Wound Care Naturally
Goats are notorious for getting into trouble and Birdie managed to slice her leg open terribly on a rusty nail that she found when she was in an area we usually do not have the goats. We found her shortly after it happened with a tendon severed, a lot of blood and a very ugly gash that was about 4" long. We unfortunately had more vet bills already this year than we'd had for over a decade, and really could not afford to take another goat in as I knew this wound would cost hundreds of dollars at our vet... Plus, I have seen herbs work incredibly well in healing serious wounds, so trusted that we could heal her ourselves. My biggest fear for her was infection and possibly tetanus (however, being an open wound rather than puncture and applying tea tree immediately, I wasn't too worried about the tetanus possibility). As of this writing, we are 32 days after the cut and she is doing AMAZINGLY well. She walks like nothing ever happened to her and the wound is almost completely healed! Will update this page once it is 100% healed.
Day 1 Day 11 Day 32
I will document here what we did for Birdie as well as photos to show her progression.
Here are some of the products we used:
- Essential Oils
- Tea Tree essential oil (also called melaleuca) (killing tetanus and infection)
- Oregano (antibiotic and antibacterial) Gave 1 drop in 5cc olive oil 3x/day orally to prevent infection
- Lemongrass (for mending tendons)
- Helichrysum (healing)
- Thieves (antibacterial etc.)
- Lavender (on wound and also on ears during bandage change to help calm her)
- Restora Life Minerals products
- LiquaLife (a human mineral supplement that an Amish fellow told us stops infection when applied to an open wound)
- VitaTone
- Tea made with Comfrey leaf (healing), yarrow (healing/mending and stop bleeding) plantain (drawing), clover (cleansing), nettle (helpful for blood loss). Kept this out free choice for the first 4 or 5 days until the big batch I made was gone
- Colloidal Silver
- Fresh Comfrey leaves and yarrow leaves to eat
- Manuka honey (topically)
- Dr. Paul Products
- CEG (Cayenne, Echinacea & Garlic)
- AloeC (aloe vera juice with vit C)
- Fir Meadow products:
- Wounderful! Salve
- HerBiotic Salve
- Herbiotic
- BetterDaze
- MMune
Day 1 - wounded around noon. Hard to photograph because of the blood and bright light. What you can't see here is the end of the cut. It started above and on the outside of the knee and wrapped around and down to the inside of the knee.
First sprayed with tea tree (melaleuca) oil
Bandaged with a poultice of fresh comfrey, yarrow and plantain chopped in blender with manuka honey, liqualife, tea tree oil and Wounderful salve, small amount of cayenne. Placed herb blend on papertowel and wrapped onto her leg with vet wrap.
When we laid her down to put the poultice on, she thrashed and caused the wound to begin bleeding profusely, so was not able to pull it together as well a I would have liked as we had to just wrap it quickly to stop the bleeding.
Orally gave:
- Vitatone
- Aloe C
- Comfrey, yarrow, nettle clover tea
- Oregano oil (1 drop in 5cc oo)
Also gave fresh comfrey and yarrow to eat (and grass) and tea of comfrey, yarrow, nettle, clover, plantain to drink free choice.
Day 2
Gave Vitatone and tea in syringe
Noonish gave
1pm ish
Removed bandage and soaked for 3 minutes in warm Epsom salts
(later learned that Epsom salts were not the best idea).
Sprayed with: lemongrass, tea tree, lavender, thieves, in
Poultice of fresh comfrey, yarrow and plantain chopped in
blender with manuka honey, liqualife, and above oils
Thankfully did not begin severe bleeding again, but was
obviously painful. Swelling wasn’t actually too bad although above the
bandage was puffy. It was very painful (the exposed tendon was
especially tender/sensitive). She kicked and fought hard at times.
Took all my husband’s strength (ad he's strong) and my brother and
sister helping to hold her still for me.
Oregano oil orally 3pm
4:30
- 3-5cc CEG
- 1tsp Colloidal silver
- 10cc VitaTone
- 10 cc Aloe C
- Several fresh Comfrey leaves
Repeat above at 7 or 8 and then right before bed gave it again plus oregano oil
Day 3
Upon arising:
- 3-5cc CEG
- 1tsp Colloidal silver
- 10cc VitaTone
- 10 cc Aloe C
- Several fresh Comfrey leaves
10am - Oregano oil. Comfrey and yarrow leaves
1pm
- 3-5cc CEG
- 1tsp Colloidal silver
- 10cc VitaTone
- 10 cc Aloe C
- Several fresh Comfrey leaves
Took temp - 102.6 Good!
