Another doe with scours...already lost one.

[cmjust0]

Sounds good.
Did you get one tested for Johnes?

Nope..

Something I was thinking was that I should probably check to see if the fecal I sent to the diagnostic lab happened to have been cultured for M. paratuberculosis.. May have been...if so, it came back clean.

I was reading about Johnes, though...apparently, scours aren't a common sign of Johnes in goats like it is in cattle. Gradual, unexplained loss of body condition is apparently the primary clue, and that's not the case in our herd.

Indeed, we've determined a couple of ours to be too fat to safely breed this fall, despite the fact that we feed very little grain and grass-mix hay.

 

[cmjust0]

Excenel is a wonderful drug, but like Naxel is considered one of the drugs of last resort. We try to avoid using it until other drugs have been tried and failed. I have paid from $87.00-178.00 per bottle, depending on where I bought it.

Yeah...I certainly don't plan to use it when penicillin or tetracycline would do. Not to mention...at $100 vs. $10 or $18 a vial, it would cost an arm and a leg to use a lot of Excenel.

 

[trestlecreek]

Yes, but animals with Johnes can intermittently have problems like you are describing before they actually die from the disease...
Just something to consider, or one more problem to rule out....

Other than disease, it sounds almost as if they are having bouts of entro. I would go ahead and vaccinate them all with cd/t.

 

[cmjust0]

The one who died got 40ml of C&D anti-toxin, starting with 20ml more than 12hrs before she died...no change whatsoever. She got another 20ml a few hours before she died...again, no response at all.

You're right, though.. It does sound like entero, even though they were vaccinated 6mo ago and there's been no bloat or any other condition that would facilitate a Cl. Perf. bloom...

The fact that it acts so similarly to entero but in all likelihood isn't entero is among the scarier parts of the whole deal.

I mean, what's worse than something running through your herd that can be just as bad as entero, but comes without the benefit of the causative organism being well known and feared enough that millions of dollars have been poured into vaccines and treatments?

It's a nightmare... Luckily, though, we've learned enough to have saved two from the depths of it and probably snatched another right from the outer lip of the downward spiral before she became terribly symptomatic..

As I told my wife....just think...we could easily be down four right now and still be without a clue as to what we should be doing.. As unlucky as this all may seem....could be a lot worse.

(...I'm knocking furiously on wood right now...)

 

[trestlecreek]

Yep, I would vaccinate again just to be safe. We vaccinate every 6 months here.
The cd/t protection actually wears off in 3 months after the booster....

 

[kimmyh]

These are full sized goats, right? If I am using CD Antitoxin on a baby Pygmy it gets 20ml SQ and 20ml PO, on a full sized Pygmy it is 60ml SQ and 60ml PO, on the full sized dairy goat, I gave 120ml SQ and PO, all given every 6-12 hours. You can NOT over dose CD Antitoxin.

 

[ksalvagno]

Boy, I have a LOT to learn with goats. Naxcel (Excenel or Exceed) is considered the broad spectrum first choice for alpacas. That is why I have it on hand all the time. Long acting Penicilin is only used for certain things and for people who don't want to spend the money on Excenel and hope Penicillin works. I was hoping there was more in common with goats and alpacas so the learning curve wouldn't be so high but apparently not.

Glad you were able to get Excenel. You will be much happier with being able to have it on the shelf instead of in the freezer.

 

[cmjust0]

These are full sized goats, right? If I am using CD Antitoxin on a baby Pygmy it gets 20ml SQ and 20ml PO, on a full sized Pygmy it is 60ml SQ and 60ml PO, on the full sized dairy goat, I gave 120ml SQ and PO, all given every 6-12 hours. You can NOT over dose CD Antitoxin.

Well, maybe I should have given more.. I hadn't had any reason to ever use it prior to the incident and did the best I could to try and get goat dosages....what I found was 20ml every 12hrs. Maybe that was wrong, I dunno..

What I do know is that they were vaccinated for entero 6mo prior, it's something that -- unlike entero -- seems to be making its way around, the others responded to Scour-Halt and Naxcel and pulled through, and there was nothing like bloat or other gastro upset prior to the onset of severe illness that would put me on guard to look for a potential clostridial bloom..

But, hey...I don't know what it was (...or is ) so I certainly can't say with much certainty that it wasn't enterotoxemia.

I will, however, file your dosages away in my head for future reference, and it's vaccination time anyway. If none of this had been going on, they'd have already been done. Provided everybody's in good shape this weekend, we should be able to booster everybody.

Maybe that'll stop it..

 

[trestlecreek]

Entro can respond to anti-biotics...so it is possible that the scour-halt would have helped with entro....
What ever you are dealing with, you are working really hard I know you must be frustrated and feel like you are walking on egg shells....
Have you thought about the feed supply?

 

[kimmyh]

Spectinomycin (the product that helps in Scour Halt) is a great antibiotic, however, it is no longer available as an over the counter/rx injectable, and in order for it to truly be effective with Scour Halt you would need enough Scour Halt to impact the goat. Two pumps of Scour Halt only delivers 50mg of spectinomycin-the dose recommended for pigs over 10lbs. The reason it works so well in babies, is the quantity of the medication to body weight.

Entero can be treated with Mylanta/antibiotic if that is all you have, but Mylanta can cause a loosening of the stool. Neither treatment has been as effective as CD Antitoxin for me.