Our7Wonders
Overrun with beasties
When it rains it pours! I'm dealing with a baby who doesn't want to eat, another with what may be cocci, and now one of my adult does has some sort of worm crawling around her butt. I was milking her and 'bout fell off my stool today when I saw it! Two actually.
I've gotten repeat fecals back on her that show clean. I don't know if I should bother with another - she's got SOMETHING, that part is obvious. These things were tiny, guessing about 1/4" long, thread looking things. White. Squirming around on her butt. Tapeworms are usually dead when they pass aren't they? And aren't they supposed to look like rice grains? Could these be pin worms? Worm experts - help me out here!
Another thought I had:
I have a doe that has decided she has her very own "poop corner". It's the only place in the shed that ever gets a build up of poo - simply because it's the only spot she goes in. We shovel it out and dump diatomaceous earth on it regularly. Temps have gotten quite a bit higher and I've noticed more flys lately. Yesterday I noticed literally HUNDREDS maybe even THOUSANDS of tiny little fly-like bugs on the wall above her poop pile. It was nasty-gross! Rather than disturbing it and sending the swarm moving I doused them with several cup fulls of DE - hoping to kill most of them before moving the poo out. I don't know what fly strike is, nor what I would even be looking for, but didn't want to rule out the possibility of fly larve either. I don't know what those would look like - these really were small, very thin tread-like looking things.
I'm so grossed out right now - and am ready to hit them with the big guns! I'm all for whatever chemical will eradicate this quickly. I'm not convinced the only local livestock vet will be of any help to me but I can take in another fecal if it's advised - though these things were very much ALIVE - not sure if we'd be seeing eggs in a fecal.
I only have safeguard on hand, currently using it with my babies along with dimethox for cocci treatment. Prior to this, none of my goats have ever been chemically wormed. I've been tempted to treat them with it on NUMEROUS occasions - but fecals have always come back clean. I'm usually one to proceed cautiously with chemicals but I haven't had much luck with the local vet so difinitive diagnosis may not be possible - I'm consdering using safeguard and then ivermectin, though I'll have to order it and wait for it to come in - so the safeguard can start the process and then after using it go with ivermectin. The combo of the two would likely take care of *most* issues - would it not? The local feed store (Big R) seems to believe that safeguard is still pretty effective in our area - perhaps because there isn't alot of livestock here?
I don't want to help breed resistant worms, this much I do know. I do, however, want to nip this in the bud right away. They have been pretty worm resistant thus far - the doe that had the wigglies is 4 years old and hasn't needed any worming before - only natural preventatives. I'm not ok with letting wigglies hang about while I attempt the natural stuff though, and whatever it is has obviously already made it past our natural defenses. I'm ready for the heavy duty stuff.
Can you point me in the right direction, please?
I've gotten repeat fecals back on her that show clean. I don't know if I should bother with another - she's got SOMETHING, that part is obvious. These things were tiny, guessing about 1/4" long, thread looking things. White. Squirming around on her butt. Tapeworms are usually dead when they pass aren't they? And aren't they supposed to look like rice grains? Could these be pin worms? Worm experts - help me out here!
Another thought I had:
I have a doe that has decided she has her very own "poop corner". It's the only place in the shed that ever gets a build up of poo - simply because it's the only spot she goes in. We shovel it out and dump diatomaceous earth on it regularly. Temps have gotten quite a bit higher and I've noticed more flys lately. Yesterday I noticed literally HUNDREDS maybe even THOUSANDS of tiny little fly-like bugs on the wall above her poop pile. It was nasty-gross! Rather than disturbing it and sending the swarm moving I doused them with several cup fulls of DE - hoping to kill most of them before moving the poo out. I don't know what fly strike is, nor what I would even be looking for, but didn't want to rule out the possibility of fly larve either. I don't know what those would look like - these really were small, very thin tread-like looking things.
I'm so grossed out right now - and am ready to hit them with the big guns! I'm all for whatever chemical will eradicate this quickly. I'm not convinced the only local livestock vet will be of any help to me but I can take in another fecal if it's advised - though these things were very much ALIVE - not sure if we'd be seeing eggs in a fecal.
I only have safeguard on hand, currently using it with my babies along with dimethox for cocci treatment. Prior to this, none of my goats have ever been chemically wormed. I've been tempted to treat them with it on NUMEROUS occasions - but fecals have always come back clean. I'm usually one to proceed cautiously with chemicals but I haven't had much luck with the local vet so difinitive diagnosis may not be possible - I'm consdering using safeguard and then ivermectin, though I'll have to order it and wait for it to come in - so the safeguard can start the process and then after using it go with ivermectin. The combo of the two would likely take care of *most* issues - would it not? The local feed store (Big R) seems to believe that safeguard is still pretty effective in our area - perhaps because there isn't alot of livestock here?
I don't want to help breed resistant worms, this much I do know. I do, however, want to nip this in the bud right away. They have been pretty worm resistant thus far - the doe that had the wigglies is 4 years old and hasn't needed any worming before - only natural preventatives. I'm not ok with letting wigglies hang about while I attempt the natural stuff though, and whatever it is has obviously already made it past our natural defenses. I'm ready for the heavy duty stuff.
Can you point me in the right direction, please?