# Baby goat with bad scours



## Frankie25 (Dec 28, 2017)

Hi everyone. I have a baby goat that is 2 weeks old,  from what I was told she was one of triplets and mom died 24 hours after delivering. Since then, the little one has been supplemented with manna pro brand kid milk replacer, she is being fed 3 ounces every 4 hours but not through the night. She has not had normal stools since I've had her. She is supposed to be a alpine/nubian cross and weighs 4.7 pounds. Her stool is always loose but recently has become watery diarrhea, looks to be green. She is doing okay, good appetite but I'm trying to stay on top of her electrolyte loss. She had a fecal done and they said they didn't see anything. She is also getting kaolin a few times a day, usually 3 mls. I have been told to give her cows milk from the store but then also told not to switch her feed because it will make it worse. She also has access to coastal hay. I'm not sure what else to do for her scours, but it seems to be getting worse.


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## Hens and Roos (Dec 28, 2017)

Welcome , sorry to hear of the troubles.  You could slowly switch her from the milk replacer to whole milk going very slowly(across 4-5 days) until she is getting just the whole milk.  Have you taken her temperature to see if she is running a fever?(normal range 101 to 103) depending on where you are located.

@Southern by choice @Goat Whisperer @babsbag @OneFineAcre


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## Frankie25 (Dec 28, 2017)

Hens and Roos said:


> Welcome , sorry to hear of the troubles.  You could slowly switch her from the milk replacer to whole milk going very slowly(across 4-5 days) until she is getting just the whole milk.  Have you taken her temperature to see if she is running a fever?(normal range 101 to 103) depending on where you are located.
> 
> @Southern by choice @Goat Whisperer @babsbag @OneFineAcre



Hi! I have not checked her temp, I will go get a thermometer for her today and check it. Thank you! You think I should go ahead and try and switch her to the whole cows milk?


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## Hens and Roos (Dec 28, 2017)

Do you know if she got colostrum from the doe?  It's good that you had a fecal run to see if she had anything going on.

If she was ours I would, I think I would start with 1/2 ounce whole milk to 2.5 ounces of replacer per feeding for 24 hours and see how she does.

Not sure where you are located weather wise but if you can keep her clean/dry and warm that helps too.

Hopefully some of the others tagged will stop by and give some input as they have had goats longer then us.


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## Frankie25 (Dec 28, 2017)

Hens and Roos said:


> Do you know if she got colostrum from the doe?  It's good that you had a fecal run to see if she had anything going on.
> 
> If she was ours I would, I think I would start with 1/2 ounce whole milk to 2.5 ounces of replacer per feeding for 24 hours and see how she does.
> 
> ...



Okay! Thank You! I'm still so new to this! I was told she did get colostrum and that they also did colostrum from the feed store in case she didn't get enough from mom before she died. And I'll work on switching her over, I'll start on her next feeding. Thank you so, so much. 
And we are in Florida and it's cold right now but she's being kept inside in a crate with a heating pad under half. And she has shaving for bedding that I'm changing out 1-2 times a day.


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## Hens and Roos (Dec 28, 2017)

Good to hear on the colostrum! Hopefully she will start feeling better soon for you. Sounds like you are doing a good job to get her feeling better.   Does she or will she have a goat buddy to hang out with?  Goats do best with another goat.


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## Frankie25 (Dec 28, 2017)

Hens and Roos said:


> Good to hear on the colostrum! Hopefully she will start feeling better soon for you. Sounds like you are doing a good job to get her feeling better.   Does she or will she have a goat buddy to hang out with?  Goats do best with another goat.



Thank you! And she would have a buddy once she is well, but concern there is he is older than her by about 4 weeks and when we had them together for the first few days he was being quite mean to her, bullying her, kicking her with his front feet and shoving her away from the hay. He also tried mounting her often, there's a big size difference in the two so we went ahead and seperated her for fear of her being injured. They also have a guard donkey with them (except she's inside right now, does come out to play but primarily crated) 

Here's the little girl with scours with my dog


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## Frankie25 (Dec 28, 2017)

Frankie25 said:


> Thank you! And she would have a buddy once she is well, but concern there is he is older than her by about 4 weeks and when we had them together for the first few days he was being quite mean to her, bullying her, kicking her with his front feet and shoving her away from the hay. He also tried mounting her often, there's a big size difference in the two so we went ahead and seperated her for fear of her being injured. They also have a guard donkey with them (except she's inside right now, does come out to play but primarily crated)
> 
> Here's the little girl with scours with my dog



Here's the male with donkey shoeing size difference


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## Southern by choice (Dec 28, 2017)

Switching to whole cow's milk from the grocery is better. We had to switch a couple of goats before and we did all at once, which is not the right way exactly but we felt it was better then what we were dealing with.



