Bad Day for Bert

Bert of Bert & Ernie, a set of wethers, is having a pretty bad year.

In Aug of 2007 he got a deadly parasite, p. tenuis or meningeal worm. The worm literally eats the animal's nerves on its way to invading the spinal column. White tailed deer carry it and then snails and slugs pick it up from deer droppings. The goats, sheep, and alpaca pick it up when they graze wet fields where the deer have been.

So, last year poor Bert got it badly enough that he was dragging both hind legs. We treated him for 5 days and he recovered - mostly. His hind quarters were always a little slower than he expected, but he managed.

This Spring he got one hind leg caught in between the horns of one of the other goats, a common occurance. It broke just below the ankle. The vets splinted it and we waited, hoping it would heal. After about 5 weeks we took the splint off, thinking it had healed well enough.

But. Apparently it had not.

I went out to the field to check on the animals last Wed and they all came over to see me. They knew I was moving fencing and fresh pasture was on their menu for the day. Everybody quietly followed me as I worked, except Bert. He stood off alone and bawled for me. So, when I was finished moving the fencing and the animals were eating, I went to see what was up with Bert.

He was limping. One of his hind legs was sore, and he smelled awful. I got a lead and took him to the barn. Gary helped by holding him and I took a look at the leg. It was clearly broken, with protruding bone, and full of puss. It looked to me like Bert might be aggravating things by dripping urine onto the wound from his heavy fleece. So, we hoisted him onto a platform and I removed all the dirty fleece around his "pizzer." I noticed it was quite sore and the skin was inflamed. I started to have a very bad feeling about poor Bert.

Antibiotics were the next thing I did. The infected leg, the skin inflamation, bad news for sure. We gave him some hay and some water, shut the light and went in to email the vet. Dr. McArt didn't think it sounded very good, and agreed to visit on Thursday.

When she called me at work, she was grim. Bert's leg could not be repaired, and he was in a lot of pain. We started to make arrangements for putting him down and digging a hole here in the stony ground of Ithaca. Then one of the vet students, Sean, remembered an alpaca cria that had it's foot amputated. It sounds weird, but I was so happy at that thought. Let's just take Bert's foot off.

So we did. Gary and I sheared Bert Thursday night, and the vets came back on Friday. They did the surgery on a table in the yard, under the butternut tree (which kept dropping butternuts onto the sterile table!) while our little flock of ducks kept wandering past. It was quite a festive atmosphere.

The surgery actually went very well. Bert didn't lose much blood and had lots of loose skin to sew over the end of his leg bone to make a stump. He's done very well since, and is clearly feeling better. Before the surgery he was so placid, as though he didn't care what we did to him. Now he's eating well and noticing his surroundings and resisting our ministrations a little.

Phew. I hate losing an animal, but Bert is a fiber superstar, so that would have been extra sad.

He took the first bandage off almost immediately, so I had to get one of those plastic collars that keep dogs from scratching. It worked pretty well!

Tomorrow the vets come back to give rabies vaccines and they'll check Bert's wound. I'm very optimistic. Hopefully that's his last challenge for a while.