# 3 day old with scours



## aaarriv (Sep 26, 2010)

We had our first kids born here Wed night, she had three healthy little does  The smallest this morning has yellow runny poo all over her backside. We got the doe three weeks ago (the owner said she MIGHT be pregnant, ha) And I know that the woman we got her from did not give her a CDT shot while she was pregnant. I gave them all Probios paste this morning. It seems like everything I've read suggests replacing a bottle with electrolytes and weird mixtures. But our babies are being raised by their dam. I should also add, the little doeling  still has tons of energy and is still nursing fine. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!


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## glenolam (Sep 27, 2010)

Yellow poop is absolutely fine!  It's what kids usually have for the first few days or so.

You don't have to replace anything or worry about probios if everyone is nursing and healthy.  Your doe will take care of that for you.

Congratulations on your new doelings and have fun!


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## lilhill (Sep 27, 2010)

glenolam said:
			
		

> Yellow poop is absolutely fine!  It's what kids usually have for the first few days or so.
> 
> You don't have to replace anything or worry about probios if everyone is nursing and healthy.  Your doe will take care of that for you.
> 
> Congratulations on your new doelings and have fun!


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## mistee (Sep 27, 2010)

yup all  normal,, good job keeping an eye out on your new little ones


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## cmjust0 (Sep 27, 2010)

_Yellow poop_ is fine.  _*Runny* yellow poop _-- eh.  It happens, and it may very well be nothing.  And by "nothing," I mean she may have overeaten milk or something like that.  Or, it could be the beginning of a little bacterial gut infection..  Who knows?

I'd definitely keep an eye on the kiddo.  If her overall status starts to deteriorate, or if the scour isn't clearing up in a few days, I'd start looking to do _something.._

Something could be pepto...baking soda...scour-halt...it all just depends on what happens.


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## aaarriv (Sep 27, 2010)

Thank you for your replies. It just freaked me out because it was ALL over her backend, running down her legs and everything. I cleaned her up, and since then she it hasn't seemed to come back, unless Momma's cleaning it up. She's also the one that seemed to nibble on hay and grain right away, maybe that had something to do with it? I'll keep an eye on her, but she looks fine as of now.


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## aaarriv (Sep 27, 2010)

So, I was gone for a few hours today and when I got back she was all dirty again. Which is fine, I'll just watch her really closely. BUT it looks really sore, it's slightly swollen and when I tried to clean it off a little she acted like it hurt. Any suggestions to help her sore bum?


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## mistee (Sep 27, 2010)

i never had runny yellow poo.. i had some on backside and legs but nothing runny just a bit messy...Is she nursing?


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## aaarriv (Sep 28, 2010)

Yes, she is still nursing fine and running around playing. It seems to not be so runny anymore, still messy but not runny. But when I was out there tonight her sister had poop stuck to her side with a little bit of blood in it. I'm not 100% sure it was from the one with runny poop but there's a good chance. From what I've read it says kids under a week aren't at risk of coccidia because they're not mouthing things yet, but she definatly is. And I know their mom was not vaccinated while she was pregnant. Should I take a fecal into the vet? I can take one in tomorrow if I need to (it's about an hour drive though) Or would it be bad to just treat her for it and see if it helps?


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## mistee (Sep 28, 2010)

Can you call the vet and describe symptoms and see what he has to say?

I had a kid die at a few days old cause he kept stuffing straw down his throat.. I would pull it out then a few hours later he was choking on straw again.. I never had a kid do that! When I got up the following morning he was dead and when looking his throat was stuffed full w/ straw...... I have been breeding for 5 years and that was a first..


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## glenolam (Sep 28, 2010)

I agree with Mistee - call the vet before you drive an hour.

Can you separate her in a pen (with a mate if possible) that's basically empty so she can't get into anything?  If she's already testing out food there's a good chance she's trying out everything....even stuff that may be poisonous.


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## cmjust0 (Sep 28, 2010)

I'm thinking this is either acidosis or it's bacterial enteritis..  

As for the acidosis, it may seem like if you drank a bunch of milk, you'd go alkaline -- not acidic..  However, milk in the belly of a mammal pretty much seperates into curds and whey and turns to cheese on the spot.  Afterall, it's really no coincidence that we use rennet derived from a calf's stomach and have to keep everything at a temperature approximating that of a mammal's normal body temp in order to make cheese from milk...our cheese pots are simply reproducing the stomach conditions of a mammal.

