# Crooked neck in newborn



## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

It had to be my prize Saanen but we had a terrible time delivering her single doe kid a couple of nights ago. The kids head was turned back alongside her shoulder and we could not get it pulled forward so we finally decided to pull it like it was since we figured it was dead by that time. Not dead but very weak and a neck that has been folded over for some time.

She can now stand up by herself and can hold her head up BUT the left side of her neck is curved. She likes for it to be massaged it seems. She will go to sleep while I am doing that. Is there anything else I can do to help it straighten out? I can't figure out how to put a splint on her neck. Front legs I use toilet paper tubes but this is different. Her legs are fine. 

When the dam came here she was afraid of the LGD and trying to get away from her, she slipped on the sudan scattered around the hay feeder and fell and I thought she had hurt her hip. She has wobbled around on her backend for the past 2 years. After DH had to strain to pull this kid with me holding the doe so she he could get leverage, she walks fine. No more wobble. Guess we fixed her and it must have been a back problem not a hip problem. She actually ran up to me yesterday. So there is good with the bad.


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

Wow. That is great about the dam. How curved is the baby's neck? Can she face forward at all? Do you have a vet that could do an xray to see if it is a bony problem or muscle? I would definitely keep up with massage. I would imagine that she will straighten out just fine given some time.


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

She can look forward, drinks her milk just fine but the neck is very curved like a quotation mark. Although it is not near as big on the left side today as it was yesterday. Probably some swelling involved too.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Along with the other post we had, you do have to ask yourself, is this about being able to keep something alive because we can, or is it humanely putting something down at birth because the goatling obviously will never be 100% and will not improve your herd, is something you certainly do not want to spending all of your time with just as the herd needs more of your time and energy. It really is my answer to most of these kinds of posts. Will you raise this kid out to eat? Will you raise this kid out to sell to someone? Than isn't the answer really to humanely put it down? Vicki


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

Why would I put her down if the neck might straighten out? I don't sell kids so she is for my herd and the genetics are there. Her dam is a SGCH and I would hate to throw away the genetics. She could turn out to be my best producer of quality Saanens. Or not. You just never know. And she has no other problems except a bowed neck. She can walk, run, jump and eat. And I can always hope for a straighter neck. And the Occupational Therapist here has given me some ideas for exercises so I am off to start therapy on the little girl. Hope I can come back in a month with good news.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Or you could look at it as, if something as basic as a strong neck wasn't afforded to this kid at birth, what else is wrong? We all have to choose what is and what is not acceptable to breed, register, and put our name on, keep in our herd, but you will get my opinion when you ask on the forum. To keep something that takes physical therapy this young in life, life saving procedures, it weakens the herd as a whole. Vicki


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## KJFarm (Oct 26, 2007)

LaNell, you might try to find an animal chiropractor.


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## poppypatchfarm (Oct 26, 2009)

Absolutely give her time. Most likely she had her neck bent in that position in utero too long. Ears do the same thing and will come up after getting out of the cramped quarters. I have heard of people putting kids down who were born with bent legs where if given another couple of days would have been fine. Anyone who has been in a cast will know it takes time for those parts to work right again after being confined to a certain position for too long.

My 2 cents as far as being worth being allowed to be alive that is for the owner to decide. Not everyone has the same ideas when it comes to a life's worth. I understand for many goats are strictly livestock but for others maybe they just enjoy having goats without always looking at the bottom line. We have a doe who was born without a neck, her head basically sits on her shoulders and her face is slightly crooked. She was smashed during development. Our vet adores her. She showed us how to draw blood from her leg since we don't have a neck to work with. "Precious" will be two this Spring and I don't know of a happier more loved little goat who has no idea she is a little different...or why she is the only goat we allow to sleep in the house. She is a pet who does not make us any profits but if I were into goats for the $ would have quit a long time ago.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

A chiropractor might be able to help if it is worth it to you. Sometimes a regular human chiropractor will look at an animal. But I lean more toward Vicki's way of thinking on this issue.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Poppy patch...Smashing or crowding does not determine physical structure.
That is a developmental issue. The animal is malformed structurally from a developmental mishap -
not from a physical restraint.
There is no amt of crowding in a womb that determines developmental structure.
Lee


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

You're right Lee, though if LaNell's doeling was delivered with her head back, the neck thing could be an injury from the delivery that _might_ be correctable. And it might not. Agreed completely that Poppy Patch's goat is an entirely different situation.


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## todog (Dec 10, 2011)

la nell, i wonder if the" bucket collar of shame" would work in miniature for your baby.. start with a small bucket. remove the handle, cut the bottom off and split the bucket down 1 side. using duct tape, slip the collar on her neck and duct tape around it. its like a splint. hope this helps.


