Fever and Scours

We had a false positive for Johnnes on an ELISA once. Out of 20 animals, only one tested positive on the ELISA. Did a second test on that animal an "acid fast stain" test. More accurate and more expensive than the ELISA. You get false positives on an ELISA, but not false negatives. If you have a herd of animals you do the cheapest test on the whole herd, If you get positives you do the second test. Just being in heat can cause a false positive.

SBC- No she is not on probiotics. I have the tube of Probios though. What's the easiest way to give that to her She doesn't seem too fond of it when I try squirting it in her mouth, I've tried disguising it in her food, I bet she thinks "stupid human, I'm smarter than you think"... cuz she never eats it lol

Also, what's the dosage for Ivomec Plus? I read on Fiasco Farm that it was 1/50 lbs, but has been known to be successful as low as 1/34 lbs? Is it a one time dosage? Oral or injection? Poor girl just looks so unhappy.

I will need to look into the testing information once DH gets back into town. Of course he's been gone this week... Oh and we had one break her leg the other day too. Wonderful right??

Ok, update.. Since all this, she has not improved at all... We had fecals run and a slew of blood tests... The vet decided that she had an "impressive" load of strongyles(sp?) which from what I understand is just barberpoles... I guess that's the worm that goats are most resistant to nation wide... We have one that has been battling coccidia for a little while now, so the vet decided she wanted to do a "fecal reduction test". What that is basically is when we take fecal samples from the whole herd, and decide on one fairly healthy one to become the "control". We worm everyone with a fairly strong dose of wormer (except the control), and take another fecal in 10-14 days. The goal of this is to see who is resistant to what wormer, and how to narrow down which wormers I am able to use. Right now we are on the first cycle. Everyone was wormed with a double dose of Cydectin except our control. In 10 days we will take a fecal sample in again and see what the next step is...

In the mean time, Daisy has tested positive for Johnnes as well, so I think regardless of the results of this fecal reduction test, we will cull her anyways.. Sad times... Seems like this is our point of "lets just get rid of them all, we cant seem to keep them all healthy anyways!" I know its just a phase... I just hate that it seems like we cant do anything right sometimes. ok... vent over.

sorry to hear about your troubles

I really am at a loss for words. I can only imagine the emotional upheaval you are going through right now.
Just about every goat owner feels like giving it all up from time to time and we walk through it. Give yourself some cry time and definitely further investigate all your options.
This is a very tragic situation.

So sorry.

I know it has been a while since I've updated on Daisy, so I guess now's the time... We did end up culling her, she had lost 40 lbs from the beginning of Summer till the beginning of December when we got rid of her. Poor girl just looked so sad. I hated seeing her go, but I know it is going to help my herd... Since then, everyone has tested negative for CAE and Johnnes (even her daughter from last year, granted she was only 8 mos when tested)...

We plan to retest everyone this coming Fall for CAE and Johnnes (hopefully CL too, but that one's expensive!). We have started FAMACHA testing for worms, and in the last few weeks we have treated one or two that were borderline. We figure we would rather be safe than sorry. Hopefully this will help our worm population this Spring.

We also are having about 1/3 of an acre fenced in so the goats will have a separate area to roam. This section has never been grazed before, so hopefully that will help our wormload also.

We have decided to vaccinate for Pasturella from here on out, at the same time as the CDT. I guess my thought is, if it doesn't hurt them, why not prevent it in the first place...

We had 3 girls kid in the last 2 weeks. We should have had 4 (BioPryn tested positive at 30 days) but I think she miscarried early on and reabsorbed, because she never showed signs of miscarrying. My thought is that she was headbutted early on... Some of the other girls aren't so nice to her... So with the 3 kidding, we got 3 boys and 4 girls... I think we are planning on keeping all 4 girls and expanding our herd that way. Who knows... Baby goats make everything happy though

Thanks for stickin' with me through this journey... I truly appreciate the BYH family I've gained so far. Look forward to many more stories to share in the coming years

It sounds though as you have allowed this tragic situation to help you become an even better steward. I am so glad to hear you are not giving up but using all that you have to better your herd. This will help many others too. Thank you for sharing all the ups and downs.

X 2 what Southern posted!!!!

Glad to hear that you have some new babies!!