This spring I gave my goats their vaccinations myelf. I gave the CDT vaccine and two of my does developed rather large bumps at the injection site, none of the others had any thing more than a knot and they all went down inside a week. One of the does had the bump erupt. Any ideas if this is a fairly common thing to have happen? It was pus filled and I squeezed it all out and flushed with hydrogen peroxide and cleaned with iodine and this morning there wasn't any more exudate. Thanks for your help and God bless!

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@yahoo.com), June 27, 2001

Answers

A lump like this is called a granuloma. It is the goats own immunity causing this. So little to no lump would mean a goat with very low immunity to this type of vaccine. A lump is normal, though for it to abscess like these did, it would really have to be your technique, or in the case of using 7 or 8 way vaccines, the body is walling off vaccine that the body says is foreign. But with just a CD&T probably something got into the shot site. Though all directions for giving shots include, cleaning the site, using a new needle with each animal, new syringe and only using the vial of vaccine the one time and throwing out the rest..................well let us just say that you could do it that way? :)

First my goats are not filthy, unlike pigs rolling around in mud holes my girls are relatively clean. So I do not clean their skin off before shots. I do throw several new needles into my rubbermaid carrier before I start, but everyone gets the same syringe. I do wipe off the top of the vial with an alcohol wipe. I give shot after shot, and the first time there is any tension in the skin when I give a shot, I throw out the needle and use a new one. Now...this is certainly not how I give shots in front of other folks or do stock that is not mine. I will pull medication from my vial for folks to use, but only with a new needle and syringe, never letting anybody touch my meds.

I also give all my vaccinations in the muscle. I have never had an abcess form from a CD&T but have had one form from Covexin 8. I know the lumps are in the muscle, I have felt them before, but with the hysteria over CL in my area of Texas, and also because I body shave to show, I simply don't like seeing lumps from vaccinations, or explaining to new folks what they are!

When you pull up the skin for a subq vaccination use the skin over the ribs. Pull it out forming a tent, and like crawling into a tent from the top, push your needle in the same way. Always pull back on the plunger (aspirating) to make sure there is no blood, then push in the plunger giving the shot. So you are giving shots with the needle pointing towards the ground. Rub the shot site slightly, trying to spread out the shot. Even with that, even with shaving the site, and wiping it down with Betadine, even with the deft hand of a vet, you will still get lumps. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), June 27, 2001.

I didn't use a new syringe, and I didn't pull back on the syringe...I thought that was for IM injections only???I used a fresh needle for each of the goats and I believe I did the injections correctly. Just these two came up with the serious bumps. All the rest had a lump that then went away. Arrgh. I am giving a lot of injections this year so I guess my success rate will show itself, huh?

If it gives any more pus I will take it and have it cultured for CL, because I AM paranoid about that. I just hope that I don't need to deal with that again. It was really horrific.

Thanks a bunch AGAIN, Vicki! BTW, I did go to a couple of goat sites, but I couldn't find this exact problem.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), June 27, 2001.

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-- MUGUBABY (MUGU@GUYWOMAN.LOME), September 02, 2004.