# Here's a weird one for ya...



## cmjust0 (Feb 23, 2010)

How about a doe that foams at the mouth?

First thought -- BLOAT!  Nope, not bloat..  

Second thought -- ACIDOSIS!  She's been doing this for weeks now, but isn't depressed, no head hanging, acting otherwise normally, will still run slapdab over you or anyone else to get at what tiny amount of grain we put out for the lot of them each night, fights for her spot at the hayfeeder, etc..  

Third thought -- Rabies?  Um...ok, that's when I stopped speculating and decided to just watch her.

It's really weird..  

She's bred, due to kid in early April.  She's fat...way fatter than she should be, especially this late in gestation (that's my bad)..  The weather's been exceptionally craptastic this winter, too, so they haven't had a ton of exercise..  She has a ginormous, beautiful rumen...like, a 3-foot-acrosser when she's laying down.  

She lays around a lot....refer back to weather, bred status, fatness, etc.  They've all done a lot of laying around this winter.

Anyway, when she's laying with a cud is when you catch her all Cujo'd out..  She's just sitting there, pretty as a peach, chewing away at a cud like every other goat...bright...alert...waiting for me to pull the grain pans down or throw new hay...but there's white foam on the sides of her mouth.

I got no idea.

My gut tells me she's just a foamer now, for whatever reason, and that it's nothing to be terribly concerned with.  If something changes, I'll roll with it and do whatever.  But, seriously...no clue.

And, yeah, I did just make up that term...foamer.  

Anybody?


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## DonnaBelle (Feb 23, 2010)

CM that is strange.  I don't know what the problem is but sure do hope someone can offer some insight into this situation.

A foaming goat??  

Help!!!

DonnaBelle


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## aggieterpkatie (Feb 23, 2010)

The only time I've seen a small ruminant foam at the mouth was when I was 10 and we just brought home our first _ever_ pair of sheep.  We were still finishing the last few things in their pen, so we tied them to graze...next to a mountain laurel bush.  Mountain laurel just so happens to be _poisonous. _  They grazed (browsed) for a couple hours until we finished their pen. The next morning we got out to feed them and I said, "Uh, why are they foaming at the mouth?"     We called our vet, who was a small animal vet, but said it was ok to bring them in because he had a livestock background.  He gave them activated charcoal and they were right as rain later that day.  We called the breeder when we got home, and he said as long as they had access to grass (which they did) they shouldn't have eaten a poisonous plant.  That's sheep for ya.   

And that is why every medicine cabinet should have activated charcoal in it.  



Oh, but cm, doesn't sound like that's the case with your girl.  Ya know how some old men get that spittle in the corners of their mouth when their jawin' your ear off?  Sounds like maybe that's what your girl has.


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## ksalvagno (Feb 23, 2010)

Is there clover in your hay? Alpacas will foam at the mouth if they have a lot of clover.


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## freemotion (Feb 23, 2010)

How long has she been this way?  Sounds like more than a day or two??

Well, my horse experience, not necessarily useful here, would get me thinking red clover, which makes horses drool if they get too much.  Or if there is a foreign object, like a thorn or a splinter, stuck somewhere in her mouth.  Or a jagged, sharp, or broken tooth.

Or her cud is especially delectible and she salivates extra-extra......


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## Ariel301 (Feb 23, 2010)

If it only happens while she's chewing, maybe she's got a mouth problem of some sort? I'd check her teeth. 

One of our does foams at the mouth if we have to transport her somewhere. Her previous owner warned us about it because had a 14 hour drive to bring her home; apparently she always does this in transit. Who would have imagined that goats can get carsick?


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## cmjust0 (Feb 25, 2010)

By golly, ksal...that's a good observation you just made there.  Very, very intersting, and definitely a possibility to consider.  

Yeah, the hay we use does typically contain a decent amount of red clover.  It's pretty much a timothy/bluegrass/clover mix, and my favorite bales are the ones that are heavy on timothy and clover.  My hay guy will actually pick up bales and throw them aside sometimes if they look too grassy..  He knows what I'm after.

So here I've got a mildly slobbery goat, and I'm feeding red clover hay, and I never even considered _slobbers_.



I haven't checked her teeth yet -- another good suggestion -- but my get tells me they're fine.  Reason being, she's only around four years old, and she's fat and slick.  A very easy keeper, this one, with almost no supplementation at all.  If she was a hard keeper, or starting to lose condition and get a rough coat or something like that, in addition to the foaming, and if I didn't know her to lay with a cud so often, I might suspect a mouth problem.  Mouth problems, to my understanding, usually show up more like malabsorption-type issues, I think...generally poor-doers.    She doesn't show signs of that, for sure.

But "slobbers" in goats...  I'll really have to look into that.  Thanks.


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## ksalvagno (Feb 25, 2010)

I may not have tons of experience with goats but my alpaca experience can come in handy once in a while!


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## aggieterpkatie (Feb 25, 2010)

Interesting....I know about horses getting slobbers, not had not heard of goats getting it.


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## Roll farms (Feb 25, 2010)

Hey CM....The mention of red clover just reminded me of something.

I had a couple young does miscarry 3 yrs ago.  Had tests ran and no issues w/ disease.  My vet's best guess was all the clover in our hay....seems it triggers estrogen production, and can make does abort or recycle.

Not 2 weeks later I read pretty much the same thing in goat rancher magazine.  I quit feeding clover hay toot sweet after that.

Now, I'm not saying  "FEED NO RED CLOVER"....but what I was feeding was nearly pure red clover (got it for a song).

Just recalled you had a doe lose her kids early in a pregnancy....
something to think about, not saying that's what it was for sure.


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## cmjust0 (Feb 26, 2010)

Roll farms said:
			
		

> Hey CM....The mention of red clover just reminded me of something.
> 
> I had a couple young does miscarry 3 yrs ago.  Had tests ran and no issues w/ disease.  My vet's best guess was all the clover in our hay....seems it triggers estrogen production, and can make does abort or recycle.
> 
> ...


Ya know, now that you mention it...  I've actually read a bit about the link between clover and estrogen, too..  It was something about grazing animals on clover before breeding to increase fertility, or something like that.

Never thought about it being bad for pregnancy, though..  

I'm still not actually sure if anybody lost a pregnancy or not..  Since then, we've had several does -- all first timers -- come up with a little speck of blood on their vajayjays periodically.  Nobody seems to have returned to heat, either, but....well, they were bred late, so they may not have returned anyway.

I may draw blood and send it off to be sure..  Or, I may just wait it out..  

So much going on at work, at home...life in general...bred status in the questionable does is the furthest thing from my mind _at this point*_.


* -- State of mind subject to change without notice.  

That's good info, though..  Worthy of research.


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## freemotion (Feb 26, 2010)

Red clover blossoms are used as a powerful herbal remedy.  Pregnancy is a contraindication.  Never thought about it in hay.


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