Kidney Stones in Wethers
Wethers are susceptible to painful -- and often fatal-- kidney stones. These may be caused by a combination of early castration, non-surgical castration (banding), plus the type of feed and quality of water.
There is much that is still not well understood about this problem, which is of more concern to pet goat owners than goat farmers. Dairy farmers are not affected because the problem only affects wethers and, since it occurs in mature and older goats, the meat farmers are not affected. Since the dairy and meat industries are often the source of your pet goat, however, their neutering practices can impact his health. It is always good to rescue a goat from whatever source or situation, and if the goat is already neutered you will not have control over the timing or method of neutering.
We are fortunate never to have had this problem with any of our herd. However, a friends of ours had the problem, and has been kind enough to write us about their experience, and here is their story:
"I can tell you what we are doing to keep stones from forming in our "little" Boer goat PJ. PJ was totally blocked last September. We were lucky enough to notice it early and our wonderful vet dropped everything and performed emergency surgery to drain his bladder through a tube. After 4-5 weeks we ended up at the large animal vet clinic at UC Davis where we received most excellent treatment. Following the surgery at Davis, PJ began urinating normally and we brought him home.
"Of course now he is very self-concious because we are constantly watching him pee. He is particulary prone to stones because he was castrated very young. This is in contrast to our other 2 wethers, Pumpkin and Tiny [these, by the way, are the two goats pictured with Jane on our home page]. They were castrated much older and you can notice that they urinate much more easily than PJ.
"After going through this we made many changes as to how we keep the goats. We have very hard water and since calcium carbonate can lead to stone formation we switched the goats to softened water. We have also started adding cider vinegar to their water (1/4 cup per gallon). Our vet also recommended feeding grass hay only with limited and supervised browsing to avoid vitamin A deficiency. Our previous diet was probably deficient in vitamin A which can also be a contributing factor to stone formation. We have added a loose mineral mix which contains additional vitamins and ammonium chloride to help lower the urine pH. In addition, we supplement all the boys with 10-20g of ammonium chloride each day. We dissolve the salt in hot water and add a little molasses and goat chow (we are using Top Goat) to help the palatiblity. We also monitor PJs urine pH with pH paper to make sure he doesn't go too low.
"There is an excellent book we found very helpful called "Diet for Wethers" which goes into alot of detail about the calcium-phosphorous ratio which is also important to control to avoid stones. Alfalfa is not recommended at all for wethers because it is high in calcium. Both the book and the ammonium chloride are available from Hoegger Goat Supply. We get the pH paper from Ph-ion.com.
"Unfortunately urinary stones in wethers is quite common as we learned from the vets at UC Davis and they can be difficult to prevent. Age of catstration significantly affects the likelyhood of a urinary tract blockage.
"I'd say we were very fortunate to have a great large animal vet and UC Davis close by. Without these resources PJ would surley have died. The really big point though is to allow the male goats to mature before they are castrated. If they are castrated too young the urethra does not fully develope and if stones do form they become lodged in the smaller diameter urethra and cause blockage. It's an extremely painful way to die.
"We monitor PJ's urine PH on an almost daily basis but we give him up to 20 grams of Amonium Chloride every day. Diet plays a big roll too. He's a very happy camper and has cheated death twice so far. He is the most amazing animal I have ever known. Nothing phases him.
"It's a delicate balance to get the goat urine PH down to a level that prevents stones from forming. If it gets too low like under 5 for a period of time, it can cause acidosis which can cause other problems including death. So please emphasize the importance of reading all the information available on the subject.
"There are also people out there who say amonium chloride does not work. The key is daily diligence. Of course since we love goats and PJ so much it is an easy thing to do.
So, there you have it "from the horse's mouth", so to speak. We hope you never have the bad luck to encounter this problem. Based on our experience, we suspect that it has a lot to do with locale -- which, of course, determines diet to a great extent. For example, even though you will hear it universally stated that goats should not have alfalfa, we have been feeding our goats alfalfa during the winter all their lives with no ill effect.