Coughing wether...lung worms or pnuemonia???

[glenolam]

So is the consensus to treat as if it is lung worm or mycoplasma or should I still wait to see if it was dry, dusty hay, cold nights, allergies? I'm not sure which way I'm leaning since no one is in dire straights right now....

 

[Calliopia]

No body was in dire straights either at my place. But once I determined it to be contagious we smacked them with Draxxin and Ivomec and lots of immune boosters.

My ONLY symptom was a contagious cough. No temps, no lethargy, still had good appetites, maintained their condition, just coughing a lot.

 

[ksalvagno]

I had the same problem as Calliopia with coughing, no temps, acting normal, etc and it ended up being mycoplasma for me.

 

[glenolam]

Sigh.....

OK. Should I be treating everyone or just the two who are coughing? They're all various ages, with the youngest being 4 mos old - is that old enough for Draxxin?

The yearling doe had a good cough fit last night...well good meaning she coughed for about 45 sec and it sounded less dry and a little more like phlem in there; not completely mucusy (if that's a word) but definitely didn't sound as if it was a dry cough.

The wether barely coughed yesterday -just once after scarfing down his grain.

 

[ksalvagno]

My vet had me only treat the ones that were coughing. Eventually everyone but one goat was coughing so that one goat never got any Draxxin.

 

[Calliopia]

That's how it sounded here. Just to the "wet" side of a normal cough. If you can separate the ones that are coughing and treat them great, but it moved through my guys fairly quickly so you may end up treating everyone.

See if you can get your vet to sell you just the doses you need of Draxxin. It seems uber expensive but you treat them once a week with 1.1cc per 100lb vs twice a day with Pen for 7-14 days. I actually found Draxxin to be preferable.

Doses of Draxxin are about 5.00 each. So a two week course is $10.00 per goat (roughly). My guys are all between 100 and 150 lbs.

Penn is .12 per cc and at 6cc 2x a day it was 1.44 per day. x 14 days is 20.16 + all the extra needles + having to catch and stab 5 goats twice a day.

 

[ksalvagno]

Believe me, $5 per dose was CHEAP. My vet charges $27.90 per ml. A 50 ml bottle at PBS Animal Health is $224.27. At the time when I had the problem, I just bought the doses but I'm going to get a prescription and get a bottle of it myself in the near future to have on hand.

 

[Calliopia]

Wow! I love my vet even more now

They charged me 87.00 for a partial bottle that had about 20-23 ml in it. I have about 1/3 of it left in the fridge for relapses.

I think your vet is overcharging you by a LOT. Valley Vet has a 50ml bottle for 219 which works out to about 4.40 per cc or about 5.00 a dose.