# Sedating goats.....



## Faithful Crown Nubians

What's the safest way for goats to be sedated? 

I know there's one type of sedation (from what I have read) that is very dangerous to goats.....and I never had a goat sedated before so I am not sure on the different types of meds/methods...ect.

Thanks


----------



## Anita Martin

My vet says sedating goats is risky, so won't do it in the field. She will only sedate in the office where they can be hooked up to a monitor and watched closely. Even then, sometimes they die.


----------



## Dacaree

I have a Lamancha doe that was close to two months bred when we came home and found she had slit her eye open. It was not a butterfly tape type of cut, it needed stitches to save the eye. I do not remember what the vet used but it was mild sedation. She never went to "sleep" but did not fight us. She ended up aborting the babies. The vet gave us the choice of trying to see if it would heal on its own (didn't give us much hope with that choice), or to risk losing the pregnancy and sedating. We chose sedation. If she would have been close to delivery we probably would have tried to let it heal, but since she was not that far along we chose to save the eye.

She is now (by accident) due June 1st.


----------



## stoneyheightsfarm

I have all my babies sedated for disbudding and tattooing (thus far). My vet uses a mix of Ketamine (sp?) and Valium. They also aren't totally out, but drunk and not fighting.


----------



## Faithful Crown Nubians

Thankyou everyone!  

The one type of sedation that the vet uses, they use the least amount for goats and they have a longer recovery time with it before they are back to normal. The other method was to have a tube down the throat and it was gas sedation. Because of reading a post on here about someone chosing the method involving gas with their buck. I chose it and hoped for the best. Thankfully everything went ok.


----------



## goatkid

My vet is one that sedates goats for C sections, which are done in the hospital. All mine and those of my friends' goats have been successful with the goats being able to conceive and deliver naturally in subsequent years. When one of my does had a uterine prolapse, he tried a spinal first, but she kept having contractions, so he added gas and we sucessfully fixed the prolapse. When Cozette got her teeth floated, he sedated her, but not all the way out with a mix of ketamine and another drug whic I can't recall now. She was bred and retained her pregnancy. I've actually only seen one bad reaction of sedation on a goat. It was done in the field to treat a tooth abcess. She wasn't coming out, so the vet had to give a reversal shot. It took a while to wake her up, but she lived. A good vet should be able to sucessfully sedate a goat. Cats are very sensitive also and are sedated all the time for neutering. I think the key here is that it be done by an experienced vet and only when absolutely necessary. This is not something for the goat farmer to administer the way we do other meds.


----------



## Faithful Crown Nubians

Our vet has had good luck using the one type of shot for sedation. I can't remember what kind she said it was. That is what he (the other vet) mainly uses but we had the other option to. The other vet (2 in the office) said we could do either and explained both to us. She just said that they normally don't use the gas on goats but they use it on cats and dogs all the time. 
She also said that Shamrock would bounce back quicker with the gas sedation vs the other kind. 
Im glad I went with what I chose, it was a quick procedure and he bounced back very quickly.


----------



## LMonty

I sedate all my babies before tatooing and disbudding. And any of the bigger ones before and kind of treatment (sutures, etc) where fighting might be a big issue. 

It CAN be a bit dangerous, but honestly, I dont think its as scary and issue as we tend to be told. Of couse, I am used to doing the same thing on people quite frequently. So the scary factor tends to be less for me then it might for others, I admit that in advance. 

I beleive the big factor in sedating them is to make sure they have an empty stomach. Much easier to control on kids on milk. Full tummies tend to lead to aspiration. (stomach contents in the lungs).

BTW, my friends vet in NC taught us to do this, and my current vet here in AR is OK with it, too.

I buy 1 cc of Rompum (xylazine, 20 mg/ml) from the vet. I put the one cc of Rompum in a vial of Normal Saline (NS) that has 9 cc of NS in it (usually use a 10 cc vial and take out 1 cc of saline and discard it to get ready to make the mix.) for a total mix of 10 cc dilute (now 2mg/ml)Rompum. Then I MARK THE VIAL REALLY WELL, so theres no chance of it being used accidentaly for anything else. Kept in fridge, the current vial I have is over 2 yrs old and still working just fine. 

I use a small syringe to measure out the dose I'm going to use. ! cc syring) For small kids under 10 lbs, I may use as little as 0.1 cc of the dilute Rompum. The last two I did this past weekend got that dose. I admminister it sub Q just like we do any other med. With adults, I may start higher, such as 0.5 cc, and administer more slowly in small amounts if needed-until they get to the level of sedation I need. I know of a 6 mo old doe kid that had a leg amputated by the vet using just this an anesthesia and who did well, kidded and lived a good life for years afterwards with only this anesthesia for the surgery to remove her damaged leg. 

They look fine for a couple of minutes after getting it, then in about 2 or 3 mins from adminsitration, they get wobbly, unable to stand. Then they get floppy all over. They can breath just fine, but are pretty "out of it". A few minutes after that, then I do to them whatever I need to (disbudding, etc). They are in a dissosciative type of state, may react a bit-yelp out a little, often when I tattoo the ear I get one quick yelp- but really dont react much to anything else. This type of anesthesia, like Ketamine, interferes with memory formation so they dont likely even recall what happened even if they did feel a little pain. 

