We wethered the bucklings last Sunday. One little guy seemed to take it harder than the rest and seemed uncomfortable the next morning. I didn't notice anything unusual about him intil last night when I found him in the goat house crying loudly. We looked at his band and didn't notice anything too unusual except that it seemed a bit off center. He seemed to move a bit stiffly in the rear end. His temp was 103. He's black and was in the sun during the day, so that did not seem too high. I gave him shots of B1 and Banamine. This morning, he still seems uncomfortable and is making little sounds. I discussed with DH removing the band to see if that helps. He thinks if the scrotum is dying and we remove the band, it will then poison his system. Any ideas? I don't plan to spend alot of $$ on him to fix this as he's destined for the freezer, but don't want to see him suffer. Kathie
I also want to add that when he lays down and cries, what he acts like is a newly banded kid and he shouldn't be feeling this discomfort after 6 days. Kathie
I just had a thought. If his sac was not big enough the blood flow would not have been cut off completely. How old is he? Perhaps he is still feeling it because a little bit of blood flow is still occuring. Just a thought. What do you think? :shrug
He will be 7 weeks old in a couple if days. His brother and the other kids around his age are doing fine. If I didn't think it would hurt him, I'd remove the band and reband in a few days. He's not wanting to eat hay and grain or play with the other kids. I assume he's nursed as his dam didn't have extra milk this morning. Kathie
7 weeks should be fine I would think. I just did mine about 20 minutes ago. He was big enough in my opinion. And he is only a few days shy of 4 weeks. I don't know. You had mentioned that the band looked a little off center. What do you mean by that?
If he is destend for butcher I would butcher him now. You may have got some of his plumbing in under the band towards the testicles. And testicles can't be too small to band because you can do wattles with the bands, and they are much smaller than testicles are, even in newborns...we used to routinely do bucklings at birth back when we sold wethers and dairied (in the beginning). Banding is pretty straight forward, as seen on the other now wethers, and if you take off the band it won't poision him, but it won't make it better, you will then have a wound to deal with, and internal damage likely because it's not normal for him to even care about the area about now. Vicki
Now, this is strange. Before Vicki and Sondra replied, I got another temp on him and it was 104 so I gave him a shot of Biomycin before going to my friend's to celebrate her birthday. When I got back home, he was acting fine and ate with the others when I fed. He's still doing OK, eating and playing with the other kids. I was prepared to take him to my friend's to do the deed, but if he continues to do well it would be nice to grow him a bit bigger and get the drugs out of his system before he goes in the frezer. Kathie
Glad to see the little bugger is doing better. I do have to ask though....If you are planning on putting this young of a buck in the freezer, or one that is 6 months or less....why bother with wethering him at all ? Whim
Whim, I would wether just to keep him from bouncing on everybody, so to speak, until his day arrived.
