Have a 4 month old buck goat that maybe has that buck goat urinary tract problem. He can pee but when he does his stomach goes up and down. Seems to be uncomforable. Makes some odd noises too. He does not get amonium chloride. What can I give him to save him? Been like this for 2 days. He acts fairly normal. Eats and drinks and walks around like usual.

-- Bob (rambrozaitis@snet.net), November 25, 2000

Answers

You must call your vet immediately! We had the same problem with a market project in July. there is surgury available, but what our problem was urolithiasis, stones that prevent urination. We culled ours.

-- Ed Holt (goat@sssnet.com), November 25, 2000.

If he has urinary tract blockage from a stonet he vet can operate and save the buck but chances are good that he will be sterile as a result. On the other hand,this sounds like one of those socially incorrect things that bucks do.They usually go through the full range of these activities while you are entertaining a porch full of little old blue haired ladies from the church.

-- JT Sessions (gone2seed@hotmail.com), November 25, 2000.

A small amount of irritation here, if you knew about the ammonium chloride, why didn't you use it? You can order it in 5# bags from pipestone.com for about 4$, you use it at 1 teaspoon per buck per day, and you can eaisly sprinkle it over his feed, if you feed a pellet, that won't let it stick to it, then just put a little molassas on the pellets with the ammonium chloride in it. If he is still peeing in a stream than you can dose him with a tablespoon of AC, with as much water as you need 10cc or so and syringe it down him daily until the condition disappears. If he is clogged and spurting pee, than you can retract the penis and cut off the process, the alien looking appendage on the end of the penis. This is a one shot deal, as this is usually where the blockage is, and once you cut it off you must fix the problem with his diet, or the next time you will have to go the surgical route which will leave you with a very expensive buck who cannot breed, and pees like a doe!

Prevention in your management with your stock is the key, probably realistically costs 4$ a year to use the ammonium chloride, and most better feeds already contain it. Same goes for the pennies a year it costs to vaccinate with CD&T and the dollars a year it costs to worm or use coccidia medications. Once you let a disease take hold you are talking a whole nother set of numbers which are usually more than most stock is worth.

To grow out a big growthy buck you walk a line with the excess protein they are getting. We feed a 17% feed to grow out our bucks and this is probably excessive, so we feed ammonium chloride to keep urinary calculi at bay. Once a buck is full grown, around 3 years old, they are only eating a 12% diet, but since our grain mix contains ammonium chloride they continue on it. Though there are places which have sulfur in their water, which perdisposes the bucks to UC, I really feel that most UC is caused by excess feeding of proteins. Others will argue that it is the mineral balance. Which ever problem you need to fix, fix it and also add the AC. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), November 25, 2000.