Goat with bump on nose. Any ideas?

[lindseynlu]

4 week old Nubian make. We got him one week ago. He has a bump?/bite? On the tip of his nose. I can't remember if he had it when we got him but I noticed it it 4 or 5 days ago. It doesn't see to be getting bigger or changing, but I'm worried it might me something I should treat.

Any ideas what it might be and what I should do about it?

 

[cassie]

I'd just keep an eye on it. You could spray some BluKote on it if you want. Can't hurt.

 

[chickencoop789]

I use Vetericyn for any little bump/scratch/bug bite/etc on my horses and it works like a charm. Should work on goats too.

 

[lillyahoo]

I got a kid with a bump exactly like the one pictured. After a week, it burst, spewing pus everywhere.

After checking around, it seemed likely to be CL (caseous lymphadenitis), which is a serious, untreatable disease. So I had it cultured at the local university vet lab. It came back as not CL but Trueperella (Arcanobacterium) pyogenes, which is also a serious disease, but is at least somewhat susceptible to amoxicillin.

The lab stated that CL and Trueperella cannot be differentiated without doing a culture. But anyone with a goat with an abscess like this picture should immediately get some labs done. Both these diseases are infectious to humans as well as goats and sheep, and Trueperella can also infect chickens, dogs, cats and cows.

 

[cassie]

CL abscesses are in the lymph nodes. They do not appear on the tip of the nose.

As for CL, I am not sure what you mean by untreatable. The individual abscesses are certainly treatable. CL is not curable. Meaning that once a goat is infected with CL it is infected for life. However, in most cases an infected goat will have just a few abscesses in its life. While CL is not curable, you can prevent the spread to uninfected animals in the herd. No matter what ANYONE tells you, CL is not the knell of doom. I would much rather deal with CL than either CAE or Johnes. And yes, I have had experience with those too.

Through no fault of my own, I have had a LOT of experience with CL. When I first started raising goats in the late 1960's, CL was very common. Many herds had it, including mine. I got rid of it and so did the other breeders I know. If anyone is interested, I wrote a paper on how to treat, prevent, and eradicate CL. If you PM me with your snail mail address, I will send you a copy. The protocol must have worked because I eliminated CL in my sizeable herd, and it never came back. Other breeders did the same.

 

[lillyahoo]

I'd be interested in seeing that paper, so I'll PM you. But right now I only have 2 kids, which I got just under 2 weeks ago. One's labs for CAE will be back tomorrow (which I highly suspect will be positive), and the other's labs came back today positive for trueperella and enterococcus sp. The one with trueperella is the one that had the abscess, and she's also sneezing and occasionally coughing, so I'm wondering if maybe she also has other abscesses in her nasal passage?

Since the kids came from a commercial goat dairy, I'm highly suspicious that they "didn't notice" these issues before I got them. They were already a month old...

 

[cassie]

I'd be interested in seeing that paper, so I'll PM you. But right now I only have 2 kids, which I got just under 2 weeks ago. One's labs for CAE will be back tomorrow (which I highly suspect will be positive), and the other's labs came back today positive for trueperella and enterococcus sp. The one with trueperella is the one that had the abscess, and she's also sneezing and occasionally coughing, so I'm wondering if maybe she also has other abscesses in her nasal passage?

Since the kids came from a commercial goat dairy, I'm highly suspicious that they "didn't notice" these issues before I got them. They were already a month old...

I hope your suspected CAE kid is negative.

 

[lillyahoo]

I'm getting the lab to run susceptibility testing on the trueperella/enterococcus sample, so on Monday I'll know what antibiotic, if any, I can give the abscess kid. Still waiting on the CAE result - it's been a week already, so I should have just taken that one to the university lab, too, instead of spending the money on a vet visit - I'd have it back by now for less $$$.

 

[Jcasey74]

4 week old Nubian make. We got him one week ago. He has a bump?/bite? On the tip of his nose. I can't remember if he had it when we got him but I noticed it it 4 or 5 days ago. It doesn't see to be getting bigger or changing, but I'm worried it might me something I should treat.

Any ideas what it might be and what I should do about it?

Did you ever find out what the bump was?