Another doe with scours...already lost one.

[cmjust0]

Wife just called. She's home with the goat in the kitchen. Put another round of electrolyte down her recently, about 150ml by mouth. Gave her more pepto, as she was groaning a bit and grinding very occasionally. This goat HATES pepto, so that sucks.


We've found that she'll take electrolyte drenches from my wife without too much hassle, whereas she fights me tooth and nail...coughing, spitting, acts like she's choking to death. My wife doesn't even have to hold her head, though.. Just puts the drench tube in her mouth and gently trickles it down as the goat swallows nicely..

Thank heaven for that.

Still no scours since 1:30am.. Goat's standing now, looking out the window "longingly" as my wife put it. Whether or not that's true, who knows...I'm better at knowing the body of a goat than its mind, and I'm clearly not even that good at the body part. I did agree, though, that if she acts like she feels well enough to get outside and eat a little grass, we should definitely let her..

Eyelids apparently aren't showing anymore dehydration than before, which is good.. I figure so long as she continues to NOT scour, we can outpace any fluid she loses through urination/respiration and can maybe gain on her a bit. She apparently dipped her chin in the water at one point, but didn't drink.. Hasn't eaten anymore hay. Really wish she'd do both, but I'm sure she's still feeling pretty yucky.

I'm thinking I might stop by a buddie's house this evening and pick up a bale or two of the bright green pure alfalfa I helped him put up earlier this year. I know it's not great to screw with her rumen by switching hay really quickly, but she's already so screwed up anyway between infections and antibiotics...and she NEEDS to eat. It's a double edged sword, for sure, so I'd only give her a little and see if it encourages her to eat her regular hay, too..

That is...if my buddie's even home. :/

Anyway...she's feeling pretty puny, but seems to be holding her own so far. She's MUCH better than her sister was at this point, but not quite where the wether was...though he went downhill later that day.

I dunno...She's alive, alert, and upright.. I'll take what I can get.

 

[cmjust0]

SMZ-TMP is vet rx. Ask your vet.
It's not real expensive, but is superior to and does not compare to any sulfa on the market. I'm never without it. Hits about every bacterial gut disease out there.

I'll do just that. May have to call a different vet, though.. I was lucky to be able to get Naxcel yesterday, as both the large animal vets at my regular clinic are out until Monday and have explicitly instructed that NOBODY is to give out large animal meds.

The only reason I got mine was because they wrote it up as a refill..

Not sure if the other large animal vet will even know what SMZ-TMP is, though.. He didn't know there was such a thing as C&D antitoxin. Yikes.

The sav-a-calf plus can be bought from Jeffers for around $1.50 a pack. Has probiotics in it too, so it works to keep them alive and to straighten the gut. I found it at an Orschlen Farm store.

I'll look for it and order a bunch.. Thanks.

Johne's can be in a closed herd for 5 years before ever rearing it's ugly head. By the time it rears, around 60-70% have it already. They tend to show up with the disease at 2 years of age. They can have it at birth and then live with it for 2 years before ever coming down with one symptom. They can get it at 2 years of age and live to 8 without ever showing a symptom until the end.

Here, you can read this article to get started:
http://www.nmga.net/healthdiseaseinformation.htm

I would have the vet pull an ELISA on one of your sick animals. You need to make sure they are neg. for Johnes. If they are neg,..you can be relieved, but if positive, you would have to hurry to come up with a plan to stop the spread.

Well, I guess if it's an ELISA it'll be positive whether they're showing signs of sickness or not.. Prolly wait until she gets better, in that case...if she gets better.

 

[cmjust0]

Wife just called again... Said the goat coughed a little after getting the Pepto and shot some watery poo out. Not a great volume, but certainly not something we wanted to have happen. Can't say it's not responding to Scour-Halt, as that makes some 10-1/2 hours between incidents of scour. Clearly, it isn't fixed -- but she's not down and "leaking" like her sister, either...which is good.

Wife's exhausted, goat's exhausted, I'm exhausted..

It's amazing what can transpire in less than 24 hours.