Frankie25 said:


> 2 weeks old





Frankie25 said:


> 3 ounces every 4 hours but not through the night.





Frankie25 said:


> alpine/nubian cross and weighs 4.7 pounds.





Frankie25 said:


> She has not had normal stools since I've had her.





Frankie25 said:


> Her stool is always loose but recently has become watery diarrhea, looks to be green.



She is very small for a alpine/nubian cross, but it may be she was the smallest of triplets...
As far as feeding 3-4 oz every 4 hours is not very much. 
Does she finish all the milk at each feeding?

Of course you don't want to make a bunch of changes at once... so start with the change of milk first, then I would start giving 8 oz 3x day, no overnight. You are not really increasing feed at this point but you want to see what she will actually eat. If she finishes the 8 oz increase to 9 oz and so on. 

Baby goats have stages of what their poop is suppose to be like, the dark black tar like meconium....usually 2 days... then yellow soft colostrum poo which advances to yellow more pelleted form... from there it progresses to normal berries.
The replacer causes a lot of goats to have nasty poo.

I attached a link - it is all about kid goat poop.  It may be helpful.

http://goat-link.com/content/view/46/27/#.WkUf1N-nGUk

As far as the doe and buck... if the buck is 8 weeks then it is time to castrate him. You do not want does and intact bucks to be living together.
A buck is a buck at any age and he will harass her (mounting etc) as long as he is intact.


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## Frankie25 (Dec 28, 2017)

Southern by choice said:


> Switching to whole cow's milk from the grocery is better. We had to switch a couple of goats before and we did all at once, which is not the right way exactly but we felt it was better then what we were dealing with.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Okay. Got it. Thank you. Are you thinking I should straight up switch the milk to whole cows milk and not do it gradually? And she devouers the 3 ounces in less then a minute. Always seems hungry but I was told to feed her 3 ounces per 5 pounds, she's only 4.7 pounds but I'm clearly doing this all wrong. The people she came from said to feed the 3 ounces per 5 pounds every 4 hours saying if I fed her too much I would give her scours. The male is still on a bottle but he's doing great and has nice, normal pellet poop. Thank you for your help


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## Frankie25 (Dec 28, 2017)

Some days she is very bubbly and active even with the scours but other days she seems lethargic


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## babsbag (Dec 28, 2017)

It sounds like you have a good plan and getting the fecal done was excellent, many people don't bother. I would switch her to cow's milk and doing it gradually is the best plan and it shouldn't take long to switch since she isn't eating much. Once you get the scours sorted out I would just put more milk in her  bottle and let her tell you when she is full, within reason of course.  

If the scours don't stop then you need to talk to your vet about a bacterial infection such as ecoli or salmonella. I had a set of triplets born in the mud on a nasty night, mom died a two weeks later and all of the kids got scours. Ended up treating them with SpectoGard Scour-Check and it cleared it up. The kids didn't act particularly sick, just not as bouncy as their herd mates. 

Please let us know how she does and welcome to BYH.


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## Southern by choice (Dec 28, 2017)

Frankie25 said:


> Some days she is very bubbly and active even with the scours but other days she seems lethargic



And there is the catch... hmmm is she lethargic because there is a gut issue? Is she lethargic because she isn't getting enough food?

I understand the first few days of feeding every 4 hours. We raise Nigerian Dwarfs, Miniature Lamanchas & Mini Nubians, and Standrad Lamanchas, Nubians. So we have all different weights and sizes and really go by the individual goat from birth. Not easy with 30 or so kids but usually by a week old we have transitioned them to 3x day except teeny tiny goats that may have come from quads and are only 2lbs.
We have had 4 lb goats take 8 oz right out of the chute so to speak. We are careful in those first week/2 weeks so they don't overeat but our rule of thumb is if they are good, no issues etc then we give them as much as they want at the am feeding which they generally take a lot down. Lunch they may take a bit less... and evening they usually take more like a morning feed. Usually it is 8 am, 3pm, 10 pm feedings.

I can say it is not uncommon that often goat kids are underfed on the bottle. NOT saying this is your case or you are doing this... sounds like you are on top of things. Just often here on BYH a newbie to bottle feeding will lose a kid because they were basically starving. Again, not saying this is your situation but it can be difficult to adjust when this is a new experience. Sounds like you are doing a great job.

As far as whether to slow go the transfer... usually I'd say yes, but because we have had a similar experience years ago we did cold turkey and in our case it worked and had a great outcome... go with your gut... 

Meanwhile you may want to consider adding some powder probiotics to the bottle and see if this helps as well.

...and welcome to BYH! 

The goats are really cute. They sure are fun aren't they!


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## Frankie25 (Dec 28, 2017)

Thank you so much everyone! I really appreciate it,  I'm so new to this and just want to do what's right for her.


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