Nigi doeling with diarrhea *Update*

cyanne

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Well, of course it had to happen the week before her first show! I have a 8 wk old Nigi doeling that started having the runs on Sunday. I don't think it is cocci or anything like that. She is on medicated feed to prevent that, plus there were some extenuating circumstances that are the more likely culprits.

First, she was getting 2 bottles per day of goat milk up until Friday when she turned 8 wks old and I dropped her to 1 bottle per day. She has been growing like a weed and eating solid food really well so I figured it was safe to reduce the milk. That didn't seem to phase her, but then she went to the vet on Saturday to get her health cert. for the show next weekend and that kind of stressed her out (the drive was cold and windy and everything was probably scary and strange to her).

Plus, I did her tattoo on Saturday after she got back from the vet so that didn't help any either...and it has been really rainy and just got pretty cold too. I put a sweater and a light waterproof coat on her and she has a nice toasty dogloo to go into, but I think the combination of the cold and the stress of the tattooing and the drop in bottle feedings has triggered her poo issue.

So, I went to the feed store looking for scour-ease or something like that and they are recommending these "scour tabs" that have terramyacin (sp?). Supposed to give 1/4 of a pill twice a day for 4 days. Does this sound right to you guys? I thought there was supposed to be something to help stop diarrhea, but I didn't think it was an antibiotic...

I have also been giving her a probiotic every day since Sunday, but that has not seemed to help.
 

cmjust0

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Yesterday was Sunday...or are we talking about 10/4/09 or 10/11/09? I ask because you said she's been on probiotic "every day since Sunday," which could be 1 day or 8 days..

Ok, some questions...

- Is she eating and drinking and acting otherwise pretty normally, or is she off feed and depressed?

- What kind of scour are we talking about...clumpy, loafy, runny, watery?

- Is there blood or mucous in it?

- How frequent are the bouts?

- Does it smell foul?

- What color is the scour?

- Is she cold? Check her ears and inside her mouth, as compared to your other goats...

- If you pinch her upper eyelids between your fingers, do they stay 'tented' for a second, or do they snap back into place?

As for the scour-tabs, terramycin is oxytetracycline.. I've never used tetracycline for scours, so I don't know how well it will work. Like you said, though, it's an antibiotic, so it may only help if you're dealing with a bacterial scour.. If the scour is watery, mucousy, and/or bloody, bacteria would be my guess.

There's another product out there called Scour-Halt which is Spectinomycin. It's labelled for e.coli in baby pigs and it's pretty stout stuff. "They say" (whoever they are) it can halt peristalsis, and I can tell you that 6ml of the stuff spread over 2 doses, 12hrs apart will stop a full-grown doe up pretty daggone good for a couple of days afterward, even after scouring what amounted to yellow, mucousy, blood-tinged water.. If you suspect the scour to be bacterial and decide to buy some scour-halt, use it sparingly. It's good stuff, though...kept mine alive long enough for Naxcel injectable to do its thing and allowed us to outrun what fluid she was losing with electrolyte drenches.

Hopefully trestlecreek will jump in here and tell you about SMZ-TMP, too.. I have some, but I haven't used it. It's supposed to be really good for bacterial scours, though. It's an antibacterial/antibiotic combo of Sulfamethoxazole and Trimethoprim.

Until you figure something out, though, make sure she's staying hydrated and do what you can to keep her warm. If she's not eating or drinking and looks depressed, my advice would be to get her into a heated space and start drenching with warm electrolytes.. Dehydration and shock can take one in a hurry, even if the root of the scour was fairly benign.
 

cyanne

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Sunday as in yesterday...yep...for some reason it feels so much longer, though. She had a dose (5 mg) of the probios paste around 1pm yesterday and when I put out fresh feed in the evening I sprinkled the probiotic powder onto the top for her (and the other doeling she is penned with) feed. I also sprinkled some into her milk ration this morning to make sure she got some in her in case she wasn't eating it in the feed. Is it possible to overdose with probiotics btw? The powder I bought also has vitamins so I was a little concerned about that.

She drank her bottle this morning with no problem and looks fine other than having the gross runny poo all over her butt. It is not bloody or mucous-y, just plain poo-brown. The poo is pretty runny, like pudding (eww, sorry for that image).

I will check the other things when I get home. Will also try finding another TSC to check for scour-halt. Will also add some electrolytes to their water just in case.

She is plenty warm since she has a sweater AND a fleece-lined coat. I put those on after she was clipped for the show.

I am thinking it is just stress-related, but I want to stay ahead of things just in case. She is such a gorgeous little doe and a real sweetheart. Definitely don't want to lose her to something simple like this if I can avoid it!
 

cmjust0

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Not sure if I'd go running for scour-halt on account of pudding poo in a doeling who seems otherwise normal, provided it doesn't get worse.. Giving 5g probios directly into the mouth should be good.. I don't think you can OD one on probios, per se, but unless you're administering antibiotics, I don't think I'd do it more than once every day or two.

