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<\/a><\/p>\nMy friend and the vet tried the typical treatments for white muscle disease<\/a>, in case it was that.\u00a0 But the treatments didn’t have any effect and the symptoms didn’t exactly match with white muscle disease anyway.\u00a0 Instead, it seemed that Tina’s difficult positioning during development caused her legs to be cramped up and now they were stuck in that position.<\/p>\n So, like all farmers, my friend was left in a difficult position herself.\u00a0 To intervene and risk complicating the issue as well as putting the animal through needless pain and discomfort?\u00a0 Or to leave it alone, hoping that it resolves itself, and doesn’t worsen to the point that it can’t be fixed?\u00a0 If you think this is what vets are for, then you haven’t stood in the office of the large animal vet and paid $150-200 for the vet to shrug and say, “Well, we can try and fix it or leave it and hope it fixes itself.\u00a0 You choose.”\u00a0 Sometimes even the best vets are left in the same position as the farmer.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Tina went on with her life without a concern in the world.<\/p>\n No one told her she was in jeopardy.\u00a0 So she nursed.\u00a0 And she played.\u00a0 And although she couldn’t jump up on all the things that goat kids love to jump up on (buckets, logs, hay bales, their mommas), she did throw her front feet up on things and stand as best she could.\u00a0 When she got tired, she would kneel all the way down and rest, but she perfected a crab-like crawl that was actually very fast and got her wherever she wanted to go.<\/p>\n Best of all, those little legs started to relax a bit.\u00a0 The stiff U-shaped legs that she was born with started to stretch and she seemed to have more flexibility when you manipulated them.\u00a0 Which gave all of us hope that her vigor and zest for life was enough to resolve this issue on it’s own.\u00a0 Until this:<\/p>\n Her legs started to bow out.\u00a0 At 6 weeks old, she had, not just a stiff knee bend to contend with, but the tendency of her legs to bow way out to the side.<\/p>\n It seemed like her legs had loosened as much as they were going to.\u00a0 But the muscles weren’t getting strong enough for her to stand and her legs were developing a bad habit.\u00a0\u00a0 That stance was not going to suit her in life.<\/p>\n Tina didn’t have any hope as a dairy goat with that stance.\u00a0 My friend has a small farm and a limited capacity to keep animals.\u00a0 She couldn’t keep Tina and she couldn’t sell her as a dairy goat.\u00a0 And it wasn’t just a matter of finding a rescue home for her.\u00a0 Toggenburgs<\/a> are medium size goats but can still grow to 120lbs.\u00a0 How would all that weigh thrust onto Tina’s knees affect her life?\u00a0 Pain?\u00a0 Early arthritis? Increasing disability?\u00a0 So now comes the most difficult position of all.\u00a0 To allow a goat to head down a path leading to pain, disability, and a horrible death?\u00a0 Or to give her a humane ending now?<\/p>\n Or to give her just one more chance?<\/p>\n My friend had tried some splints, but none of them seemed strong enough to fight the tightness of those leg muscles.\u00a0 And Tina complained loudly about them.\u00a0 Or refused to move in them.\u00a0 Now that Tina’s legs had stretched a bit, we decided to give splints one last try.\u00a0 With a twist.<\/p>\n Tina came over here to my farm.\u00a0 Since Tina wasn’t born here, she wasn’t one of my babies.\u00a0 I had a lot more tolerance to listening to her cry than my friend, who was there when Tina was helped into this world.\u00a0 Plus, we discovered Tina had a huge incentive to get up and move, even in splints, around here.\u00a0 From the minute she arrived, she crab-crawled around joyfully with the other babies.\u00a0 Tina didn’t have any young playmates at my friend’s place.\u00a0 But here she had 2 lambs and 2 bucklings to run and butt and jump with, and she loved every second of it.\u00a0 Perhaps that would be incentive enough for to get up, even if she hated her splints.<\/p>\n We picked up Tina one evening before dinnertime.