# Dealing with Down Goats-Braces, Ketosis



## sweetgoatmama (Dec 10, 2008)

Crossposted with permission from the WSU Goat list. Good information about slinging and bracing a downed goat with Ketosis.
Sweet Goat Mama
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I had someone ask me off list about the braces Dr. Konnersman recommended I use to get my doe back up. I have her instructions and pictures that I can share; however, I need to provide some background first. The situation this doe was in was terrible. My thought is that you all will not have goats this far down. This was an extreme situation (as far as I am concerned). I
am not sure that what we did with Sally will apply to many other
situations; but, I am willing to share information.

Sally, had been down for at least a week before I had her brought to our farm. I did not know what all was wrong with her so I built an isolated stall on the concrete floor part of our barn. I built it so that one end faced the big barn door (which I normally keep blocked with utility panel.
The other end faced into the barn with a swinging gate. The stall was eight feet long and four feet wide. Because it was winter, I kept her on heavy shavings. I bagged all her waste and treated the stall like a biohazard zone.

When I first started working with her, she was producing a great quantity of very tiny, light-weight berries. This along with the fact that she was skin and bones, led to treating her for ketosis with propylene glycol. I was also feeding her alfalfa hay and slowly starting her on pelleted feed plus calf manna. Her body temperature was low and she was hypersensitive to
everything so we added MFO for the hypocalemia and Hypomagnesemia. I induced labor and she delivered three kids, two alive. Before the delivery I was really pushing the MFO but she still barely had contractions. I pulled the kids. The day after this, I thought she was going to die. This is when I finally realized that she was developing thiamine deficiency polio as well. Initially, I was giving the Fortified Vitamin B Complex by injection but after the crisis, I started adding it to the MFO and giving it orally. In the beginning, all she could do was lie there. Over a period of 2 to 3 weeks, I tried to back off the MFO and the Fortified Vitamin B
Complex and each time, she cratered within 24 hours.

After the fear that she would die, my next fear was that the tendons in her legs would contract. Because she was so weak, putting her over a bale of hay was not safe. What I did (based on Dr. K's recommendation) was to place her between two hay bales. When she was between the hay bales, she could not fall over. She always kept her front legs tucked underneath her. When I had her between the hay bales, I would stretch her front legs out one at a
time. For the longest time, each time I did this, she would yank the leg back under her. Eventually, I used short pieces of PVC pipe which I loosely taped to her extended leg to keep her from being able to draw it back under her. It was Dr. K that recommended that I do one leg at a time because she could keep her balance better this way. I would do the physical therapy stuff when I knew I was going to be in the barn for a while.

Sally and I went through this routine for weeks. Neither Dr. K (who was in California and never saw Sally) nor I (who worked with her every day) knew for sure that the reason she could not stand was because she was so weak. But, that was the assumption we worked under.

A couple of weeks into this, much to my horror, I realized that she had always been laying with the same back leg under her. When I finally got it out from under her, it had atrophied and was clutched up against her. I almost cried. At that point, I started turning her over daily and taping a short piece of PVC pipe to the leg so as to gradually stretch it out.

Also, every day, I would drag her from one end of the stall to the other so I could clean under her. The dragging caused her to try to use her legs. I gauged her progress by her resistance and her effort. On warm days, I dragged her just outside and set her up between the hay bales and worked with her legs out there.

Sally came to me on 1/14/08. It wasn't until the end of February that she could move on her own. And, oddly enough, it was in her rear end that the strength returned first. She struggled and struggled to get her back feet under her. And, I let her do it. I also kept working with her front legs. Dr. K felt that since I could extend Sally's front legs out fully that the tendons probably had not contracted. I sure hoped that that was true.

For a while she was moving around the stall backwards. She would drag her front end.

At this point, I asked Dr. K about how to brace her front legs. She wrote me the following:

"It will be really hard for her to get up with it because I would brace
from about 2 inches below the elbow all of the way to the ground level of her hoof. And I think you are right only to brace one leg at a time for her or go back and forth between the two.. Maybe brace the worst leg if there is one. If you can straighten the legs, as you said you were doing for her through the day, then they are not possibly contracted. I think it is her muscles that are weak and atrophied that keep her from supporting weight on them.

The braces I use are light weight PVC pipe, cut in half lengthwise. The back of the leg nests into the pipe. After padding the leg real good with cotton and gauze wrap, then tape it snuggly into position in 4 or 5 spots along the length of the pipe."

It turned out that Sally walked better when she had both front legs braced at the same time.

Dr. K added: "I think that the best way to brace the knee is with the brace you made from PVC. It has to extend well beyond the knee for proper support and yet not impede elbow movement. The one you have there is perfect. Do you want to try another one? Just make sure the leg is well padded before putting the PVC on with tape. That helps prevent rubbing injury from the splint.

Just so you know, there is a wrap called a Bobby Jones. It uses a very heavy layer of padding with a tight outer wrap. The amount of padding helps prevent circulation stoppage from the tight wrap. This could also be a solution for a brace, but a weak brace.

I think soon, she will be trying to get up on times without the braces and she will get more exercise to strengthen muscles."

Given that my family is more of a group of engineers than doctors, I did not design the braces exactly as Dr. K recommended. I cut the PVC pipe in half lengthwise. But, instead of heavily padding the leg, I padded the brace. I put cotton batting on the surfaces that would come in contact with the goat and then I covered the pipe with several layers of an old terry towel (which I attached with duct tape). By this time Sally was resisting handling so by having all the padding on the brace, I could just put it in place and tape it on.

In the case of Sally, she was truly so weak that it took her a very long time before she could start to support her own weight. Until she had the strength, nothing I did could get her up.

For the first week or so after she could stand again, Sally moved with a hitch in the back leg (the one she laid on for so long) as well as stiffness in the front legs. Eventually, her gait became more normal.

By the way, once Sally was up, she went wild. I had trouble catching her. A deal was worked so that Sally stayed with us. She is healthy now and Dr. K told me I should go ahead and breed her this season.

I sure miss Dr. K. (sigh!) {Dr K was the resient vet one the WSU elist. She passed away from a stroke this month.}

I uploaded three images. From last time, I learned that the link may be broken onto two lines in the message. If this happens, you will need to cut and paste both portions (without a break) into the address window of your browser.

Image One: Sally in a leg brace

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p79/ ... anding.jpg

Image Two: Sally standing right after I took the brace off

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p79/ ... nding2.jpg

Image Three: Sally this fall

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p79/ ... ySally.jpg

I just realized that I failed to mention that I was only leaving the leg
braces on Sally for about 30 to 45 minutes at a time--initially. Then, one day when she had both front legs braced, she escaped from the barn and went touring. She actually got into a fight with one of my big does. It took me a couple of hours to catch her. When I removed the braces after that, there were no raw spots rubbed on her legs. (smile)

Susan in NE Texas


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## Kathy254 (Nov 17, 2013)

I have a question. How would you do physical therapy on a goat with a bad knee? The vet said the bones in the knee are almost fused together. The knee is swollen. He can't straighten his leg. He can only touch the ground with the tip of his toe when he walks.


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