Necropsy

The purpose of our web site is to provide as much education and information as we possibly can. Our goats are our number one priorities. Keeping them safe and healthy is our primary goal. This being said, we have decided to share these very private and revealing photos of a recent necropsy of one of our breeding does.

This doe was a three year old fullblood Boer. She had been exposed to a buck on December 25, 2004. She was due to kid on May 22, 2005. A big strapping girl who, though large in size, was not obviously overweight to the eye. Up until 5 days before her demise, she was very active and the picture of health.

Because her death was so unexpected, we opted to have her necropsied in an attempt to determine a cause.

The following photos were taken of a necropsy performed at Foxcroft Veterinary Hospital by Drs. Kelly and McEvoy about 6 hours post mortem on May 5, 2005.


This first photo is of the uterus containing the pregnancy being exposed.	As the veterinarian worked, it was obvious that the triplet bucklings were already quite large, though not ready for birth. These boys would have weighed between 8 1/2 and 9 pounds each at birth.

The veterinarian is showing us how the expanding sack containing a kid is attached to the uterus. There were two kids in one horn of the uterus and one kid in the other uterine horn.	The three kids are laid out in front while she works on bringing the liver to the surface.

The liver is right below her left hand. It is quite pale and as she described "caramelized".	After cutting the rib cage, there are now two veterinarians working to expose the lungs and other internal organs.

This was a real shocker. The pale substance you see here is internal fat. This doe was large, probably running around 180 pounds, however, she did not look fat from outward appearances.	An over abundance of fat, combined with a very large pregnancy quite possibly caused a total system breakdown which ultimately resulted in her death.

With all of the fat cleared away, you can notice her gall bladder (green thing in the middle of the photo) and her intestines which appear sausage like.	Just before putting her into the cremation shed, we were once again astounded by the amount of internal fat this girl was carrying.