Urinary Calculi

I got asked earlier if its okay for male goats to have grain. This is a myth I'd like to dispel over and over and over until its never brought up again.

Bucks and wethers can absolutely have grain, and many times, SHOULD be grained during certain lifestages (ex: as young kids to benefit rumen development and growth, after or during rut when they inevitably prioritize breeding over eating, to help bounce back after any illness or wormload that took a physical toll on them, when elderly and needing extra calories to maintain body condition, etc).

This myth stems from people who hear that grain can cause urinary calculi (UC) in male goats... which is true, with a big asterisk attached. Grain itself does not cause it, but rather nutritionally imbalanced grain, and even more specifically, having an imbalanced phosphorous to calcium ratio in the grain. UC is when either calcium or phosphorous based stones form, and oftentimes these stones struggle to pass through the urinary tract, leading to blockages that can become very fatal very quickly as urine cannot pass and the bladder continues filling. This can happen in BOTH does and bucks alike. You dont hear about UC as often in does than as in bucks because does have a less complicated urinary tract with a much wider hole for potential stones to pass through, while bucks or wethers have a urinary tract that closely resembles what would happen if you gave a toddler a marker and a blank wall, with a much smaller hole for stones to pass through. That said, UC can happen in either sex, but expelling those stones is significantly more difficult for males. To prevent this, the goat's daily nutritional intake needs to include at least twice the amount of calcium as they get in phosphorous. You get some leeway on the calcium bit - while calcium-based stones certainly can form, you can keep your calcium in the 2-4x range of your phosphorous typically, but if you get under the 2:1 calcium:phosphorous range, UC is a looming danger.

HOWEVER, grain is not the only thing that can contribute to the development of UC. Notice how i said "the goat's daily nutritional intake". This encompasses not only grain, but also their hay, their treats, their forage, their minerals, their WATER. Regardless of whether your animals are backyard pets or performance level show goats, you should have a good idea on what their entire intake, the whole picture, looks like. Look at the nutrient analysis tag on your grain. Check to see if the maximum phosphorous is half of what the minimum calcium is. Get your hay tested. Get your water tested. Look at whats in your loose minerals. If you keep everything within that 2:1 ratio, you should be set with little to no worries. Or, you can play around with it a bit. If you're too phosphorous rich, switch to alfalfa hay or add in alfalfa pellets, which are calcium heavy. If you're calcium rich, look at black oil sunflower seeds as a feed additive, or coastal hay, which can be phosphorous rich. Of course, you don't ONLY want to be looking at calcium and phosphorous for feeds, but this post is about UC, and so we will just talk about those two.

So, how to know if your goat has urinary calculi? Well, stones can be seen on ultrasound usually, but as far as in the barnyard goes: they can't pee, or are struggling to pee normally. It can range from painful, interrupted pees to a complete blockage. It also hurts. A lot. Typical signs of pain include isolating from the herd, teeth grinding, head pressing, etc. If youre seeing a combination of those two symptoms, UC is a likely culprit.

Mild cases can potentially be remedied via ammonium chloride, a feed additive that can break up existing stones. This is debated to lose effectiveness over time, so feeds with ammonium chloride in it might not be very helpful, but there's good research in pulse feeding ammonium chloride being effective over time. Quite frankly, if you're relying on ammonium chloride to solve your imbalanced diet problems, its not going to help you. Keeping some on hand if you have bucks or wethers is not a bad idea though, in case you do run into UC. Also in milder cases, snipping off the pizzle (yes, thats what its called) at the end of the penis may allow the stone to pass, but is unfortunately only helpful if the stone has actually made it through the rest of the tract and is stuck at the very end.

More severe cases may require a surgery, with a generally very low success rate, that reroutes the urethra through a more direct route near the anus. Not many vets can, or will, do this, but it has been done. Its pricey, risky, and fairly specialized work. Otherwise, the only other option if the stone cannot pass is euthanization, because a burst bladder and sepsis is not a comfy cozy or even quick way to pass.

Now, what about wethers vs bucks when it comes to UC? How does being a castrated male affect how they get UC? Plain and simple: it doesnt. UC is from an imbalanced, improper diet. Period. That said, wethers CAN be more at risk, but only IF they develop UC. If a buckling is castrated too early, say before 12-16 weeks or so, their urinary tract doesnt get the chance to develop as extensively. That doesnt mean that they are more at risk of UC, simply more at risk of having UC become fatal if they get it in the first place. This leads to a frustrating problem with bucklings: producers want to castrate bucklings as early as possible to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but also want to delay it as long as possible to allow them that extra layer of protection. In the case of market goats, you know, the ones to be butchered around or under a year old, this doesnt really matter as much, in my own personal opinion, because they don't tend to live long enough for UC to really rear its ugly head, and additionally their feed tends to be a bit more curated and specific than the average pets'. But for all other wethers, it is a good practice to wait until at least 12 weeks old to castrate.

I have also heard and read about cases of UC where the calcium to phosphorous ratios were completely correct and the owner had no idea how or why UC developed, so it had to be genetic..... my thoughts on this are: while its possible genetically some goats may be more prone to UC than others, an imbalance still has to exist somewhere. A lot of people don't think about testing their water. Or don't realize the goats are regularly foraging in an area the owner didnt know about. Or whatever other factors are going into their feed.

For myself, I have been lucky enough to never encounter urinary calculi. I have been very picky on hay and grain for many, many years. I think whether or not you have goats, getting your water tested regularly is a good expense. Its not a common thing, but also not a rare thing. Be present in all the decisions you make for your animals, and you should be able to avoid it.