Enterotoxemia or Something Else?

[Hadassah]

Our goats were on spring hay and grain before I started feeding them just leafy branches and grain for a few days (less than a week, I think.) Then I switched them back to spring hay and grain. Monday our one young doeling had noticeable scours. I didn't really notice anything else unusual about her...she didn't resist vigorously when I gave her some Probiotic paste but other than that she seemed pretty normal. Thursday evening she was dead. She was a pretty healthy, strong little lass.

I'm thinking this is enterotoxemia since it is suddenly brought about by abrupt changes in eating habits, especially in young kids. I didn't really notice any symptoms... some other hay in that batch was moldy, so technically it could've been goat polio too? But I think I would've seen the symptoms if she had had goat polio...we had that disease in one of our does before and it was quite noticeable.

Any advice/suggestions? Should I vaccinate the other goats in that group with CD/T just in case they're all equally susceptible? There are three juveniles and the victim's brother and mother.
I'm also thinking I should buy some new hay tomorrow, just in case it was the culprit and the other goats get sick from it too. :/

 

[Roll farms]

You've got several possibilites there...entero....polio...and when I hear of a young kid dying this time of year, I always think coccidiosis.
They can seem fine and then suddenly die from cocci.

You're asking if the other goats should be vaccinated w/ CD/T... In my opinion, ALL goats should be vaccinated, then boosted 3-4 wks later, and then boosted annually.

If you suspect a goat actually has entero, they need CD Antitoxin (short term protection) for treatment, and then when well again they'll need CD/T Toxoid (toxoid is for long term protection) and boosted again.

Moldy hay can cause listeriosis. It should never be fed to goats. Ever.
Avoid changing their diets completely, and if you must, do it slowly / gradually. Sudden changes will trigger entero.

Have their worm loads been checked?

There's just no way to know for sure what happened. Conjecture is just that....we can guess, but can't know.

To minimize losses, all of our goats get CD/T, their diet is pretty much constant (and we check the hay over before feeding), we keep an eye on their parasite load, and do coccidiosis prevention in young goats and kids.

 

[elevan]

There's just no way to know for sure what happened. Conjecture is just that....we can guess, but can't know.

To minimize losses, all of our goats get CD/T, their diet is pretty much constant (and we check the hay over before feeding), we keep an eye on their parasite load, and do coccidiosis prevention in young goats and kids.

x2

 

[20kidsonhill]

There's just no way to know for sure what happened. Conjecture is just that....we can guess, but can't know.

To minimize losses, all of our goats get CD/T, their diet is pretty much constant (and we check the hay over before feeding), we keep an eye on their parasite load, and do coccidiosis prevention in young goats and kids.

x2

x3
if your goat was still scouring after the 24 hours, a treatment plan needs to be implemented other than just probiotics. I will let a goat scour for 1 day, if they aren't off feed, just to see if it is dietary, but if they start to look like they aren't feeling well or if it goes more than 24 hours, we treat fairly aggressive to get it under control.

A fecal test is a good idea, for anyone, but especially if you aren't familiar with diagnosing the type of scours.
Scours could be:
parasitic
coccidiosis
over-eating disease
or bacterial

A good kitchen sink method would be to treat with,
Kaolin-pectin( a type of pepto-bismo for livestock(twice a day until scours stop))
spectam scour gaurd(or halt): for bacterial scours(twice a day, until scours stop)
Sulfa-dimethoxine for coccidiosis(5days)
and a wormer(duration of treatment depends on choice of wormer, 1 to 3 days)
All at the same time,