soremouth strikes!

I went out of town for the weekend last week. I got an email from my pet sitter stating that one of my bucklings had a sore on his mouth. I didn't think anything of it.

When I go home I was too exhausted to go check on him so I left him alone until the next morning.

Holy. Crap.

My favorite little buckling, Brutus, had what appeared to be a giant cold sore at each corner of his mouth.

Yuck.

I immediately remove him from the pen and put him in quarentine along with his brother so he wouldn't be lonely ( even though brother goat had no such sores).

I then went and changed my shoes, washed my hands and went in to inspect the other 4 goats in the pen.

While its commonly referred to as soremouth, the sore can be anywhere on the body. The virus enters through an existing wound on the animal. Feet ,mouths , and ears are common sites for infection because of minor scratches received during browsing in brush.

Anyway - from what I understand, there are multiple strains and its very common. Its generally only life threatening to young kids because it may cause pain which makes nursing g painful and difficult. On that note, an infected kid can also Infect mama goats udders.

In commercial sized flocks its easy to see where the loss in income and kids would be detrimental. However in my tiny herd/ flock, it hopefully wont be too horrible.

I dont show my goats And have no desire to. I suspect the infection came from a goat Lover brought home from the animal shelter ( despite my constant protests). That goat is now gone ( it wasn't actually for us, but a friend).

None of my other goats have any sores on them. That doesn't mean it wont show up eventually. I can clean feed and water Containers with a scrub brush and bleach and that's about it.

Extreme summer heat can usually kill the virus after a few months. Unfortunately for me it just started cooling down here.

The virus can live in the fallen scabs for months to years.

On an up note the scabs will probably fall off here, and therefore not be tracked back to our new home in November.

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