# persistant illness -update post 7



## treeclimber233 (Nov 22, 2011)

Last July I had two does get sick with direaha.  I lost both does very quickly.I called the vet but it was too late for them.  When another one showed the same symptoms I called the vet again.  He did not really diagnose any specific illness -- just digestive upset.  He gave me some ceftiflex.  Told me to administer once a day for 5 days.  After I did this my goat (and others that came down with "it")seemed all better.  However in a few weeks one showed symptoms again.  5 more days of shots.  Later she came down with it again.  5 more shots.  She eventually died.  Now 2 months later another one is sick again with the same symptoms.  My question is why does it keep coming back?  One doe and her doeling never got it and my buck never got it.  I am wondering if giving 2 shots a day will help or if it will overdose her.  Any thoughts????


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## cmjust0 (Nov 22, 2011)

Can you sorta describe the scour to us?  As in, the color, consistency, frequency..?  Also, how is the goat acting?

I ask because it's usually helpful in narrowing down potential causes..  For instance, if it's a green scour and the goat seems fine, it's usually dietary and no big deal at all, whereas if the scour is like dirty yellow water, maybe with some blood or shreds of gut lining, I'd generally go with something bacterial like ecoli or salmonella..  Black or very dark, coccidia -- unless you've given pepto, because pepto can cause black stool..  Persistent dog logs w/ episodes of brown pudding poo and the goat seems OK, I usually think something like mild coccidia or possibly some type of gutworm..  

If you're really, really concerned that you're not going to have enough time to pin this down to something specific, you might consider a shotgun approach..  Some people cringe, but...well, vets do it all the time, its worked many times for me, and I'd just frankly rather have a live goat and the stigma of a shotgunner than to have a dead goat and the moral victory of resisting the urge to shotgun..

Anyway..  My shotgun for a dangerous scour is:

ML-class dewormer -- cydectin or ivomec, oral
BZ-class dewormer -- safeguard or valbazen, oral, 1x/day for 3 days
oral antibiotic -- scour halt or oral neomycin, repeat every 12-24hrs if scours persist.
coccidia med -- sulfadimethoxine, aka dimethox, oral. I dose at 25mg/lb of bodyweight, 1x/day, 5 days. Note -- that's 25 *milliGRAMS* per pound, *not* milliLITERS.
injectable antibiotic -- usually oxytetracycline, or sometimes Excenel/Naxcel

In addition to all that, I usually give a shot of b-vitamin as a pick-me-up, and if the animal seems weak I'll also give about a half-ounce of Red Cell (which I personally find myself increasingly using in place of Nutri-Drench these days) 1x/day for several days..  I'll also check my record books to see if they need Selenium..  If they do, or if they're reasonably close to their scheduled dose, I'll go ahead and give a shot of Bo-Se..

Seems like a lot, and it is, but I've found it to be very effective and a whole lot less worrisome than trying to nail something down with time running out.


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## treeclimber233 (Nov 22, 2011)

The direaha is a dark brown and is covering her back end.  She is not eating much at all and losing weight.  She has been wormed several times.  First with a horse wormer (not sure now which one) and later with a pour on wormer.  Her belly seems to be larger than normal and hanging.  Not tight and tucked up  like normal. Not a real good discription.  The area under her hipbones seems sunk in/hollow.  She still seems active and alert, just not hungry.  I don't know how often she has direaha.  I have just seen some "cow pile" shaped poops and her dirty rear.  The rest of the goats still have hard bouncy poops.


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## 20kidsonhill (Nov 23, 2011)

It sounds to me like you just aren't worming her aggresively enough with the right wormers.  

I also do something similar like CM. 

why have that not have fecals done on them?  did I miss that somewhere in the reading?  

I would do fecal on her. 

If a fecal isn't available, then I would do safegaurd 5 days in a row at 3x the label dosage, 
followed by a stronger wormer once a week for 3 weeks, cydectin or synanthic.  Maybe ivermectin if that is all you  have.

I would give all wormers orally. 

Treat with Penn G twice a day the first couple of days then once a day at the rate of 5cc per 100lbs. 


Help settle stomach with daily doses of probiotics, I have been using the powdered goat preferred probiotic from tractor supply. 

Again these are things I do, I would highly recommend consulting with a vet and having fecals ran. 


we have also been using vitamin b shots, red cell daily while goat is recovering.


