plenty of time by now to have healed up from the first bleeding episode so something is definitely going on. It may be that the artery that used to go to the horn is not healing properly and needs cauterized again. At this point I'd probably head to the vets office in the morning to make sure it gets figured out. One episode of that when you aren't around sounds like it could be fatal.


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## sweetmusic (Sep 15, 2009)

Thanks Rex - I just checked on him and gave him another bottle, added a heat lamp over one end of the dog crate so he could choose his comfort zone. He's looking much better. Amazing resilience - earlier today I was afraid this WOULD be a fatal bleed. One incident right after disbudding seemed unpleasant but reasonable, twice has me spooked. 

Good Friday in South Carolina still closes many offices, even local town governments. Hope the nice vet will be open. It isn't going to be fun cleaning out the blood stop powder, towel shreds and gunk packed in his head. Definitely something to leave to the vet!

Elizabeth


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