Castration Flashcards
Who gets castrated?
- Males
- Calves, lambs, and kids
Castration ideal age
- First month of life
Anesthesia for castration
- Intra-testicular lidocaine
3 COMMON methods of castration
a. Rubber ring
b. Bloodless castration (Burdizzo)
c. Surgery
When are bands typically applied?
- First week of life
Where should you apply elastrator bands?
- Over the testicles and spermatic cord
- Do not include the penis
- If you’re too cranial you can include the sigmoid flexure
Anesthesia for elastrator band
- Lidocaine will get you a couple of hours of anesthesia
How long does it take to castrate with a band?
- About two weeks
What is an uncommon but still present concern with banding?
- Tetanus
Burdizzo castration anesthesia
- Lidocaine testicular block
Burdizzo castration technique crush sites
- Pulling the cord over to the side you damage the least amount of skin possible
- Crushing the spermatic cord
Age for Burdizzo (from notes)
- up to 6 months potentially
What are the two surgical castration methods?
- Incision on lateral edge of the scrotum (for larger scrotums; after approximately 2 months )
- Cut off 2/3 of the bottom of the scrotum beneath the testicles (up to approximately 2 months)
Why do we tend to do the lateral incision on animals older than 2 months?
- Want to avoid cutting through the median raphe, which has a significant blood supply
- Most bleeding will come from this
- With a lateral incision, you won’t touch the median raphe
Castration procedure
- Depending on age either cut 2/3 of scrotum horizontally or slit from side
- Displace testes out of scrotal sac and strip fascia until cord left
- Option to open tunics or not - get better clamp on cord if open, but then it’s an open castration (higher risk of peritonitis)
- Emasculate so there is plenty of cord removed - “nut to nut” meaning wing nut on emasculator pointing towards or facing the testicle. Can infuse with lidocaine prior to putting emasculators on.
- Make sure adequate drainage
Nut to nut with the emasculator
- Cutting surface is towards the nut
- Crushing surface is between the cutting surface and the heart
- preventing bleeding from the heart side of things
Small ruminant castration differences
- Proportionately have a lot of tissue removed
- Often a little older because the benefit is that their urethra develops more fully, making it less likely to develop bladder stones or urolithiasis
What type of block for small ruminant castration?
- Intra-testicular local block
Small ruminant castration technique
- Surgical preparation
- Again, if older, cut on the lateral side of the vaginal tunic
- Strip out the testicle to isolate the cord
- Emasculate them or transfix the spermatic cord
- Leave the emasculator on for an extra minute (~2 minutes total)
Newberry knife
- Puts an incision in the median raphe
- Don’t cut the median raphe in an animal with large testicular mass
- Bottom part of the scrotum goes in
Emasculator open or closed technique?
- Open
- Stripping down the cord
Standing sedation - who for?
- Camelids
Anesthesia for camelid standing castration
- 0.1 mg/kg butorphanol IM 5-10 minutse prior to the procedure
- He infuses lidocaine into the testicular parenchyma until it feels turgid and firm
- Try to leave a bleb under the skin
Castration for camelid
- Two incisions made 1 cm off the median raphe to make it closed
- Strip out the testis
- Ligate it or emasculate it; he suggests transfixing
Recumbent camelid cocktail
- 10 mL ketamine
- 1 mL Butorphanol
- 1 mL 100 mg Xylazine
How much camelid cocktail does a llama get?
- 1mL/50lbs IM
How much camelid cocktail does an alpaca get?
- 1mL/50# plus 1 mL IM
Why do we castrate swine?
- Avoid boar taint and aggression
- Volatile compounds related to testosterone
- Pigs with testosterone are aggressive towards each other and towards the handlers
When do we do pig castrations?
- First 3 days of life
- Want it to be more than the first few hours of life
Anesthesia for pig castrations
- More than the first few hours of life
- They do respond to it
Swine castration procedure
- Two horizontal or two vertical incisions over the testes
- They try to do it closed
- Either hold them or cut them or emasculate them
- Typically done pretty rapidly
Immunocastration
- ~10 and 4 weeks prior to slaughter
- Anti-GNRH antibody vaccine
- Has to be given twice
- Not in the US yet
Ruminant urolithiasis
- More stones in intact camelids than small ruminants
- Individual animal related, including humans
- Propensity to develop stones in the bladder
- Balance of mucopolysaccharides and other factors
- Overall urine is supersaturated
- High calcium and high magnesium diets; access to water
- Any small ruminant presenting to the emergency service should be suspected of having a stone until proven otherwise
Sites of enlodgement for calves?