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## cmjust0 (Nov 23, 2011)

It's entirely possible that she's not been dewormed aggressively enough, but in my experience, scours are more often caused by things like dietary changes, bacterial infection, or coccidia than worms.  I usually do two kinds of dewormer to my shotgun approach to cover _the possibility_ of worms, but I also try to cover the bacteria/coccidia possibilities with something like Scour Halt and Dimethox..  Long and short, what I'm saying is that what 20kids says makes sense, and it's a good plan of attack if this is worms, but I'd *definitely* throw some Scour Halt or oral neomycin at her, and some Dimethox (or Sulmet, or SMZ-TMP, or some kind of 'sulfa drug') in case it's *not* worms.....because, again, my experience tells me it's _usually_ not worms that cause a scour.

And while I would never, ever advise that you NOT consult a vet or have them run a fecal exam, what I will say is that I've never personally gotten any value out of the results of a fecal exam..  Maybe your vet is different than my vet, but mine see the presence of worm eggs and coccidia and jump straight to that conclusion, despite the fact that pretty much any goat on pasture is going to have worm eggs and coccidia in its stool under normal, healthy circumstance..  I even once lost a doe to a bacterial gut infection that I stopped in others with a simple round of Scour Halt (oral spectinomycin, an antibiotic) a university diagnostic laboratory's fecal culture came back CLEAN on the dead doe..  They found nothing at all.  According to them, anyway..

So, ya...personally, I have zero faith in fecals.


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## sunny (Nov 23, 2011)

There is one thing the above shotgun approach can miss. If you don't use the Valbanzen, choosing the easier to get safeguard, Or you don't get the ivermectin with the "plus" for flukes. You're missing killing liver flukes, which can cause rumen upset, scours, anemia, lethargy, and death. These have been bad in my area this year with a couple different herds I know of losing several goats. 
 I don't have much faith in fecals either. They are a tool, but they only show the eggs that are being laid. They don't show the encapsulated adults or some of the flukes that can cause illness without ever laying an egg. 
 I agree that this sounds much like cocci and it can have a hit and miss effect in a herd. Some goats have more resistance to it than others. The nice thing is that you can do a sulfa(I use Albon), the scour halt, and the wormers all at the same time and cover all the bases.
 For support I would use vitamin B, Thiamin, bo.se, red cell, and probiotics. I would also offer baking soda until she was eating well again. I would take her off of all grain and just push hay until the scours were resolved.


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## treeclimber233 (Nov 25, 2011)

I just went to give my doe with direaha another shot and decided to worm her with the pour on wormer too.  When  I lifted her chin up I found a very large lump under her jaw.  She did not seem like it hurt for me to touch/put some pressure on but I was shocked to find it.  What could that be?????


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## ksalvagno (Nov 25, 2011)

If the lump is right on the jaw, then you are either looking at CL or a tooth/jaw bone abscess. I would have the vet look at that. Either way, it needs to be taken care of. Also could be bottle jaw depending on how soft the area is.


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## SmallFarmGirl (Nov 25, 2011)

Hope everything works out !!


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## honeyb12 (Nov 30, 2011)

This may be a stupid question..but what is Bo-se? I have read several people recommend this..just not sure what it is or where to get it..and is it something I should have on hand..Also i have injectable Penicillin and it says intramuscular..do u give it in the back leg muscle like u would in a dog? And what would be the dosage for an approx. 60lb goat and how accurate does the dosage need to be?


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## cmjust0 (Nov 30, 2011)

honeyb12 said:
			
		

> This may be a stupid question..but what is Bo-se? I have read several people recommend this..just not sure what it is or where to get it..and is it something I should have on hand..


Bo-Se is an injectable Selenium/Vit E supplement.  Dosage is 1ml/40lbs, SQ.  It's Rx only, so you have to get it from a vet.  If you're in a Selenium deficient area (most of us are) then yeah, it's good to keep on hand.



> Also i have injectable Penicillin and it says intramuscular..do u give it in the back leg muscle like u would in a dog?


You *can* do that, but I don't recommend it.  PenG works just fine given SQ, and can be dangerous if given IM.  If you hit a vein, it's deadly.  Plus, I've read way too many posts by people with goats dragging a hind leg because of a badly placed injection of PenG in the back leg..  Or, a badly placed injection of anything, really.  It's somewhat easy to hit a goat's sciatic nerve, and goats seem especially prone to become lame if you do hit it.