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

I had a doe kid born that way. I friend decided she wanted to raise her and give her a home for as long as she was comfortable. The doeling lived to be about 6 months old before it started becoming a problem. She was able to eat, run around (she did circle a lot) and did adapt to her disability very well. I had to assist in the delivery because she couldn't make it out on her own. I had to turn her and deliver her back feet first. She was one of triplets, so maybe there wasn't room for her to develop correctly? I know that she had not been stuck in the birth canal so the deformity was congenital. The neck was too rigid at birth for a collar of any type and PT didn't help either. Even the animal Chiro could not help.

However, at about 6 months she started having trouble breathing. The bend in her neck never got better no matter what therapy the new owner tried. As she grew, the bend was making it hard to breath. The girl made an appointment to have her PTS, but she died during the night before her appointment.


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## Qadosh Adamah Lamanchas (Nov 2, 2012)

Yes, indeed. I'd give it a little bit of time and watch for some improvement. If none is seen, euthanasia might be the best option to avoid what Sully mentioned with the breathing problems.


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## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

To me this baby would have to be pampered all thru it's life even when grown if it lives as more than likely it has neurological damage if it was crowded in the utero from lack of blood in the development stages but more than likely it has development deformities during embryo and that's due to DNA, I would not do the same breeding again and if your doe kids with another kid like this or worse from another buck ,I would eat the doe but back to the baby kid now that you have, this kid will not be able to play with the other kids as they do a lot of rough playing head butting and then if it reaches full grownjust look at how rough some goats are,if this was my baby .... I would always be protecting it and worrying with it in a separate pen and if that neck stays crooked,you will need to hide it if people come to buy a goat from you , who would want a crooked neck goat ? sooo I go along with Vicki and others here as I think of the goats quality of life as being maby never being able to look foreward ,problems eating from the side that is not natural from a goats stance ,always mostly being alone by it's self so I would put the kid down now and move on ..... We have to be responsible and goats are not humans, just think as a Boer raiser ,I raise beautiful healthy Boers with nothing wrong just to kill and become food for humans and the same thing goes for all animals that becomes food for humans . We have to get over this if we are meat eaters and producers of animals that people eat ! There is lots of beautiful healthy Dairy Goats that get slaughtered daily just for food and so why breed out and force a defective animal to exist and not be able to function as a normal animal such as a goat and be part of the herd that it cant function and do like a normal goat ? Nobody wants a deformed goat . No, I would have put the baby down at birth and me and mama doe would have moved on .


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

While I can value all these posts after the OP, and they all make sense, I have to agree (with someone who posted), why not give her a chance? Really, what is the cost? Nothing but time and energy. So if LaNell wants to do it, why not? Cripes, it's not ALWAYS about the bottom line. Who's to say that it won't work itself out. Call me Naive, I don't care. I'd go for it. 

We had a buck kid last year, one of triplets, with seriously contracted tendons. The vet was there as I couldn't untangle everyone (although I did before he got here). I asked him, should we just put him down. Even he said no, give him a chance. We tried with all the recommendations that we found on DGI, but a few days later, we did put him down.

If LaNell wants to try to work this out, why not? Who's to say it is a congenital abnormality? I'm sure she'll know in a day or two whether it's worth it or not, whether what she's doing to work on the problem is working or not. She's not stupid!


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

The time I tried to rehab a kid, I got too attached. I couldn't put her down. She seemed to have a strong will to live. The night before she died I sat with her a long time, and it felt like good bye. The next day she died. I don't regret it, but I also decided that I wouldn't do it again. Bottom line you got to do what you can live with.


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## PrairieTrail45 (Nov 28, 2011)

Like Michelle said, I would have an x-ray done to see if the neck is actually shaped that way or if she was just cramped too long.

I had a kid born one time who was missing the cannon bone in one of his hind legs, just below the hock he just had a little bitty hoof. When he was born the sack did not break open, of course I broke it and found the deformity, the 2nd kid she had was normal and the sack broke before she was all the way out. I put the buckling to sleep as I didn't feel he would ever live a normal life with 3 legs.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Nobody is telling her what to do. She asked for an opinion, you can only base an opinion upon what you know. Read everyones post, make a decision on your own, if she was unsure about what she was going to do she would not have asked. I would come to the forum for support, but certainly not for what I know, for my herd, what has to be done.


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## goatkid (Oct 26, 2007)

If this were my kid, I'd give her about a week to see if the neck straightens out. If not, I'd consider raising her for a couple months for slaughter, but would not keep her as a pet. I can only afford to keep so many goats and around here, only the best are retained.


