Updated: Ketonic doe had 2 full term bucklings

[Pearce Pastures]

Have you used a tried doing a ketone test? I am pretty sure they have them at TSC and are not too badly priced.

 

[Oakroot]

I have not seen them there.

So I figured out the problem. She was just sick of big syringes and thick paste. I switched from syrup mix to dextrose with water and used a tiny 3ml syringe. Over the span of an hour and a half I was able to get 120ml in her with out any of the violent reaction. I am going to try diluting the syrup and trying again with some of that as well.

The sugar and water is definitely helping. I am going to keep it up and try and get at least 60 ml if not more in her every hour today and through the night. I am giving her 24 hours. If she can make a big turn around by then and be back to near normal I will let her carry but if by 24 hours I have not seen a huge difference I am going to start the Predef and abort her to see if we can save her.

 

[Renegade]

I have not seen them there.

So I figured out the problem. She was just sick of big syringes and thick paste. I switched from syrup mix to dextrose with water and used a tiny 3ml syringe. Over the span of an hour and a half I was able to get 120ml in her with out any of the violent reaction. I am going to try diluting the syrup and trying again with some of that as well.

The sugar and water is definitely helping. I am going to keep it up and try and get at least 60 ml if not more in her every hour today and through the night. I am giving her 24 hours. If she can make a big turn around by then and be back to near normal I will let her carry but if by 24 hours I have not seen a huge difference I am going to start the Predef and abort her to see if we can save her.

You need to treat this doe aggressively with either Revive or Magic. She needs Calcium along with the sugars for energy. She won't like it but it needs to be done.

The Revive recipe we use can be found on post #5 here: http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=25025

Donna

 

[Oakroot]

Donna you are doing nothing but try and be helpful. So please do not feel like I am upset with you in any way about your post. It helped me narrow down some things but I do have to post a bit of a rant about verbiage. My vet did even worse to me and I see lots of people do it. So it's not you. I am just going to post this and hope it helps someone/anyone down the line. (and this is 90% a rant at my vet)

When a person has a sick animal. Every thing that animal does is in super focus. They won't like, or it will hurt a bit, is not the same scale they may have a total fit when you give this to them. They will absolutely hate this but they need it anyways. So when my doe was having fits this morning every time I gave her the magic drench I was rightfully pretty concerned. I was unable to get it into her she was having such a violent reaction to receiving it. That is why I switched her to Dextrose and water. Because that I was actually able to get into her. It was not until you said she won't like it that I decided to taste a tiny drop of it. Even in small quantities the calcium stuff is horrendous. It is way worse then "they just won't like it" it practically turns your face inside out is so bad. Now that I knew this I was able to make up a new batch. Dose her with the calcium first and then give her a full dosage of Magic. HUGE difference. So my rant is people if you have experience with a product and you know animal truly hate something or a drug truly burns. Don't sugar coat it when giving advice. If you had a doe that throw her self on the ground because they where so upset at getting a drug. Share that. You can make someone have a much better chance of success if they are forearmed with the knowledge of how the animal will react. If my vet or heck even the stupid bottle had mentioned a strong reaction to the flavor of this stuff I could have had this doe so much father along in recovery because I would have understood what was going on. There was no way for me to just know that her horrible reactions this morning where caused by the calcium.


I still am flabbergasted my vet gave me nuflor and said "Ya she will probably squirm at that one." Understatement to the point of lies that.

So anyways now that I know a bit better how I need to go about this (thank you again Donna, your advice is already making a huge difference) I can hopefully get her on track. I have a plan, and sometimes just having that is infinitely comforting.

 

[Oakroot]

Seeing slow but steady improvement every time I go out. (She never spiked any sort of temp for anyone wondering) She is starting to pick at hay, she is much more bright eyed and alert when you come into the barn and even called to me this time. She is worried about where her heard mates are again.