Bottom line, it's just all around better to SQ PenG to a goat.



> And what would be the dosage for an approx. 60lb goat and how accurate does the dosage need to be?


4ml, 2x/day through an 18-20ga needle.  I use the 18ga when I'm giving PenG, since the particles of the actual drug are sometimes too large to fit through a 20ga.  You can use a 20ga and puff anything too large back into the bottle, but then you end up with an 'empty' bottle with big leftover particles of med at the bottom.....which effectively means you underdosed the entire bottle, considering those should be gone when the bottle is empty.  Hope that makes sense.  

As for accuracy, I assume you mean you're concerned with your ability to guage a goat's weight -- not your ability to pull the plunger till it hits "4"..  In that case, where PenG is concerned, approximate weights are OK provided you're not WAAAAY off, and even then I'd actually be more concerned with *underdosing* than overdosing.

There are some O/D'able medications that need a fairly concise weight, though.  Bo-Se is one, actually.  I'm not saying you need a livestock scale in your barn or anything, but you do need to be proficient at estimating weight visually to ensure you don't O/D your Bo-Se.


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## treeclimber233 (Nov 30, 2011)

Update on my sick doe. Her dirreaha seems to be better.  She seems a bit more alert.  Eating a little hay.  And the swelling on her jaw is gone.  Back to the barn for more shots and Red cell.


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## treeclimber233 (Dec 4, 2011)

My doe is still sick.  I have done the Pen G. 3x, vit b shot 4-5x, red cel 7 daysl, corrid 4 days, probotics, and Quest 2x  and she still has dirreaha sqirting out all over the place. Red cell every day for 7 days and her lids are still white.  I don't know what to do now.  Nothing seems to be working. Today I pulled some grass for her and she scarfed that down. Then I offered her some pine needles and she ate a few.  She has hay all the time.  I even offered her some alfalfa pellets but she was not interested.  Any more suggestions?


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## ksalvagno (Dec 4, 2011)

Do you have a vet in your area that you can take the goat to? I sounds like you are in need of a good goat vet.

When you say you did PenG 3 times, does that mean you only did 3 shots? PenG should always be given the full course. At least 7 days in a row, twice a day.

I think I would also suggest testing for Johnes if you haven't done that already. I would also have a fecal done and find out what parasites are there. If you are finding a large parasite load after all that worming, then your parasites are immune to the wormers.


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## treeclimber233 (Dec 4, 2011)

Ok. Back to the Penn G.  I bought all my goats from clean herds so I don't think Johnes is a problem.  I haven't wormed much in the past.  Just after they kidded with Ivermectin.  The woman I got most of my goats from told me to use Ivermectin so they may have been imune to that.  Quest is a new wormer for her so they should not be immune to that. (I guess)


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## elevan (Dec 4, 2011)

This is what I would do if she were here:

PenG 1ml/ 15# 2x daily for 10 days
Valbazen 1ml/ 25# orally
Ivomec 1% Injectible 1ml/ 22# orally
Red Cell 6ml/ 20-30# 2x day on day 1 then one time weekly until better (you can overdose on minerals so be careful)
Oral Neomycin 1ml/ 20# daily (Continue treatment for 24-48 hrs beyond remission of disease symptoms, but not more than 14 consecutive days)
Probios or Yogurt (live cultured)
Electrolytes in water or if she isn't drinking well then I'd drench with 20-30 ml of pedialyte every 4-6 hours


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## ksalvagno (Dec 4, 2011)

Before I would do any more worming, I would have a fecal done. Not just a simple fecal float. One of the better fecal testing. I know my local vet does just the fecal float but the state lab does something different and I get more "results" from them. I can count on the state lab to test for everything. The local vet just tests for the quick stuff they see in the float.

There is also giardia and cryptosperiosis that you could look into along with salmonella and some others.


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## treeclimber233 (Dec 9, 2011)

Update on my sick doe.  She is much better now.  Butt is dry now.  Haven't seen any poops yet but she does not have direaha anymore.  She even looks happy and is moving around alot more now.  I reread the previous posts and other posts about sick goats and I think I was very wrong on her weight.  I increased all the meds for a heavier weight and she is much better.  I think I need to invest in a tape to get a closer guess on their weights. Thanks to everyone here that offered help.


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