Some of you guys may have seen my post over in "Everything Else Goats" about losing a doe the other night..
Well, we had another one start downhill yesterday afternoon. Full sister to the one we lost.. She's a 19mo doe.. Extremely rapid onset of watery, mucousy (then slightly bloody) scours accompanied by depression and anorexia..
My wife gave 3cc's Scour-Halt (spectinomycin) by mouth plus 1.3ml banamine IM at about 3pm yesterday, as soon as symptoms were noticed. She'd been perfect late in the evening before. Gave 2.5ml of Naxcel and 6ml of B-complex at about 6pm, as soon as I could get home with the Naxcel.. Pepto later, and Probios.. Electrolytes (1 packet Re-Sorb in 2qts warm water) by mouth.
She grazed and browsed a little here and there before sundown...I hand-fed her clean, long grass from outside their pasture and she seemed to like that.. She was pretty eager to eat osage leaves too, if I pulled the high limbs down for her.. Ate a few apple tree leaves my wife plucked for her, as well..
Her appetite sounds better than it actually was, though.. She was only very intermittantly interested in eating.. She'd perk up for a minute and act interested in food, then go very still for a good while...just like the other two. Everyone else was chowing down.
Her ears began getting cold pretty quickly after the sun went down and I knew her mouth would be soon to follow...in my experience, when the mouth goes cold, they're basically already gone. We brought them to the barn for hay, but she wasn't interested. We knew she wouldn't last very long in the cold barn with an empty rumen, so we brought her in the house and turned up the heat to get her nice and toasty. She was a bottle-baby, so being with us instead of the rest of the herd isn't much of a stressor...quite possibly more comforting, in fact, since her much beloved sister's gone now. We're thinking the stress of losing her sister may be a contributing factor, actually..
Gave more pepto a few hours after the first dose.. She had several rounds of diarrhea after bringing her in...watery, mucousy, plus some blood later on. Not much teeth-grinding, but some.
Continuing oral electrolytes every few hours...she's had probably close to 3 quarts as of this morning, I guess.. She's still somewhat dehydrated, but not terribly so.. That is to say, her upper eyelids don't exactly "snap" back into place if you pinch them up, but they don't hold any of the pinch for very long at all..
She rested well, I think.. Little groaning noises, but her mama does that too.. Could be nothing, could be pain. She's on her brisket with her head up, which seems good. Is alert to noises and movement.
Her last round of diarrhea was about 1:30am, so my wife hit her with 3ml of Scour-Halt again at 3am, about 12hrs after the first dose. I don't mean to say that she went back to pellets or anything -- just that as of 8am when I left, she hadn't had a BM of any kind since 1:30 when she had a pretty good scour.
Scour-Halt, btw, is VERY off label -- for any ruminant, in fact -- and there's not a lot of good dosage/limit info out there. I've read that every 12hrs is OK, though rumor has it that you can stop peristalsis with Scour-Halt. That's worrisome, but the wether got two doses and lived (he's doing great so far, btw[knock on wood]) and it's just an antibiotic...if it can really halt peristalsis, it almost has to do so by killing too much good bacteria, which is why we followed with probios a few hours after each dose of Scour-Halt.
I'm hoping maybe one of you guys has some good real-world experience with Scour-Halt?
She got her second 2.5ml dose of Naxcel at 6am, plus another 6ml of b-complex.. Electrolytes are ongoing, as I said.. Gave fenbendazole last night, too, just because...if the condition is being impacted by parasites, we figured it couldn't hurt.. Fenbendazole kills giardia, too, though I don't think that's what this is.
She perked up momentarily this morning and actually took a few bites of hay at maybe 6:30am.. We were EXTREMELY encouraged to see her eat, considering that her sister was already cold-mouthed and quite dehydrated by this point in her progression....knocking on wood again..
Wanna hear something that REALLY sucks? The vet's office LOST the last fecals which were supposed to have gone to the diagnostic lab so we'd know what we were fighting.. Those results would have been done, like, oh I dunno...right about NOW had they actually turned them in..
I went to the vet's office, picked up the accession form, and ran some out there myself this morning. They're running an aerobic culture (said it will find things like e. coli and salmonella, so... ), though we probably won't know anything for a while..
So...to run it all down...she's getting Scour-Halt every 12 until the scours clear, already had Banamine, 2.5ml Naxcel 2x/day for 3 days, oral electrolytes, Pepto, Probios, warmth and shelter (our kitchen), attention, companionship and lots of love from her human parents. If she stops accepting electrolytes orally, we're set up to run SQ Ringer's -- but we reeeeally hope it doesn't come to that.. Clean, warm drinking water is always available, as well as hay. Fecal cultures are being run as we speak.
