My goat has an abscess below the ear...

[miss_thenorth]

I have applied a warm moist compress, & peroxide. It had scabbed over , but I peeled the scab away to allow drainage. What more do I need to do? She still has an appetite, feisty, i think I caught it in time.

 

[silkiechicken]

Best of luck. I don't know what to do about it other than keep it clean. Do you have an idea what it was caused by? Physical injury or internal issue?

 

[chickenzoo]

I always use epsom salt to draw out the infection, it works wonders on everything just about... Also there is an icthamol drawling sav you can get at the feed store....

 

[morelcabin]

Not sure if you can hold the goat still long enough to do this, but one trick for draining abseses and boils is to run an EMPTY beer bottle under hot water until it is as hot as you can stand it. Put the tip of it over the boil and hold it there. As the bottle cools it literally sucks the infection into it and the boil will burst and empty into the bottle.

 

[d.k]

* That's genius-- but what do you do when the patient passes out!!!

 

[d.k]

*eep!

 

[morelcabin]

what do you mean? then it is just easier to hold the bottle in place:>) Oh...it's an empty beer bottle you use, by the way...or soda bottle, but it has to be glass

 

[speckledhen]

Is it just an abcess or is it related to this disease?
http://www.goatworld.com/articles/cl/cl2.shtml

Just wondering if caution might be in order handling this problem the goat has. Not meaning to be alarmist, but want you to be safe, etc.

 

[KAKBucks]

With the abscesses on my alpacas (which are blessedly few!) here's what I do:

First off keep them open! Pulling off the scabs isn't exactly fun, but necessary.

Get some betadine (a big bottle) not the strong stuff, but the strength used for first aid.

Get some 12 CC syringes, no needles needed!

Get a person to hold the animal!

Hot compresses can help to loosen things out, but use a syringe full of betadine and squirt it into the abscess. Try and work out as much puss as you can. Sometimes you can squeeze a bunch out. Sometimes the puss has become granulated (congealed) in the middle and if you can get ahold of part of it with a paper towel you can pull the granulated part out.

Keep flushing with betadine and working as much puss out of it as you can, particularly if there's granulation.

If it's a larger abscess my vet has had me put gauze squares soaked in betadine inside of it to help keep it open so it can heal from the inside out. (thankfully I only had to do this once and it wasn't on my animal or even on my farm!)

I would clean up the puss and do a good flush with betadine twice a day if you can. The first good cleaning is critical though. If there's a granulated chunk of puss inside of the abscess it's going to be very hard for it to heal.

As it begins to heal the skin and tissue around the abscess (which is probably almost rock hard right now) will start to soften. You will be able to manipulate the abscess more easily, and obviously the amount of puss will decrease.

Some people like to use Swat or something similar to keep flies off. Other people use fly spray, other people don't care.

Good luck. Let me know how he does! Feel free to PM me if you have any trouble. I'm not a vet by any means, but I've treated a few abscesses of various degrees and on a variety of animals.

Kendra

 

[KAKBucks]

I forgot to mention, abscesses usually occur at the site of a foreign object that gets under the skin. Most often it's at the site of an injection, but also happens after a puncture wound or something.

If you didn't give a shot at that location (which I doubt you did) you'll want to try and figure out what caused the abscess. Did he run into a stray piece of wire somewhere, is he rubbing up against the fence because of an ear infection, etc..