Something Weird! - Please tell me what do you think?

[LBFarms]

I have an 8 week old Kiko buckling, soon to be a wether (but he's not banded yet). He's gonna grow up (hopefully) to be a pack goat. A few nights ago immediatley after having his bottle, he started crying a lot and he fell over & could not get up. Almost like a fainting goat. He kicked his legs and laid on his side. We got him up and it looked like his whole body twisted at his abdomen in a contortion & he fell over, almost like some type of spasm or seizure, but he didn't shake, just seemed to be have no control, and seemed to be in pain. He would lay there for a few minutes, get up and then stumble sideways like he was drunk, fall over and kick his legs, unable to get up, screaming. No sign of injury, swelling, bleeding or anything else. He was in a stable with nothing but straw, a little hay & some water. My wife thought maybe a spider bite?

This was all a sudden onset. He'd had his tetnus vaccination, never had any other symptoms, & he was not bloated. His brother drank the same milk & had no issues. I had my wife on the computer for ten minutes trying to see what it could be. It didn't match anything we saw exactly. After about ten minutes, I thought he was gonna die so I gave him the only two things I could think that might help & I had on hand, a shot of C&D antitoxin and a shot of pennicillin. He seemed to immediatley get better, within a minute or so & has been fine since & has been getting a daily shot of the pennicillin. I don't know if it was something I gave him that helped or just a coincidence that he got over it at the same time I gave him the shots. He's been fine since but I really want to know what happened. My local goat guru and vet couldn't really help me much. I have six other goats, none of them have had anything like this.

He's getting 2 cups of milk in the morn & evening (either goat milk from the woman we got him from or whole cows milk from the store). We stopped using the milk replacement after his brother bloated & I read that the replacement can cause problems. He's eating some grass hay and gets a little pasture time every day.

Thanks

 

[redtailgal]

This is weird.

Wonder if he had a bad belly cramp?

 

[nomad]

I have an 8 week old Kiko buckling, soon to be a wether (but he's not banded yet). He's gonna grow up (hopefully) to be a pack goat. A few nights ago immediatley after having his bottle, he started crying a lot and he fell over & could not get up. Almost like a fainting goat. He kicked his legs and laid on his side. We got him up and it looked like his whole body twisted at his abdomen in a contortion & he fell over, almost like some type of spasm or seizure, but he didn't shake, just seemed to be have no control, and seemed to be in pain. He would lay there for a few minutes, get up and then stumble sideways like he was drunk, fall over and kick his legs, unable to get up, screaming. No sign of injury, swelling, bleeding or anything else. He was in a stable with nothing but straw, a little hay & some water. My wife thought maybe a spider bite?

This was all a sudden onset. He'd had his tetnus vaccination, never had any other symptoms, & he was not bloated. His brother drank the same milk & had no issues. I had my wife on the computer for ten minutes trying to see what it could be. It didn't match anything we saw exactly. After about ten minutes, I thought he was gonna die so I gave him the only two things I could think that might help & I had on hand, a shot of C&D antitoxin and a shot of pennicillin. He seemed to immediatley get better, within a minute or so & has been fine since & has been getting a daily shot of the pennicillin. I don't know if it was something I gave him that helped or just a coincidence that he got over it at the same time I gave him the shots. He's been fine since but I really want to know what happened. My local goat guru and vet couldn't really help me much. I have six other goats, none of them have had anything like this.

He's getting 2 cups of milk in the morn & evening (either goat milk from the woman we got him from or whole cows milk from the store). We stopped using the milk replacement after his brother bloated & I read that the replacement can cause problems. He's eating some grass hay and gets a little pasture time every day.

Thanks

Sounds like a bout of enterotoxemia. The penicillin helped his situation by killing the offending bacterium that was releasing the toxin. Your actions, no doubt, saved his life. Enterotoxemia strikes quickly because the toxins will enter the goats system via the digestive system (permeating through the intestinal wall) and into the vascular system which then allows the toxin to quickly spread to various organs.

