# Worming : Funny things on a liver?



## LMonty (Oct 25, 2007)

Butchered a goat today. One of the three little doelings I ended up with about 6 wks ago when a neighbor showed up at my house one morning at 9 AM and said "Take my animals, I'm leaving town-now!" 

There were 8 goats and 18 pigs. Go the pigs farmed out, and 5 of the the goats, but got stuck with the little ones. Grade dairy doe mixes. Figured I could keep them and use a Boer on them if nothing else, my big pasture really needs critters to eat it down. Until I got more registered stock, they could earn their keep.

I kept these three in quarantine until I had them vacinated, dewormed (twice, they were pretty scrawny) and tested. Unfortunately-all three came back CAE positive.  One had an uneven udder and kinda largish looking knees for her age. 

We may have a home as brush-eaters for the asymptomatic doelings, but we decided to butcher the one that looked like she was symptomatic. I had the chance to do it today at a friends house who had the equpment and experience, so it was good learning opportunity. One of the older does that I had given way seemed to have a small uterine prolapse, plus was constantly trying to go thru the fence, getting caught and injured. So she went to freezer camp too today and we all learned how to process them.

It went pretty well. No signs of worms in the intestines, and none of the whitish bumps on them that Vicki has described as evidence of cocci damage. But here were some interesting marks on her liver that the older doe did not have. Since this is the first time Ive done it, Ive never seen freshly butchered liver before to know wether its normal or not. I'd guess not if one goat had it and the other didnt.

There were about 5 beige rounded bumps (barely raised when i felt them) scattered in different areas of the liver, about the size of a small pencil eraser (actually probably a bit smaller). Surrounded by a multitude of small beige dots. I did take a picture but it did not come out, it was too dark under the shed and the auto thingy didnt work on that and a couple of others. 

I have no idea what liver flukes look like, when youre looking at the surface of the liver. But they didnt appear to be obvious worms or anything, just bumps. I wanted to investigate it further by cutting into them and cutting up the liver to see if there were more insode, but forgot and by the time I got back outside from washing up the meat, DH had already fed the innards to the pigs. So now I cant check them out further. 

Anyone know what they might be? Scar tissue, worms or something else? The past owner was worming with ivermectin, and something else that he gave me that is a yellow liquid (in a canning jar, no label) that he referred to (quite ingeniously, I thought) as the "yellow wormer". Other than that, he hadnt given them any immunizations or meds or anything.


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## J-Basqo (Oct 26, 2007)

*Re: Funny things on a liver?*

I am unaware of what your liver spots are but as I raise my own meat I wanted to check and see if you were planning on eating this meat yourself.. If you have been giving them chemicals (and the neighbor had been giving them unlabeled yellow stuff) I would strongly advise NOT consuming them yourself. There is a a withholding on market animals for ivermec that if you followed I would not be concerned but since you dont know what the substance the neighbor was giving them I would just be cautious.
Just thought I would mention it.
Patina


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## LMonty (Oct 25, 2007)

*Re: Funny things on a liver?*

Thanks, Patina, but I think I'm OK on that. They are past withholding on most wormers and the former owner hadnt wormed for about two months before I got them, so the meat should be fine. I definitely didnt want to eat the liver after seeing something questionable on it. I wasnt even sure abou tgiving it to the pigs, but DH did before I got out there so its a moot point now.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

*Re: Funny things on a liver?*

Laura,
There are a couple of things that could be described as *yellow wormer*. Just off the top of my head...Pyrantel Promate(?) (Strongid-T) absolutely useless, except in puppies. Liquid Albon is sometimes yellow or white. Have seen both types. If he was using this...it would be why you didn't find coccidia damage to the intestines. If possible, I would contact the man and ask him what the unlabled substance was.

As to liver damage...I would think the liver would have these *abcesses* in the presence of liver fluke. Plain ivomec will NOT kill flukes. It takes the Ivomec Plus with the flukecide.
Just my thoughts.
Kaye


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

*Re: Funny things on a liver?*

Albon is also yellow and vanilla pudding smelling. Panacur is also yellow, a benign wormer, when from the powdered form, reconstitued at the vet.

I would also say flukes, have never seen anything but a normal liver though in person, only seen flukes in a photo, even in some really awful goats butchered always clean livers.


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## LMonty (Oct 25, 2007)

*Re: Funny things on a liver?*

Thanks, guys, appreciate it. I was thinking flukes might be a possibility. I cant cotnact the guy, he's gone. When he showed it to me, I asked what it was- and he had no idea. I rattled off the names of several to see if he recognized it, but no luck. Nice enough fellow, but reading and writing arent on his list of skills. Theres a lot of that around here.

Chances are good he got it from the goat-dairy-from-hell down the road, so next time I see the owner I'll ask if he knows. Just for the heck of it, since I obviously am not keeping an unlabeled product around.


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