cmjust0 article about colors of dierherea

[poorboys]

any one know where the article is where cmjust0 spoke about different colors of poo????

 

[cmjust0]

wow. so i guess i'm officially the 'color of poo' guy. :/

 

[redtailgal]

I dont know the article either, but I would like to read it.

Cmjust would tell us but he is being full of poo right now.

 

[cmjust0]

In a nutshell, based on my experience...

When I see a goat with scour, I evaluate the color, consistency, frequency, level of foulness, changes in body condition, demeanor, dietary changes -- all kinds of things. And what I've found is that you can usually -- USUALLY -- use that information to narrow a scour down to one of a few different things and go from there.. Those things seem to be:

1) dietary (change in hay, going from hay to lush grass or vice versa, going from pasture to heavy browse, etc etc etc)
2) acidosis (almost exclusively related to bagged feed, but significant enough that I don't really consider it simply 'dietary')
3) gut worms (not barberpole!)
4) bacterial infections (e.coli, salmonella -- like food poisoning, or 'dysentary' basically)
5) coccidia (usually younger goats)

Ok, so far as different types of poo...here goes. Keep in mind that this isn't by any stretch an all-inclusive list, as you may have some goats that shift from one to the other and make it really hard to pin down..


Dog logs -- I don't really even make note of it anymore unless it's especially persistent and goes back and forth to green or greenish brown pudding, at which point...based on my own personal experience...I start thinking of *gut* worms. Not barberpole, since those are stomach worms...I'm talking gut worms. I like Safe-Guard for this, and I've 'fixed' several goats with dog logs over the years using Safe-Guard.

Very obviously green, and runny or pudding-y, not especially foul in odor, goat still acts fine -- usually dietary, but of course keep an eye on it. This is like when you ate Taco Bell for the first time in a while and you get the squirts. You still make it to work and do your job and seem perfectly normal...it's just irritating.

Brown, pudding-y or thinner, noticeably foul, and the goat seems kinda off -- something's usually up. If I can't pin it down to mild acidosis (from overfeeding grain), then I usually just go for Scour Halt/ScourChek at this point, 5ml, and I try not to give more than 2x/day. If I think it's probably grain-related, I go for pepto bismol (keep reading!) because it coats the gut lining and offers at least some protection against the acid. This is like mild food poisoning, or when you eat something that just seriously doesn't agree with you and you just kinda want to lay around and eat tums or whatever.

Dirty water, bloody epithelial shreds, lots of mucous, etc., goat's acting really off -- DEFINITELY Scour Halt and/or Neomycin, and I usually start a round of systemic injectable antibiotics as well.. We're usually looking at a bacterial culprit here, in my experience.. And if it's bacteria attacking the gut lining, they're consuming blood, so injecting a/b's in conjunction with oral a/b's (which may or may not be well absorbed into the blood stream) increases blood a/b levels and kinda ensures that you're hitting the bacteria from as many angles as possible. This is like *serious* food poisoning. The kind that makes the news if more than a handful of humans get it.

Very very dark, or black, possibly with blood or lots of mucous, foul, etc -- I usually think coccidiosis *OR* this could be related to a goat having previously been given pepto!!! For whatever reason, pepto turns poop black. I've confused myself like this before, having given a goat pepto for a suspected acidosis scour and then finding a black scour later.. You start thinking coccidiosis?!...and then you kinda slap your forehead and go "Oh yeah..pepto"... I learned this because I swigged some pepto once and didn't brush my teeth before bed, then subsequently woke up with a black mouth and FREEEEAKED OUT thinking I was dying of "overnight mouth cancer" or something. Also of note is the fact that coccidiosis doesn't always present with scour, so don't count on scour to tell you whether or not your goats are infested with cocci.. If it's coccidia, though, start some kind of sulfa drug...sulfadimethoxine (dimethox), sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim (SMZ-TMP), sulfamethazine (sulmet), or -- in a pinch -- something like CoRid, though I really don't recommend CoRid.


And that's basically it, in a nutshell.. You will, of course, have cases which challenge your diagnostic skills, but hey...that's goats, and that's what 'shotgun' treatment is for..

 

[redtailgal]

thanks. that was an informative read!

You sir, are the poop MASTER!

 

[elevan]

CM - would you mind copy / pasting that into a MY Page article?

eta: It's a great resource and it would make it easier to find as I can add it to the article database.

 

[redtailgal]

yes, I agree.

and could I add the link to my helpful links page?


http://www.backyardherds.com/web/viewblog.php?id=2952-important-links

 

[poorboys]

thanks cmjust0, I just remembered that you wrote about that before and I could'nt find it, I had a little doe who was given to me, she is 3 weeks old and was on the bottle and I just started feeding her whole cows milk, next morning it was greenish and brown runny poo, I figured it to be dietey, but wanted to make sure, so she got a little probios and water with electrolites and I started her on her first round of di-methox. any-way she's better, but the colors of the poo sure makes a difference when you come to the treatment and I thought yours had been a good comparison to how to treat, so i guess I have made you the official goat poo person. thanks.

 

[Roll farms]

Oh I wish we could nominate titles....."Poo Master" would be just grand......

*bowing to the master of poo*

 

[elevan]