- Sigmoid flexure
Sites of enlodgement for lambs and goats?
- Urethral process, sigmoid flexure
How to treat stones in the urethral process?
- If it’s JUST in the urethral process, you can just cut it off
Possible medical management for sigmoid flexure stones
- Acepromazine to relax
- Flunixin or meloxicam
- Emergency situation, so not always possible to do medical management
Urethrotomy procedure
- May dislodge with sound or retrograde flushing
- Calculi snare or alligator crush and break down
- Cut down on sigmoid
- Remove calculi
- Leave open wound to drain and heal
Perineal urethrostomy
- Epidural anesthesia
- Go proximal to sigmoid flexure midway between anus and scrotum
- Incision down on midline and pull the penis out
- Free up penis
- Can pull distal penis out from preputial attachments
- Cut penis so 4-5” out of incision - avoid dorsal artery
- Suture penis to skin without clipping it - leave 1” of penis exposed
- One or two large horizontal mattress sutures ( trying to include the corpus cavernosum to negate the bleeding
- Close up skin
- Slit urethra and spatulate if desired
- May leave catheter in for 1-2 days
- Prefer to go too long than too short
Some drawbacks of perineal urethrostomy
- If it’s a breeding male, that doesn’t work
- Also you cannot visualize the bladder to make sure that it’s intact
Complications of urolithiasis
- urethral rupture either inside or outside of the body
- Irreversible kidney damage
What to do if the urethra ruptures under the skin?
- Do a fasciotomy and let heal by second intention
Tube cystotomy advantages
- Gives you the best view of the urinary system
- Allows you to visualize the urinary bladder and see if it’s still viable
- Diverting urine flow away from the urethra until it relaxes
Tube cystotomy disadvantages
- Expensive ($1500)
Approach for tube cystotomy
- Side of the prepuce
Blue bladder
- When the detrusor muscles get distracted by the bladder being distended, it can stay distended
- It will look blue and atonic
- Definitely not treatable
Tube cystotomy procedure
- Pre op with flunixin meglumine and appropriate antibiotic
- General anesthesia with dorsal recumbency for ventral abdominal approach
- 8-10 cm paramedian incision
- Aspirate free fluid if present
- Stay sutures into bladder near the apex
- Isolate bladder with sterile laparotomy spunges
- 2-4 cm cystotomy near apex of the bladder, lavage with sterile saline
- Carefully aspirate all material in bladder with attention to trigone
- Normograde or retrograde flushing not routine
- Close bladder with double inverting layers and any rents in the bladder with Ethicon or Monocryl 0 to 2-0 suture
- Place a purse string near apex of ventrolateral aspect
- Make a stab incision 4-10 cm lateral to the paramedian incision and thread an 18-20 Fr Foley or Mushroom tip catheter through into the abdomen
- Stab incision in center of purse string suture in bladder and thread Foley or Mushroom tip catheter into bladder, tighten purse string suture and fill Foley balloon with saline
- Bladder is pulled via the catheter close to the abdominal wall and the catheter is secured to the skin with a Chinese finger trap suture. Catheter may be coiled and sutured to skin. Goats will definitely chew catheters off - be careful post op.
- Close abdomen
Post op care for Tube Cystotomy
- NSAID and antibiotics
- Acepromazine to promote urethral relaxation
- Starting around day 5-7 start occluding the catheter and allow bladder to fill. On average in those cases that respond top the surgery most have urethral urination by day 11 +/- 8 days.
- When animal is comfortable for 24-48 hours with catheter occluded, deflate and remove.
What causes penile papillomas?
