The next day it had gotten worse. So I brought her into the barn and gave her some antibiotics to prevent an infection from starting up. Following that she got a shot of vitamin B and thiamine (Antibiotics kill the bugs in stomachs so the thiamine counters that) and sent her on her way. I also noticed that my wether goat was also showing the effects of bee stings. I decided to be proactive with him and gave him the shots. The next day his bee stings broke open and became painful sores. My brother and I were discussing the bees and he thought that it sounded like soremouth. I passed it off thinking it was too hot for soremouth to become active. Most viruses and bacteria thrive in the wet, mildly warm spring months.
Another day went by and another goat was showing signs of not bee stings, but a sticker caught in his throat. So he got the shots. My husband came out and took a look and we both agreed sore mouth. After a trip to the coop we decided it was stupid to put off this vaccine, 1/4 of our herd had it.
So we waited until my husband and my friend, Shanee both had a day off and gathered up the goats. It was about 90 degrees, we had put it off for quite a while that day. Not everyone reading is a farmer/rancher and doesn't understand what a modified live virus is. The best way to explain these types of shots to someone who doesn't know is to think of it as a flu shot. I'm not sure if the flu shot is a modified live or a killed virus, but it is the same concept. The vaccine will give you an immunity to the virus. You will suffer very mild side effects, and in turn will be immune to any further infections. With the soremouth vaccine, you can't inject it, what you have to do is cut the skin and dab the vaccine in the cut. I'm not talking about taking a butcher knife to the ear, simply taking an 18 gauge needle and making a small cut will do. Even a razor cut will work, but in this type of situation an 18 gauge will do better. An 18 gauge is about 3 sizes bigger than the needles doctor use on you, so not very big, and you only need about an 1/8 of an inch length to work. So not a deep cut and not a long one.
I went through all of the explanations of how small of a cut is necessary and how little vaccine you need (a small dab, smaller than a drop of water) for a reason. When we are administering the vaccine, one of us has to scratch the ear (my job), one of us has to dab on the virus (Shanee) and one of us has to hold the goats head (Dan). Lots of hands and needles in this equation. Somehow the plunger on the syringe was pushed and a nice stream of modified live was shot onto my husbands face. So far no signs of the virus. Sore mouth is contagious to humans, but goes by the name of Orf. If you would like to get an idea of what Orf looks like, just google it and you can see what Dan may have in store for hisself. As a precautionary measure, we were wearing gloves when we did this, just not face suits.
To make matters worse, our primary source of water is from a spring. It's not a seasonal spring, but you can't water a yard on it, we use a pond for the yard. So after three showers, two loads of laundry and a two year old soaking in the sink with running water for about half an hour our water was zilch. It took about 6+ hours for the water to come back on. This isn't a horribly unusual day in the life of a rancher/farmer. It is somewhat unusual because it is the only week of the year my husband gets a vacation, and he spent it in muggy, hot 90 degree weather. I do hope this blog reaches people with as much ag experience as water we had. It might help to put agriculture into perspective. Just because you are on vacation, doesn't mean you are on vacation.
This is not my photo, the girls didn't come in tonight so I couldn't get a photo. I just googled Sore Mouth in Goats and found this image. Do not have permission and did not ask.
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