\u00a0 She spent that night and the next morning crab-crawling around and making friends.\u00a0 She got used to drinking Pepsi<\/span> milk from a bottle.<\/p>\n She started eating grain.<\/p>\n I was worried that she would be picked on.\u00a0 Animals tend to have little tolerance for injured or weaker animals.\u00a0 But Tina didn’t know she was injured or weak.\u00a0 And she didn’t act like she was injured or weak.\u00a0 So the adults didn’t pay her any mind at all.\u00a0 And the young ones just treated her to the same rough housing that they treated each other.\u00a0 Perhaps the only moment of awkwardness was when she kept trying to nurse off of C.C.\u00a0 Bet she was thinking that was the mother lode of milk!<\/p>\n While Tina explored, I worked on the splints.\u00a0 I decided on PVC pipes to slide over her legs and hold them in a straighter position, allowing the muscles and tendons to stretch.\u00a0 If the splints kept her toe on the ground then I hoped her legs would gain strength, too.\u00a0 I measured Tina’s leg by sliding a paper towel tube over it and cutting it fit.\u00a0 Then I scrounged behind the shed for some matching PVC pipe.\u00a0 The 1 1\/2″ pipe matched the width of the paper towel tube so I headed to the deck with an assortment of saws and a clamp.<\/p>\n Blackbeard immediately arrived to beg for some dog food.\u00a0 When I told her I was busy, she started eating my lilies right in front of me in order to make me unbusy.<\/p>\n By the time I had Blackbeard settled, Daisy had arrived.\u00a0 She felt that the clamp was not as important for holding down a PVC pipe while I cut it as it was an excellent cheek scratcher.<\/p>\n However, when she saw my wildy erratic sawing motions, the way I needed to switch to 3 different saws to accomplish the job, and how the clamp came undone twice because I wasn’t exactly sure how to fasten it, she decided a retreat to the lilies was the safer option.<\/p>\n I’m not really sure why I try to grow flowers on the deck.\u00a0 They don’t get any respect.<\/p>\n After the splints were cut to size…<\/p>\n …I drilled holes so I could attach them with rope or string if I needed to.\u00a0 I figured I could tape the splints in place, but I drilled the holes just in case.\u00a0 I thought it was very clever of me to give me myself a second attachment option.\u00a0 That way I avoided having to take the splints off, come back in the house to drill holes, and then go back out and put them back on.<\/p>\n Too bad the 1 1\/2″ pipe was just too tight.\u00a0 I guess the paper towel tube had a little more give than the PVC.\u00a0 Because trying to get the splint over her knee on the right leg seemed impossible without causing Tina a lot of pain.\u00a0 So I had to take the splints off, go to the shed for 2″ PVC pipe, cut it to length on the deck, come back in the house to drill holes, and then go back out and put them back on.\u00a0 I am not always as clever as I think I am.<\/p>\n But together Pretty and I were able to slowly and carefully slide the 2″ PVC splints all the way up her legs, almost to the elbows. We had to take our time and her muscles shook as we did it, but she didn’t cry out in pain or struggle desperately to get away.\u00a0 Which told us it wasn’t too much for her to handle.<\/p>\n We padded her elbows good so the splint could rest against her legs without hurting her.<\/p>\n We tied twine to the splint.<\/p>\n We slowly slid the splint up the leg, straightening as we went.<\/p>\n We tied the twine together over her shoulders to act as suspenders, padded it with a towel so that it wouldn’t irritate her, and then taped the splints to the legs, too.<\/p>\n We tried to sit the splints so that her toes were just at the edge of the PVC pipe, so she is standing on them—helping to support herself and gaining strength in her legs.<\/p>\n Then it was time for the moment of truth.\u00a0 We had never seen a goat with Tina’s deformity.\u00a0 We had never made splints.\u00a0 We had no idea what to expect.\u00a0 We had absolutely no experience in this area.\u00a0 Which had never stopped us before.\u00a0 Because we had hope.<\/p>\n And when she stood up and started walking around, we had joy.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n