After I am done, they are still floppy, cant move around much. I then make sure I position them so their airway and breathing stays clear until they are up and moving again. I usually keep the babiesd in the living room if I am inside when doing stuff, one the dogs blanket, positioned so they are lying in kind of upright sitting position with their legs under them and chin on a fold of blanket. Takes any where from 1/2 to 1 hr for them to be up moving around normally and then completely recovered which is when they take their bottle of milk they missed that morning. I make sure they are sucking right and not having any trouble swallowing that way. If they dont get the first sip or two right, I stop the feeding and wait a little longer before feeding again. That rarely happens, they usually do just fine drinking after they are up walking around ok. I just want to double check that everything is back to normal before putting them back outside with the rest of the kids. 


My friend has been doing it this way for almost 2 decades, and between the two of us, only know of one problem- an older buck kid ( couple of months old) that someone asked her to do for them, he hadnt been disbudded, and need sawing off of his horns too. He vomited milk, aspirated some and died, but the owner had not held his morning feeding as advised. Likely wouldnt have happened if done on an empty stomach, which is why I'm careful about that. SO there is some risk, but I feel its an acceptable risk to me, the way I use it. 

I think its a useful tool for someone without easy to access vet services and for emergencies. Another use for it is to put an animal into the dissosciative state before putting them down, if they are sick or injured, and the deed must be done. Shooting an animal is quick and probaly painless, but it makes me feel better to have this at my disosal to make sure they dont feel a thing. I wsuppose its worth mentioning that I WOULD NOT medicate an animal I planned ot eat or feed to any other animal since the anesthesia will be in the meat.

I wouldnt recommend using this method or medicine without their vets approval. Helpful to see it done first too, so you get a feel for the normal state of anesthesia and what to watch for.


----------



## dragonlair

When I had to bring Chrysta in to the vet for assistnace with a train wreck kidding, he gave her Ketamine. She did very well on it, no side effects at all and she was able to jump into my van while still under the influence.


----------



## NubianSoaps.com

The only reason to use pain killers or sedation during disbudding is for the owner. In the right hands it is over in about 2 minutes and the kids go back to normal 2 seconds later. It is ONLY traumatic for the new owner, not the goats. No way would any vet you didn't have a very good relationship give you the drugs anyway, so why not just take them in to be disbudded or learn yourself. And once again few vets are going to give you drugs like this to keep around for an emergency.

Being dependent upon vets for very basic herd management is way too expensive, I dont' want anyone new to think you have to use anything like this to disbud, or to put down. It may be something a small handful of people have used for decades but it certainly is a very small handful of people...as to be unheard of until last year even by me. Vicki


----------



## LMonty

You're definitely right Vicki-in my case anyway, it is for the owner! Ive done it with and without- and much prefer the procedure with, it really helps me get over the struggling fighting and screaming which really throws me. I do a better job when I use it, get better results. It certainly isnt necessary for those procedures, goat owners do it all the time without it. But its my preference, my crutch. 

In all honesty though there are some times I wouldnt have wanted to do without it- like a doeling last summer that broke a front leg. She wouldnt hold still well enough for me to cast it, no less get better alignment on the bones before I did it. A shot of Rompum, and had the whole thing aligned, casted and her given BoSe, Vit B, banamine for the swelling/pain and wormer to help prevent any additional problems from the stress of the injury, and while she rested the cast had time enough to dry and set up. She was up and walking in about an hour, obviously more comfortable. She's doing well at her new home, no visible deformity and no limp when walking tho I'm told she still has a little hitch in her giddyup when running. Being able to sedate her made it possible. (Of course she did this when the vet was on vacation, so I would have been scrambling to find someone else. When she was vet checked, he was pleased with the results.) IMO being able to sedate her made the whole thing much easier on both of us.

Its just another tool in our tool box. I agree its not a needed one, especially for the basic stuff like disbudding. Works well for me being way out in the country and 40+ miles from a vet with no emergency goat vet available. And because I really, really hate the disbudding without it.


----------



## ellie

I had a vet use valium on a goat during a difficult labor, not a c sec. Seemed to help.


----------



## mill-valley

Gas anesthesia (isoflurane) is the safest of all of them...simply because if they start having problems you just turn it off and they are waking up in less than 5 minutes. Very few side effects....definately the best option if it's available. Ket-Val makes a nice combination as does xylazine...both are used frequently with Ket-Val being more common in small animal and xylazine a little more of a large animal drug.

I don't sedate for disbudding, etc. That's a personal preference. I would be more worried about complications from sedation than the pain from disbudding myself.


----------



## Faithful Crown Nubians

mill-valley said:


> Gas anesthesia (isoflurane) is the safest of all of them...simply because if they start having problems you just turn it off and they are waking up in less than 5 minutes. Very few side effects....definately the best option if it's available. Ket-Val makes a nice combination as does xylazine...both are used frequently with Ket-Val being more common in small animal and xylazine a little more of a large animal drug.
> 
> I don't sedate for disbudding, etc. That's a personal preference. I would be more worried about complications from sedation than the pain from disbudding myself.


I also don't sedate for disbudding/tattooing, ect ect. I would be too nervous about complications.

Found my vet bill. Shamrock was given Atropine injection and then sedated with a gas. The person's post that I went on was Paula Butler... http://dairygoatinfo.com/index.php/topic,9266.0.html 

I just wanted to make the right choice when he had to be sedated. Glad I did and that everything turned out ok! 
Thanks for all the replies!!


----------