Anyway...cheese, buttermilk, sour cream -- most processed and/or fermented milk products -- are acidic, so it's very possible for the lil gal to have acidosis from drinking milk.  

If I suspected that rather than bacterial enteritis, I'd personally drench her with baking soda and perhaps hold her off the teat for a few hours to kinda let the alkaline stuff move through her system..

As for bacterial enteritis, I say that because even if the kid *is* mouthing stuff, I wouldn't jump straight to coccidiosis...  A kid of just a few days old simply doesn't seem like a coccidiosis candidate to me.  I'm not sure what the life cycle is for coccidia, but I'm fairly certain it's longer than 3 days.  

So, I'd be thinking along the lines of bacterial enteritis and not coccidiosis, personally.  Like, and E.coli infection, or something like that.  Anybody who's ever had food poisoning -- _true_ food poisoning, complete with fever, chills, etc -- knows how fast a case of bacterial enteritis can pop up.  

If that's suspected, I'd probably give her a few MLs of Scour-Halt or oral neomycin.  Probably around 3ml..  I'd probably give it twice a day until she stopped scouring, then once a day for a total of about 5 days.

And, yes, you can usually get either one at TSC..    They should at least have one of the two..  My personal preference is Scour-Halt/ScourChek (they changed the brand name to 'ScourChek' a while back).  It's just an oral antibiotic called spectinomycin..  Stuff's labeled strictly for use in baby pigs, but meh...goat folk use it all the time, and it works great.

So...how do you know whether it's bacterial enteritis or simple acidosis?  I dunno...  Some type of expensive, time-consuming labwork, I assume..

What that means is that I'd probably do something like drench the kid with baking soda AND Scour-Halt, hold her off the teat for a few hours to let both move through, and repeat every 12hrs until she began to improve.  When she improved, I'd drop the baking soda and keep up the Scour-Halt just to complete the round.

That's me, though.


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## aaarriv (Sep 28, 2010)

Ok, so do you mean I'd pull her out for a few hours every time I drench her or just the first time? And she's a 3 pound Nigerian Dwarf, would I still give her 3ml scour-halt? I'll call the vet too, and see what they think. But I'll start drenching her right away. Thanks for all the help!


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## cmjust0 (Sep 28, 2010)

I forget people raise teeny goats sometimes.   With one that little, I'd probably do like 1-2ml of Scour-Halt, personally.  Bear in mind that's not "THE Nigi Newborn Dosage" of Scour-Halt...I'm just eyeballing it based on weight.  

So far as splitting her off, I'd probably do that -- if only for an hour or so -- after the drenches the first couple of times.  My thinking is that it would sorta help "front load" the treatment..  At 3lbs, she doesn't have much of a GI tract anyway, so it really shouldn't take very long for the meds to work their way through.  Maybe you drench her, then just sit her in your lap for an hour and love on her.  

By the way.....if you pick her up and kinda shake her, does her belly seem to "slosh" at all?  Just curious..


(For the ol' timers...no, I don't suspect FKS here per se, but I do believe that metabolic acidosis is the most critical component of FKS.  Metabolic acidosis has to start somewhere, and the only input in FKS kids is milk into the gut...you see where I'm going with this, I'm sure.  What I'm trying to determine here is whether *this* scouring kid sloshes like an acidotic FKS kid, because if she does, my thinking is that it might help us in distinguishing milk acidosis from something...else?...in the future.  Maybe.  I dunno.  Mostly, I'm just curious.  )


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## aaarriv (Sep 28, 2010)

Well, I drenched her with Scour-Halt and Baking Soda. My daughter is sitting with her now, and I'll take her back out to Momma in a bit. I hope this helps, thanks again for all your help.


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## cmjust0 (Sep 28, 2010)

Good luck..  Keep us posted!


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## aaarriv (Sep 28, 2010)

Oh, I forgot to add... No, her belly doesn't slosh at all.


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## cmjust0 (Sep 28, 2010)

aaarriv said:
			
		

> Oh, I forgot to add... No, her belly doesn't slosh at all.


Ok.  Just curious.


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