Cornified Tissue In Goats
Sometime in January - February, I noticed strange growths on my Nigerian buck. Specifically on his testicles. These growths looked like warts however, the formation was something I had never seen before, almost resembling cave celestites.
When it comes to animals, especially when they are with you for a long period of time, you are going to encounter various and seemingly dangerous symptoms that at times, turn out to be nothing. Knowing this, I eased my over active brain and decided to do some digging around. Reaching out to various people that breed this specific goat breed and coming up short in answers, the internet proved to be even less helpful until, finally two days later I found the exact situation with a man on a goat forum looking for answers. The photos he provided looked identical to the growths on my own buck. This man returned weeks later to the forum and mentioned that he ultimately took his buck to be evaluated by his veterinarian who determined that it was nothing more than cornified tissue from long exposures to moisture.
This made the most sense, seeing as in California we had been hit by 3 atmospheric rivers so far.
I am proudly diligent at how I keep up with their homes as far as new shavings + dry environments however, they are still a shorter goat- rain or not, they still are grazing in the weather and dragging themselves through the wet grasses.
This is a recent image now 2-3 months later but, you can see plainly where the formations started.
I D E N T I F I C A T I O N
They can resemble warts
They can be colorless or same color as flesh
They SHOULD be able to be scraped or peeled off
In my case, I was able to get him tethered to the fence with his lead and scrape a few of them off. I noticed right away that the flesh underneath was a bit raw, similar to picking a scab and so after removing them, I thoroughly whipped him down with a mixture of water, eucalyptus and tea tree oil. They never regrew in quite the same way.
They never quite regrew at all except for what you see here in these photos.
I felt inherently compelled to post this as I was baffled that NO ONE or should I say, a staggering lack of information existed in even such a wide data base as our own internet.
I hope this post was a comfort as my own unique discovery of this somewhat bizarre and alarming diagnosis. If you found it helpful, please share. I would love to spare any other pour soul the agony of googling for days at a time.