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## funnyfarmtexas.com (Oct 3, 2012)

I had one like that last year. We called her twister. She was a doll. She ran, jumped and ran with the best of them. She was born when we were not home. We didn't even find her till an hour after we got home. We are thinking that another doe might have hit her hard or something. Not sure. After we moved the doe and her other kid, we heard something out in the pasture and sure enough, it was her. We brought her to her mother, we doted on her and took good care of her. After 4 months she was completely paralized. My husband refused for a long time to put her down, and that is something I can not do. So I had to hand feed her, give her water throughout the day, bath her because she layed in her own pee. Finally, when i told my husband to go look at her and what she was laying in, put her out of her miserable life. It was hard, but the best thing for her. If I ever have another one like that, we will take care of it alot sooner as waiting 4 months makes it really hard on the humans. She, I am sure, was relieved. Her mother and the rest of the herd wanted nothing to do with her. Our LSG Donkey stayed at her side, day and night and even tried to help her stand up.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Wry Neck occurs in all farm livestock.
Chickens- rabbits- goats and sheep that I know of personally.
There is little research on it because it is not economically impactful but in rabbits it is an intercellular parasite known to occur in all mammals. Much of the time it stays dormant but when it reaches neural tissue it can cause paralysis and seizures and coordination issues. The responsible organism is called Encephalitozoon cuniculi.
Lee


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Additional related reading....
http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/gen...ew_of_congenital_and_inherited_anomalies.html


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## AlaynaMay (May 12, 2012)

So is it possible that it could just be that she was stuck in that position in utero? I had a kid born last year with a very wry tail, and my buckling from the twins in Dec. had a hind leg that kept wanting to bend outwards. Both straightened out after a few days with zero lasting effects. I think they were just cramped in that position for a while, so those parts were weak. Could this be similar, and it will just work itself out? (I'm trying to learn something here too in case something like this happens to me.)
Attached is a photo of the kid with the wry tail. I had a better one, but I guess it got lost.


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## informative (Aug 24, 2012)

Sounds like a healthy animal with a minor deformity. Either she can function with a crooked neck or she cannot. Unless your primary goal is to win shows, I would let time and nature work it out however it goes.


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

I believe I asked for information as to what I could do to help the doeling. Not whether I should kill her or let her live. 

I followed the OT's advice and she is already straightening up. Another day and if she continues this quickly she will be as straight as if she had never had a bowed neck that was shaped like a parentheses. Sorry I said quotation mark in an earlier thread. 

Looks like therapy is working on her. The swelling is down which has also helped.

Thanks for all of the constructive suggestions on what to do for her. Looks like her saving grace was the human occupational therapist's suggestions. And she too was very sure to say that if it was a structural issue it would not straighten out but to go ahead and try what she suggested and see what happens.


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## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

With all 12 years of raising Dairy and Boer goats , I have never had any kids or ever seen any deformed goats in other herds from being in utero or any other deformities but I would definitely be looking at my foundation goats for the cause or maby breeding problems or maby drugs that I had been giving them as I would have a major problem in my herd ! Something is wrong and to me,it doesn't matter if you keep or kill, as ... it's all up to you and with what you want in your herd as I dont know how to suggest any help .
It's all up to you !
bella/linda


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## poppypatchfarm (Oct 26, 2009)

Glad to hear you got some good advice and she is improving! 

I don't have anything against people who do things another way...just saying there are different ways of doing things so what does it hurt to wait on a kid to see if they improve? 
Here are a couple pics of my girl. Two vets have looked at her and thought she was smashed early in utero. Because she was so front heavy it did take her almost a week to stand and walk but now she does everything including walking upright at times. Since her neck is so short she can see better walking upright. She had two normal siblings. Her birth was very difficult due to her shape and she was the first-born. Her dam was a FF who did not get the udder I had hoped for so she and her wether son went to a new home together as pets. We don't hide her from anyone. People have come from far away just to see her. I even took her to a show when she was little and I needed to bottle her and she was a big hit with everyone. After so many births if someone does not have something unusual come up they are probably hiding something...
Goats can do okay on 3 legs. We have a buck with 3 legs. He jumped over a fence and suffered a bad compound fracture just below the hock. Trying to fix the break failed so it was amputated. It has been over a year and he is getting around fine and a number of our does are bred to him for Spring. We made him a plastic leg to attach for breeding but he breeds fine without it if you put the doe near a wall he can lean against. He gets impatient waiting while you get the leg attached so lately we just let him to it. As long as he is getting around and doing his job don't see why not keep him around.

Shannon


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## poppypatchfarm (Oct 26, 2009)

and walking upright


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## nlhayesp (Apr 19, 2012)

For my two cents as well, I think it is very coincidental that she was born with her head turned back AND that she has a genetic deformity causing crooked neck. Since a congenital deformity of this type seems pretty rare, my vote is for the others who posted "give her time". I like the "bucket of shame" cure as well. All of you who tell other posts to give bo-se or vitamin a/d, do you think this would help? Maybe contracted tendons in the neck?? Just asking... I am still a "newbie" when it comes to the frequent use/cure for bo-se. We are selenium defecient here in Central Ohio, but my goats get it in their minerals. I only give it to newborns for now, but I am following what so many of you have posted about it's cures for so many issues.


