Clostridium vaccination

[Madabout]

Hi everyone. Was wondering if I can pick your expert brains. I've been keeping goats for 4years with very few problems but the last 7mths have thrown everything at me!

Today one of my nannies died suddenly. She was three years old and apparently in excellent health. Eating fine and no discharges etc. Slaughterman is collecting body tomorrow and will do a post mortem for me.

The only strange thing was a swelling under her chin which went down within 24hrs and wasn't present today. The vets when spoken to about it before in another of my goats said it was probably an allergic reaction. That goat died about 5weeks ago but he had loss of condition and it was slow-vet thought it was an obscure worm-all wormed for it. Slaughterman reckoned it was liver fluke (not on Flukey ground but he's seen a significant increase in the last year in animals who shouldn't be susceptible) So all wormed for liver fluke as well.

Vet also recommended the clostridum vaccine (previous small herd owners I spoke to felt that it was an unecessary and ineffective vaccine with too many risks to be worth it for a small herd) Vet said there were risks that they could actually die from the vaccine and as it's to be done every 6mths it seemed a huge risk to me.

However after today I'm in a real dilemma as to what to do. Do any of you know the real side effects of the vaccine? (Heptavac is what I have in the fridge). Thanks in advance!

 

[bheila]

Sounds like bottlejaw to me but I'm no expert. Sorry for your loss.

 

[username taken]

Vet said there were risks that they could actually die from the vaccine and as it's to be done every 6mths it seemed a huge risk to me.

Vet is wrong

 

[Madabout]

Thanks for your comments. It's been very hard the last day but getting there.

According to research there is a risk of anaphylactic shock for goats from the vaccine (in fact my vet actually had an anaphylactic reaction when he accidentally got a used needle with the vaccine on it in him) but I'm not sure how high that risk is. If it's one in a million then it's worth the risk if it's one in 100 I don't think it is. Are there any other side effects? Is it actually worth doing?

 

[helmstead]

It is ABSOLUTELY worth doing.

I have actually had a anaphalactic shock result in death here - a 3 week old kid. It's usually, from what I understand, the tetnus portion of the vaccine that causes this. We just couldn't get the epi in this kid fast enough and lost him. His twin brother was not affected...and we've never had so much as a site reaction to the vaccine before.

Still...we give the vaccine. There is NOT a strong chance of shock/death from the vaccine...and I'd rather risk the one in a million chance of a reaction than leave my animals unprotected from very preventable diseases.

Anything you introduce to an animal...even dewormers, vitamins and minerals...can kill the occasional animal.

I am so sorry for your loss! I tend to agree it was probably worm induced anemia.

 

[cmjust0]

We had an episode of anaphylaxis to CD/T, also. We had nine goats to vaccinate and had gone through eight, no problem. I gave the ninth to a yearling doe who had seen CD/T before, and let her out of the stanchion while I collected all the caps and syringes and whatnot.. Next thing I know, I hear this coughing 'splat' sound and turn around to see the doe with drool and foam running out of her mouth.. She then started vocalizing and staggering, and was just about to go down when all the other goats burst into the stall (for the grain they knew was in there) and started bumping her around to get by..

We've speculated that between feeling weird and the other goats basically bumrushing her, she freaked and dumped adrenaline into her own system. She came out of the anaphylaxis almost immediately and, though she's normally very calm and sweet and quiet, we couldn't touch her with a 10' pole for the next half-hour or so.. She was very, very scared and flighty..

Pretty much right then and there, we decided that we weren't going to give the vaccinations anymore until we got ahold of some epinephrine...which can be difficult, thanks to all the tweakers out there using it for meth.

That would be my recommendation to you, also...don't do it without epi, and I'm talking about having a syringe drawn up and ready to stick like right now, just in case..