# HELP- 7 week old Pygmy with diarrhea- vet closed



## jinxremoving (Jun 8, 2014)

I hope someone can help me... I've got a baby goat with diarrhea, I'm a first time goat owner, it's Sunday so the vet and the feed stores are closed. I've put a call in to the vet and am hoping for a callback, but in the meantime my treatment options are limited to at home remedies or goat-safe OTC human meds.

She is 7 weeks old, weighs 6 lbs. She eats Advance multi-species milk replacer (8 oz 3x daily, this is per the woman I purchased her from). She has always been bottle fed, and always eaten this particular replacer. Her poo has been soft (sort of like soft serve ice cream that could be just a bit colder) since we got her 2 weeks ago, which I was told isn't really abnormal when they are still on the bottle, but overnight she has turned runny (all over her butt and legs).

Potentially relevant info (not sure what is or isn't):

she has not been wormed to the best of my knowledge. I have a dewormer (covexin) in the fridge for her but have read conflicting info as to whether I should give it to her while she's runny.

They have dry hay and fresh water- I feed her no grain but she picks and grazes on grass/leaves/weeds and it has been very wet here- raining almost daily for the last week

I do not have any goat/livestock specific meds, but I will purchase anything available OTC at the drugstore as a stop gap until the vet opens tomorrow.


*Of note is that she has a buddy goat who is FINE. He's about twice her size at 13 lbs and his poops are hard little pellets. He has never been on a bottle. I was told when I bought them that they were siblings from the same litter but she was runty and rejected by mama goat. it seems odd to me that there's such a huge discrepancy developmentally between the 2 of them so I really don't know if I believe that they are the same age. So I'll put his age as unknown but definitely not an adult.


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## Melanie (Jun 8, 2014)

Does the doeling have a temp?
If your other goat is also 7 weeks he really still needs to be bottle fed. This will be much more difficult because he was dam raised.
They are both old enough to be on grain, but hold off on the doeling until she has normal poop.  
Is she still eating and acting herself?
If she has a high worm load she will have pale eyelids.  Gently pull her eyelid out and check the color.
Also if he is not wethered he can get her pregnant.  She should not be bred until she is at least 1 year old.


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## jinxremoving (Jun 9, 2014)

Hi Melanie- thanks for your reply. I don't have a thermometer for them but will be picking one up after work today. She is still eating like a piglet and her energy level is good. My goat vet did get back to me yesterday afternoon and had me give her a sub-q shot of penicillin and a dose of dewormer i had on hand. on his advise i also gave her on kaopectate and added probiotics to her bottle, as of this morning she still has diarhhea  . Sending my husband to get her some pedialyte ASAP. I've got another call in to the vet to see if I should try and treat her for cocci or try to switch her from the milk replacer to whole milk, or both... I've seen so many suggestions, I'm just not sure which direction to go...

I talked to the vet about Eli (the boy goat) and he thinks he is definitely older than she is. Who knows why I was told otherwise, people are weird... He is banded and his little bits are shriveling up, so her virtue should remain intact . She's my pet, I don't plan on ever breeding her.

I'll call home and have her eyelids checked, thanks so much for the suggestion...


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## Melanie (Jun 9, 2014)

I am sorry she is not feeling well still, but it is a great sign that she is still being a piglet.  I think your vet has covered all the areas.  My older doeling has had clumpy poop and it ended up being cocci and worms.  I always check temp, which for my doeling was normal and she also was acting normal so I had the vet run a fecal so I could address the problem appropriately.  I have never bottle fed but I have read many suggestions to withhold the milk or replacer until the kid stops having diarrhea.  I have read to offer electrolytes instead of milk and you should also offer hay.  You may want to ask your vet if this is a good idea.  If you do end up withholding milk, when her poop returns to normal you need to start the milk slowly so her tummy does not get upset again.  I hope she feels better soon.


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