 

[cmjust0]

Alright...so I've managed to procure some SMZ-TMP, 960mg tablets.. Best I can tell, the dosage is 1 tab/75lbs twice daily.

Sound right?

I just don't feel comfortable hitting her with Scour-Halt three times within 24 hours..

The vet actually recommended halting all oral antibiotics and using supportive care (fluids, etc) to allow the Naxcel injections to do their thing, but said that if I wanted to try SMZ-TMP, he'd let me have some. Personally...I think we need to kill this IN THE GUT, where it's doing its damage..

What do you guys think? Lay off the oral meds and stick with Naxcel, risking her starting to scour badly again and dehydrating...or...switch oral meds and run the risk that we kill her GI completely?

Tough call..

 

[ksalvagno]

I have SMZ-TMP liquid so I have no idea what the tablets would be. Damned if you do and damned if you don't unfortunately. I guess just keep giving the probiotics too.

I hope your doe pulls through.

 

[cmjust0]

This doe HATES probios, too.. Gotta ram the whole tube way back in her mouth and shoot it in there, then close her mouth and hold it until she swallows..

 

[cmjust0]

So.. My wife just called and said she was about to give her more electrolyte (last was about noon or thereabout) but got a little freaked.. She says "I don't wanna put anything down her neck right now.. She's standing by the window, and it almost looks like she's trying to throw up."

My heart sank...I'm like "She's trying to Throw up?!?"

Wife's like "Yeah, it's like she's...oh...oh, oh...oh wait...HEY! She got up a little cud! That's what she was trying to do! Oh man, I thought she was gonna....oh, wait...she swallowed it..
..
...
....
Wait..wait... HEY! There it is again!"

Whew..

So, she's laying off the electrolytes for a little while at least.. We figure getting even a tiny cud up is improvement, and she's not scoured too badly in the last 12 hours or so.. The hope is that MAYBE she'll nibble on a little hay soon, but who knows..

That cud had to be from what tiny bit of hay she ate this morning...but, again, we'll take what we can get.

I'm sooooooo hoping we can get her turned around.. As you guys might imagine, this is a NIGHTMARISH situation and she's by no means out of the woods.. We know that.

Every little cud helps, though.

 

[cmjust0]

Did I mention....my wife is AWESOME?!?

Did I tell you guys that? Because she is.

She's been up and down every few hours today after staying up .all.night.long. with this goat. She currently has a sleeping bag on the kitchen floor for naps. No joke...a sleeping bag on a vinyl floor. She's literally camped out with this goat.

How many women out there would even allow a goat -- and a scouring goat at that -- into their kitchen, let alone bring a sleeping bag in there to make sure the goat's doing OK?

I my wife.

 

[trestlecreek]

SMZ-TMP does not kill off the good bacteria in the gut like you would guess that it would. I always give a probiotic and B-Plex while giving the SMZ for good measure, but SMZ is very safe.
SMZ can be given with injectable penicillin with out negating, not sure about the Naxel, your vet should know.

 

[cmjust0]

My vet doesn't even want me to use SMZ-TMP, let alone provide support for my decision to do that... Not to mention, he and the other large animal guy are on vacation and referring all other large-animal calls to other vets, so I'm actually pretty lucky to have been able to clear SMZ-TMP with him to begin with.

I'm sorta inclined to believe there's probably not much interplay between injectible antibiotics and gut infections in ruminant animals. Total speculation, and some of the vet's comments don't seem to support my speculation.. Plus he's got a big DVM after his name -- and he's very, very bright -- but, hey, I dunno..



All I know is that the wether got Naxcel, Di-Methox, and Scour-Halt in one day and it didn't kill him. In fact, that's when he really started to turn around.

Naxcel's going in this one already, and she's had two rounds of Scour-Halt.. Di-Methox is a sulfa, so you'd think it's at least somewhat similar to sulfamethoxazole. Didn't kill the wether, so I'm probably gonna try it. I'll have it, at least.

If she has another significant incident of watery scour, I'm DEFINITELY gonna try it.

trestle...how long do you keep yours on SMZ-TMP? Three days, five days, until they stop scouring, ...??