Vaccinating the Goats

Vaccinating the Goats

On Thursday, September 14th, we vaccinated the three goats against tetanus. There are four types of injections: intramuscular, intravenous, intradermal, and subcutaneous. Intramuscular injections are inserted deep into the muscle, usually at a 90 degree angle. Intravenous injections are given in the vein. Intradermal injections are inserted into the dermis, a thick layer of living tissue just below the epidermis. Lastly, in a subcutaneous injection, the angle at which the vaccine is given allows it to be received in the subcutaneous tissue under the skin. This is the type of injection we used to vaccinate the goats.

We gave the goats a tetanus clostridium pefringens vaccine (CDT). This is meant to prevent infections caused by clostridium tetani bacteria (most frequently found in soil), which can easily kill a goat; if they have a wound (most likely a puncture wound), the bacteria can enter the area and cause a clostridial infection, such as tetanus or exterotoxemia. CDT is given to adult goats once annually, and is given to pregnant goats about one month before they give birth. Kids are vaccinated first when they are 5-6 weeks old, and are given a booster 3-4 weeks later. The subcutaneous injection is done using a one inch needle, and both adults and kids are given 2 ml of CDT. It is important to have epinephrine on hand in case a goat goes into anaphylactic shock due to the vaccine.

The way we gave the Tetanus vaccination to the goats is we began by…

1. Breaking the seal in the syringes and drawing in 2 mL of the vaccination.
2. Although it isn’t as important to release all of the air bubbles as it is when giving an intravenous vaccine, it is still necessary to flick the syringe while upside down to release all of the air to the top.
3. We pulled out the skin on their necks (check out video) and inserted the needle and vaccine. We use the neck for meat goats because that is the area that is least used in processing and not in demand
4. After we injected them we massaged the area and set the goat free.