So...what more can we do? Any and all suggestions are welcome.
Well, we had another one start downhill yesterday afternoon. Full sister to the one we lost.. She's a 19mo doe.. Extremely rapid onset of watery, mucousy (then slightly bloody) scours accompanied by depression and anorexia..
My wife gave 3cc's Scour-Halt (spectinomycin) by mouth plus 1.3ml banamine IM at about 3pm yesterday, as soon as symptoms were noticed. She'd been perfect late in the evening before. Gave 2.5ml of Naxcel and 6ml of B-complex at about 6pm, as soon as I could get home with the Naxcel.. Pepto later, and Probios.. Electrolytes (1 packet Re-Sorb in 2qts warm water) by mouth.
She grazed and browsed a little here and there before sundown...I hand-fed her clean, long grass from outside their pasture and she seemed to like that.. She was pretty eager to eat osage leaves too, if I pulled the high limbs down for her.. Ate a few apple tree leaves my wife plucked for her, as well..
Her appetite sounds better than it actually was, though.. She was only very intermittantly interested in eating.. She'd perk up for a minute and act interested in food, then go very still for a good while...just like the other two. Everyone else was chowing down.
Her ears began getting cold pretty quickly after the sun went down and I knew her mouth would be soon to follow...in my experience, when the mouth goes cold, they're basically already gone. We brought them to the barn for hay, but she wasn't interested. We knew she wouldn't last very long in the cold barn with an empty rumen, so we brought her in the house and turned up the heat to get her nice and toasty. She was a bottle-baby, so being with us instead of the rest of the herd isn't much of a stressor...quite possibly more comforting, in fact, since her much beloved sister's gone now. We're thinking the stress of losing her sister may be a contributing factor, actually..
Gave more pepto a few hours after the first dose.. She had several rounds of diarrhea after bringing her in...watery, mucousy, plus some blood later on. Not much teeth-grinding, but some.
Continuing oral electrolytes every few hours...she's had probably close to 3 quarts as of this morning, I guess.. She's still somewhat dehydrated, but not terribly so.. That is to say, her upper eyelids don't exactly "snap" back into place if you pinch them up, but they don't hold any of the pinch for very long at all..
She rested well, I think.. Little groaning noises, but her mama does that too.. Could be nothing, could be pain. She's on her brisket with her head up, which seems good. Is alert to noises and movement.
Her last round of diarrhea was about 1:30am, so my wife hit her with 3ml of Scour-Halt again at 3am, about 12hrs after the first dose. I don't mean to say that she went back to pellets or anything -- just that as of 8am when I left, she hadn't had a BM of any kind since 1:30 when she had a pretty good scour.
Scour-Halt, btw, is VERY off label -- for any ruminant, in fact -- and there's not a lot of good dosage/limit info out there. I've read that every 12hrs is OK, though rumor has it that you can stop peristalsis with Scour-Halt. That's worrisome, but the wether got two doses and lived (he's doing great so far, btw[knock on wood]) and it's just an antibiotic...if it can really halt peristalsis, it almost has to do so by killing too much good bacteria, which is why we followed with probios a few hours after each dose of Scour-Halt.
I'm hoping maybe one of you guys has some good real-world experience with Scour-Halt?
She got her second 2.5ml dose of Naxcel at 6am, plus another 6ml of b-complex.. Electrolytes are ongoing, as I said.. Gave fenbendazole last night, too, just because...if the condition is being impacted by parasites, we figured it couldn't hurt.. Fenbendazole kills giardia, too, though I don't think that's what this is.
She perked up momentarily this morning and actually took a few bites of hay at maybe 6:30am.. We were EXTREMELY encouraged to see her eat, considering that her sister was already cold-mouthed and quite dehydrated by this point in her progression....knocking on wood again..
Wanna hear something that REALLY sucks? The vet's office LOST the last fecals which were supposed to have gone to the diagnostic lab so we'd know what we were fighting.. Those results would have been done, like, oh I dunno...right about NOW had they actually turned them in..
I went to the vet's office, picked up the accession form, and ran some out there myself this morning. They're running an aerobic culture (said it will find things like e. coli and salmonella, so... ), though we probably won't know anything for a while..
So...to run it all down...she's getting Scour-Halt every 12 until the scours clear, already had Banamine, 2.5ml Naxcel 2x/day for 3 days, oral electrolytes, Pepto, Probios, warmth and shelter (our kitchen), attention, companionship and lots of love from her human parents. If she stops accepting electrolytes orally, we're set up to run SQ Ringer's -- but we reeeeally hope it doesn't come to that.. Clean, warm drinking water is always available, as well as hay. Fecal cultures are being run as we speak.
So...what more can we do? Any and all suggestions are welcome.