- Bovine papilloma virus
Complications of penile papillomas
- Cannot breed
- Paraphimosis (stuck out)
- Occlusion of the urethra
- Dorsal nerve of the penis runs dorsal; for breeding animal not ideal if you have to remove it because they will lose the ability to ejaculate
Anesthesia for penile papilloma
- Sensitive place to be operating
- They do in a squeeze chute
- Block with penicillin and lidocaine in a ring block around the penis
- Have someone act like a human tourniquet
Things to avoid doing for penile papilloma removal surgery
- Do not enter the urethra
- Avoid the dorsal surface of the penis, which will make ejaculating difficult
Electrosurgery for penile papilloma removal
- Hyfrecator
- Cauterize the tissue
- Often heal up quite nicely
Reasons for docking
- Fly strike prevention/hygiene for high grain diet (This is the #1 reason)
- Increased breeding efficiency
- Monitoring for lambing
Fly strike prevention/hygiene
Lush pasture, internal parasites = diarrhea and feces caught on long tail
Increased breeding efficiency
- Long tails on ewes adversely affect reproductive behavior?
Monitoring for lambing
- Better view of perineum to observe signs
- Easier to assist
Reasons against docking
- Fly strike not an issue for all flocks
- Humane treatment (painful; usually no anesthetic)
- complications
- No difference in growth rate and mortality between docked and undocked siblings
Potential complications for tail docking in sheep
- Sepsis
- Rectal prolapse
- Vulvar squamous cell carcinoma
How many coccygeal vertebrae do some places recommend that you leave for docking to be safe?
- 3 full coccygeal vertebrae
Docking methods
- Direct amputation
- Ischemic necrosis
Direct amputation methods
- Electrocautery, hot chisel, Burdizzo clamp, Emasculator, Blade amputation
Ischemic necrosis method
- Elastrator band
Anesthesia for tail docking
- Up to you if you’re going to block it
- Doesn’t take that long to do it, but you may just be consulting
- Can be effective but have to fall within parameters
Where to dock lambs’ tails?
- Distal end of caudal tail fold or longer
Advantages of direct amputation with hot iron
- He likes it
- Less hemorrhage
- Quick process to complete
- Takes a second or two
- Cauterizes and amputates
Disadvantages of hot iron direct amputation
- can burn vulva, anus, or perineal skin (if not careful)
- Tissues slower to heal
- Burning wool –> odor –> ewe may reject lamb
Direct amputation with crushing overview
- Simultaneously crushes tissues and cuts distal to crush site
- Crushing thought to cut nerve supply and have less pain
- “bloodless” method
- Crushing thought to cut nerve supply and have less pain
Direct amputation with crushing advantages
- Easy to use
- Can be used if electricity not available
Direct amputation with crushing disadvantages
- Possible increased risk for osteomyelitis
Elastrator bands advantages
- Quicker and easier than surgical amputations
- May be more reliable than bloodless methods (Burdizzo)
Elastrator bands disadvantages
- Vessels occluded by nerves intact - pain may persist for up to 2 hours
- Tetanus as sequela so vaccine status important
Detail device
- Standardized measuring device
- Place under tail, endplate against perineum
- Marks at 0.7” and 1.4”
- 0.7” is minimum standard for approval to show
Age for tail docking
- Young lambs usually 1st 2 weeks of life
- Not within 1st 24 hours - stress will affect colostrum consumption and absorption
- Recommended 2 days to 2 weeks
Length to dock
- Still controversial
Teat anatomy
- Make sure you know it
Teat amputation procedure
- Burdizzo to clamp at the base of the teat o cut it off
- Apply the Burdizzo and take a blade to it
Anesthesia for teat amputation
- Ring block of lidocaine
Physiologic mastectomy
- Ligation of external pudendal artery
- Negates blood supply to one side of the udder
Mastectomy what species mostly?
- Primarily small ruminants if you’re doing a complete mastectomy
What is very important for teat surgery?
- Asepsis!
General procedure for teat invasion
- Milk several squirts from the teat
- Surgical scrub to teat and teat end
- Dry
- 70% alcohol to teat end
- Glycerized iodine or teat dip
Why would you section a teat sphincter?
- Hard milker (both congenital and acquired)
Methods for sectioning a teat sphincter
- Dilators
- Surgical
What to do for leaky teats?
- Inject counter-irritants
Teat tumor and obstruction what is it usually?
- Fibrotic tissue inhibiting milking
Where are teat “tumors” and obstructions usually?
- Distal 1/3 of teat
How to fix teat “tumor”?
- similar for teat polyps