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## funnyfarmtexas.com (Oct 3, 2012)

Awww, Shannon, I think he is adorable. Love the pict of him standing up


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

Wow, I know someone who looks just like Precious. Well, minus the hair and ears anyway. He has the same deformity and does fine. He raises Boer goats.

The doeling I had with the wry neck nothing would help, that's just the way she was. Not sure what caused it, but I had her mother for many years and never had a repeat of that problem, even using the same buck. Maybe something in the diet? The dam was a closet drug user? Or just a bit of DNA that joined in upside down.

I don't regret letting her live, since she had a great 5 1/2 months being loved, playing with the other kids, and being spoiled rotten.

When I was working as a contractor, we did some work at an animal rescue. The woman had an Alpine wether who was born with a deformed rear leg. The leg never developed and was tiny and just grew there like a little parasite. He lived a long happy life as a pet with a pen of other rescued goats and sheep. Another wether, a Nu-Pine, had a "frozen" front leg. I had been hit by a car or something and the front leg broken. IT had been set and casted by the owner, but the leg healed wrong and was forever sticking out straight in front of it like a jousting pole.

Whatever you feel is right is the way to go, as long as the animal doesn't suffer.


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## todog (Dec 10, 2011)

sweet william's ( all my goats are named after flowers the cats are named after vegetables) left front leg is frozen in a bent position. i have never regreted saving his life. i do regret not dehorning him. oh and i didnt wether him till he was 8 mos. and boy do i regret that. he bred everything in the pen with him except one. he is very small and they are large alpines and nubians. amazing what natural sex drive can accomplish. :biggrin


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## NorthOf49 (Feb 8, 2011)

Interesting thread... gave me a few things to ponder. Thank you for sharing!


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

UPDATE: 
As of this morning, her neck is straight. It is amazing to me since her head was flat against her side when she was born. The OT said to make her move her head to the left and the easiest way to do that was to hold her in my lap when I fed her and place the bottle to her left so she had to turn her head to get it. No turn no food. She likes to eat so she was a willing patient. The parentheses neck is gone. Hopefully that was her only problem but I will be on the lookout for any thing else that might happen.

I am still feeding her separate from the rest so we can exercise her neck. Will keep doing that for a bit. 

Shannon - I have never seen a goatie walking upright except on those drawings of the part goat part human that I can't remember what they were called. Great picture.


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## quiltstuff (Sep 27, 2012)

Wonderful news :biggrin


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## todog (Dec 10, 2011)

thats fantastic news. keep up the good work.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Great news, LaNell!


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

Great!


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## informative (Aug 24, 2012)

adillenal said:


> I believe I asked for information as to what I could do to help the doeling. Not whether I should kill her or let her live.


Doing "nothing much" and letting the doe try to work it out on her own mostly letting "time and nature" take its course is a valid and in this case more or less correct suggestion as well. I was not suggesting death as the alternative just that a slightly crooked neck is not a real problem unless she couldnt function with it so.


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

informative said:


> adillenal said:
> 
> 
> > I believe I asked for information as to what I could do to help the doeling. Not whether I should kill her or let her live.
> ...


My response was to a few comments way before yours. I should have quoted them . I am sorry. It was not directed at you.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

I'm curious did the OT use the term "torticollis"? That does occur in human babies. The treatment she suggested sounds very much like how we treated the condition in my son who had it as a baby. Here is info on it :

http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/bones/torticollis.html#


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Very cool! Glad she straightened out for you, LaNell!


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

Interesting article, Angie.


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## KJFarm (Oct 26, 2007)

LaNell, so glad to hear that she's made progress....... :handclap


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

swgoats said:


> I'm curious did the OT use the term "torticollis"? That does occur in human babies. The treatment she suggested sounds very much like how we treated the condition in my son who had it as a baby. Here is info on it :
> 
> http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/bones/torticollis.html#


She didn't but that sure sounds similar. I will ask the OT today if she was thinking about that in humans when she told me what to do.

UPDATE: She has graduated to the lambar as of this morning with the rest of the kids. i didn't even realize it since I usually feed her first but was running late this morning and was holding the lambar so all of the others could fillup and I realized I had nine drinking instead of the usual eight. From my view of looking down on them I could not pick her out. She is the only one with waddles so she isn't hard to spot if you can see her neck. I am thinking she is going to be a normal little girl. I am beyond excited for her and so relieved. My DH still can't believe she has survived that birth we put her through.

Thanks for all of the good thoughts and best wishes for my baby girl.


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## Qadosh Adamah Lamanchas (Nov 2, 2012)

That is so exciting, LaNell. What a blessing


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