Do you know if the doe (his mother) was grained? The polyunsaturated fatty acids in the grain (corn, soybean, etc) cause a host of issues including increased susceptibility to endotoxins - that is why some grained animals must be given antibiotics to treat enterotoxemia. The doe's diet determines what the offspring's body will adapt to in utero. The reason that one twin will seem healthy and the other one not is because often times one of the twins will steal more of the nutrients during gestation if the mother does not have adequate nutrition (either not enough food or poor quality food).

Real milk is always better than milk replacer so you are doing the right thing there in my opinion. You will have to keep an eye on him since he appears to be more susceptible to bacterial infection. Keep penicillin handy.

Hope he does well for you.

 

[LBFarms]

Thanks, good information! I don't know if his mom was grained or not. I knew about enterotoxemia but the apparent suddenness of it is what threw me. I guess I thought it would be a gradual onset. Would the feeding he'd just had have done something to activate or aggrivate the enterotoxemia?

 

[nomad]

Thanks, good information! I don't know if his mom was grained or not. I knew about enterotoxemia but the apparent suddenness of it is what threw me. I guess I thought it would be a gradual onset. Would the feeding he'd just had have done something to activate or aggrivate the enterotoxemia?

The feeding can have an effect in this respect. You mentioned that his milk supply has changed from replacer to real milk. You also mentioned that he sometimes gets goats milk or cow's milk from the store. A change in diet should always be gradual to allow for proper enzyme conversion. We all need the proper enzymes in our systems to digest the food we intake. I would recommend either keeping him on just the goat's milk or just the cow's milk. The goat's milk would most likely have a higher fat content than the cow's milk (unless it is Jersey) so the goat's milk would be preferential in my opinion. Nigerian Dwarf and Boer goat's milk is very good since they have high fat content. If you prefer to mix the 2 milks together, then I would recommend trying to keep the proportion the same (ie 50/50 mix all the time) at each feeding. This way his diet is staying consistent and his body can produce the necessary enzymes to digest the milk properly. A changing diet can stress an animal to the point of being susceptible to illness.

Another thing to consider is the forage of the animal that produced the milk. The milk from the goat (from the woman that you bought him from) would be the best fit for him as well since he came from that farm. Sometimes people develop allergic reactions when they buy milk that came from a different farm or area. Your system may react to that milk as an allergen because the particular plants that the animal consumed produced different chemical responses to being grazed. Plants, put out chemical defenses to try and limit grazing activity on them. If the animals are used to this type of defense, they can consume and digest the plants just fine, however, their milk may cause a reaction in you if your body is not used to it.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[LBFarms]

nomad - It does make sense, thanks! I can't get anymore milk from the farm he came from, but I have an Alpine doe that kidded 3 weeks ago. I think I will start milking her & go 50/50 cows milk & her milk to ensure she has enough for her kids.

 

[SDBoerGoats]

I had a baby born that was acting like he was groggy, and not trying to get up. I think he was in the birth canal too long. We took him in the house and got him some colostrum and ended up bottle feeding him. He went in those kinds of seizures regularly. He would fall on his side, get stiff, and cry and cry. He would have his head twisted off to the side and his eyes looked glazed. I gave him B complex, selenium and probiotics. I did research and found his symptoms were that of goat polio. And the treatment for that is Thiamine. I gave him b complex every day ( I couldn't find straight Thiamine) without fail. Some times SQ and sometimes in his bottle. He came out of it, but of course I couldn't leave him with his mother, since I never knew when it was going to hit him, so he is a big, bouncing bottle baby. Well, he's weaned now and weighs about 45 pounds.

Yours might be totally something else, if he only did it once. Our baby did it at least once every day. When he would get up he would stagger. When I'd take him outside to play, he was playing like mad and jumping but sometimes he was unsteady on his feet. For months now there is no sign that he ever had a problem.