4pm
Remove bandage
Spray wound with essential oil blend (5 drops each peppermint,
lemongrass, thieves, tea tree in 1 oz olive oil)
Coat with Wounderful salve and then poultice of fresh comfrey,
yarrow and plantain chopped in blender with manuka honey, LiquaLife. Gave probios too
7pm
- 3-5cc CEG
- 1tsp Colloidal silver
- 10cc VitaTone
- 10 cc Aloe C
Before bed
Day 4 (Sunday, so not home for the late morning and afternoon) Same as day 3 except for nothing between 10am and 6pm
Day 5 - same treatments as day 3.
Very perky, walking outside with a fair amount of weight on leg, belly not as full as yesteday, but good appetite.
When changing bandage, had to dig out some of the herbs from the wound - probably a 1/2 inch deep next to the tendon. Still very tender, sensitive and painful.
Day 6
Repeat previous day of oral administrations except Colloidal
Silver - she did drink her tea this day
HUGE thunderstorms all day
When we took her wrap off, we let her walk around the shed for
a while as it was a downpour with big hail outside and we didn’t want
the sound to scare her while we pinned her for replacing the bandage
She licked her wound a lot after removal of the bandage - it
was pretty itchy
Sprayed down with essential oils and then packed with
wounderful salve (no additional herbs) and rebandaged
Day 7 - same treatment as day 6
Day 8
Oral treatments from previous repeated except missed one of the oregano doses
Removed bandage for a few hours around noon and then put pantyhose to keep flies off. (didn't work too well as it stuck and then bled a little when removed at night) Sprayed with essential oil mix.
Replaced bandage around 8:30. Sprayed with essential oil mix and then a small amount of Wounderful salve before wrapping with gauze.
Day 9 (Friday, May 19th, 2017)
Fir Meadow Order arrived, so started a new regimen...
Time | Treatment | |
Upon arising | 7am | Herb mix |
After feeding kids | 10am | Oregano oil, Fresh comfrey/yarrow/grass |
Before lunch | 1pm | Herb mix |
Afternoon | 4pm | Oregano oil Fresh comfrey/yarrow/grass |
Evening | Replace bandage & give Probios | |
Before milking | 7pm | Herb mix |
Before bed | 10pm | Oregano Oil |
'Herb Mix'
- 20cc VitaTone
- 20cc AloeC
- 1tsp HerBiotic
- 1/2tsp BetterDaze
- 1/2 tspM-Mune
- 10cc Comfrey root tea
Oregano oil (1 drop in 5cc olive oil given 3x/day)
Fresh Comfrey (2 leaves each time) and handful of yarrow and grass
Bandage procedure
- a little lavender oil on the ears/temples (helped keep her calm - she LOVED it!)
- remove old bandage
- Let her lick wound if she wants
- Spray with colloidal silver and let dry
- Spray with essential oil mix (recipe below)
- Spread mix of Wounderful Salve and HerBiotic salve (premixed 50:50) on wound
- Placed paper towel (folded in half) over wound and wrapped with gauze - took gauze over shoulders and tied around other leg to keep it in place
- Taped top and bottom of wounded leg bandage
- Give Probios
Essential oil mix used at this point:
- 10 drops Thieves oil
- 10 drops Helichrysum
- 10 drops Lavender
- 10 drops Melaleuca
- 10 drops Lemongrass
- in 10oz Olive Oil
Kept this up for the next 11 days (Day 9-20). INCREDIBLE progress. See pictures.
Day 11
Wound looked bad - rotty smell and pus on lower left hand corner. Held her down (took 3 adults) and dug it all out. Saturated with colloidal silver and then let her clean it off again. Drenched in oils. Slathered in salve and rewrapped. And prayer!
Day 12
Day 13
Day 18
Day 20 - flesh largely closed up except for around the tendon. Stopped the oregano oil as infection risk largely gone.
Day 23
Decided it was staying too moist with the salves now, so experimented with leaving bandage off and just spraying with the essential oil blend 2-3x/day. Also cut back on the herbs.
Day 32 - flesh all closed up and skin grown over except for a 1/4" area of tendon. Hair starting to grow on new skin. Pretty much no swelling at all. Treatment for the last week or so was just occasional spraying of the essential oils on the wound. Comfrey leaves still offered, but none of the drenching every three hours!