So long as it doesn't get any worse and she seems normal, well hydrated, and on her feed and bottle, I don't think I'd go any further than daily probios and maybe some pepto.

I'm not sure I'd add electrolyte to the water, either, unless she's actually dehydrated.. Some goats won't drink electrolyte solutions unless they need them, and the last thing you'd want to do is to discourage her from drinking water to stay hydrated if she's scouring.

My guess would be she'll go loafy in a day or so, then back to pellets before ya know it. If it was anything really pathogenic, I think you'd know it by now -- but do keep an eye on her!

In case she does turn off bad, though, I've recently come of the opinion that it's an excellent idea to have a few different oral antibiotics on hand.. Scour-halt is handy in a pinch, so if you'd already planned to go get some, I wouldn't necessarily put off the trip....I'm just saying I wouldn't necessarily give Scour-Halt or any other kind of antibiotic scour med for pudding poo in an otherwise normal doeling.... Just to clarify..
 

cyanne

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Ugh, well I went out this morning and her diarrhea was MUCH worse. Her whole back end was covered in it and I think I saw a little blood so I decided to go ahead and give her the scour tablets that I got at the feed store yesterday (they didn't have the scour-halt powder, just tablets). Not sure how successful I was with the dosing. The tablets are HUGE and say to give either 1 or 2 tablets per hundred pounds every 12 hrs for 4 days.

So, I crushed up 1/4 of a tablet and mixed it with a little milk and tried to get it down her with a drench syringe. She spit a lot of it out, but hopefully got enough down her for the first dose. For tonight's dose I am going to see if I can just get her to swallow the 1/4 tablet without crushing it up. Maybe that will work better...we'll see.

She doesn't look weak or lethargic at all, but she didn't take very much milk this morning either. Though that could have been because she was mad about the drenching with the meds.

I am going to pick up some pepto on the way home from work and put a call in to my vet to see if she has any other suggestions.
 

ksalvagno

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I would really suggest getting a fecal done and also make sure they check for coccidia. Coccidia lives in their gut and can rear its ugly head when an animal is under stress.
 

cmjust0

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The scour-halt I got was a liquid.. It came in like about a pint bottle with a pump that administered 1ml per squeeze. I just saw last night that my local TSC had either switched brands, or maybe the product switched names...either way, where the Scour-Halt used to be was a product called "Scour-Chek".. Same stuff, though...spectinomycin liquid w/ a pump.

A fecal check for coccidiosis is a really good idea, too. Shouldn't take but just a few minutes to complete at the vet's office if you collect a sample and run it in to them.

In the meantime, keep that baby hydrated and warm.
 

cyanne

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Is the cocci possible even if they have been fed the cocci-halt medicated goat feed?

The only problem with getting a fecal check is finding a way to get it done with my work schedule. I might be able to get up super early and run one in to the vet before work, but that make it tough to get all of the morning farm chores done....gonna have to figure it out, I guess.
 

ksalvagno

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Yes, it is possible. Especially since she was under some extra stress. No matter what, checking for parasites is never a bad thing. She may not have coccidia but may have some other parasite. If the fecal is checked for it all, then you will know.
 

cmjust0

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When mine (3 adults, so far) were scouring, the vet tech who ran fecals from them mentioned seeing what she thought were "a few" coccidia cysts and tried to jump to that conclusion.. It's a long story, but I told the vet that they were adults and had been on grain medicated with deccox..

"Not very much, though." I said, referring to the amount of grain they get.

"Well, it doesn't take much..." he said, just before basically throwing out coccidiosis based on that alone and getting me several syringes of Naxcel to combat what we then agreed was most likely a bacterial gut infection.

The thing is, had I not taken the fecals in...which forced me to physically walk in the door of the vet's office...I wouldn't have gotten the Naxcel so quickly. One of ours didn't make it, but the other did..

When another came down with the same thing about a week later, Scour-Halt stopped the scours well enough to allow us to keep up hydration with electrolyte drenches, which gave us time for Naxcel to go to work clearing the infection. She recovered, but it was touch and go for a while.

When you go to your vet with the fecal, tell them what's going on. Even if the fecal only serves to rule out coccidiosis, you'll be right there for them to give you a strong Rx antibiotic..


At this point, has the scour become truly watery and/or foul smelling, or is it basically the same but thinner? Is it mucousy?

Also, has this doeling had a C/D-T vaccination? If so, when? If not, when was her dam vaccinated? If the dam wasn't vaccinated in late gestation (2-3wks pre-kidding) and if the doeling's not been vaccinated, or if the doeling was vaccinated too early for her own system to produce antibodies to the vaccine, or too recently to have developed immunity, then I'd consider hitting her with some C&D Anti-toxin.. Reason being, if the above scenario is the case, this could be early enterotoxemia.
 
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