Astra Gets Stitches

Yesterday, we found that Astra, one of our 4-month-old kids, had gashed her ear quite badly.  The gash was about 3″ long, and clearly needed stitches.  At first, I intended to stitch it myself– we have sutures and staples on hand– but on closer inspection I realized this was beyond my ability. 

Naturally, these things always happen in a holiday weekend, and our regular vet was not on call.  So we loaded Astra into the 4Runner (putting a sheet of plastic down to accomodate the inevitable) and drove her down to the on-call vet in Enoch, about 20 miles away.  Astra had never been in a vehicle before, and she took to it very well.  Most of the time, she just laid her head on my shoulder.

The vet, annoyed at being called out on a Sunday, became less annoyed when he saw the wound.  Once he’d trimmed away the useless flaps of skin, I was doubly glad I hadn’t tried to stitch it myself: what remained was an open area about the size of a fifty-cent piece over the entire back of the ear.  It was a challenging stitching job even for a vet with decades of experience, and at first he suggested it couldn’t be done.  But, about twenty minutes later, he had brought together three edges and sealed the wound.

In the process, he nicked a small artery, so Astra’s ear had to be bandaged.  I wondered how he would accomplish that, but he just wrapped her whole head, compressing the ear against her skull.  Astra doesn’t like it much, but it did stop the bleeding and should help her to heal.

When we got her home, we isolated her so the other goats wouldn’t pull the bandage off.  That upset her more than anything else.  We also updated everyone’s tetanus vaccinations, and gave Astra a shot of penicillin.  She’ll need a repeat every day for 8 days.

Fortunately, goats (and especially baby goats) are very resilient.  She should heal fine and be back playing with her friends in a few days.