 

[Renegade]

Donna you are doing nothing but try and be helpful. So please do not feel like I am upset with you in any way about your post. It helped me narrow down some things but I do have to post a bit of a rant about verbiage. My vet did even worse to me and I see lots of people do it. So it's not you. I am just going to post this and hope it helps someone/anyone down the line. (and this is 90% a rant at my vet)

When a person has a sick animal. Every thing that animal does is in super focus. They won't like, or it will hurt a bit, is not the same scale they may have a total fit when you give this to them. They will absolutely hate this but they need it anyways. So when my doe was having fits this morning every time I gave her the magic drench I was rightfully pretty concerned. I was unable to get it into her she was having such a violent reaction to receiving it. That is why I switched her to Dextrose and water. Because that I was actually able to get into her. It was not until you said she won't like it that I decided to taste a tiny drop of it. Even in small quantities the calcium stuff is horrendous. It is way worse then "they just won't like it" it practically turns your face inside out is so bad. Now that I knew this I was able to make up a new batch. Dose her with the calcium first and then give her a full dosage of Magic. HUGE difference. So my rant is people if you have experience with a product and you know animal truly hate something or a drug truly burns. Don't sugar coat it when giving advice. If you had a doe that throw her self on the ground because they where so upset at getting a drug. Share that. You can make someone have a much better chance of success if they are forearmed with the knowledge of how the animal will react. If my vet or heck even the stupid bottle had mentioned a strong reaction to the flavor of this stuff I could have had this doe so much father along in recovery because I would have understood what was going on. There was no way for me to just know that her horrible reactions this morning where caused by the calcium.


I still am flabbergasted my vet gave me nuflor and said "Ya she will probably squirm at that one." Understatement to the point of lies that.



So anyways now that I know a bit better how I need to go about this (thank you again Donna, your advice is already making a huge difference) I can hopefully get her on track. I have a plan, and sometimes just having that is infinitely comforting.

Sorry about that. I never really thought about how bad it would taste. I just know how much goats hate having anything shoved in their mouth. I highly recommend getting a drench gun. That way you can get the tip of it way down the side of her mouth past most of her tongue. It's much easier then using a regular syringe.

Nuflor stings really bad. It's an excellent antibiotic but really tough on goats. The vet should have told you that.

I'm very happy to hear she is feeling better. Keep medicating her for a few days until she either kids or goes back to eating normally. Add a few handfuls of corn to her normal feed. She needs the carbs for energy.

Glad I could help. Good luck with her.

Donna

 

[Oakroot]

Thanks Donna.


So what do you guys think. She made a small bit of progress to day. Not nearly as much as I would have liked though. I just got back in from giving her nutrient drench and miracle and a bit of probiotic. She had more fight in her then I have seen the past two days, and I HAVE been seeing some signs of her brightening back up (She was on her feet most of the day, did some calling to me and the herd) but at the same time she is not really eating she will occasionally take a nibble here and there but it seems like a sick person nibbling some crackers not having a meal. I have pumped a ton of water and sugars into her today though so she may simply not feel hungry. The most promising news is she has never shown any signs of fever. She has held steady at about 102.6 all day with out any problems. I am really hoping this means we do not have true toxemia and she just got way too ketonic and is having a hard time shaking it.

How long should I keep this up before I say it's time to terminate the pregnancy. I understand that is a personal choice, and not something I am going to decide until I see how she looks tomorrow at minimum but I could use a bit of a more experienced persons insight. I would assume that as long as she continues to make steady progress I can keep this up, and if I see her take a turn or spike a fever it is time to end things. But how many days is fair to the doe to keep doing this? For those of you who have dealt with this how many days sans food but on miracle and nutrient drench is sustainable? Just trying to get a bit of a bigger knowledge base so I can be a bit more informed to make a choice.

 

[babsbag]

I hope you get up tomorrow and see a huge improvement in her and you don't have to make any choices. I can't answer your questions but I have been told that if a kid is more than 10 days early the odds are very slim that they will survive. I am sure that your main concern is saving your doe, but if you are hoping to do both (and who wouldn't) then IMO you need to hold off for at least another 2 days, provided that doe is not in a life threatening condition.

Hopefully someone that has been down this road will come along and answer your real questions.

 

[Oakroot]

She is at 10 days now, but to be honest I am not holding out much hope for the kids right now. I have strong doubts they will make it. But she had even more fight in her at 3 am and again at 7 am. She also had a very small amount of white mucus discharge from her vulva this morning. No sign of any blood or greenness to it. I will temp her again in a few hours and see how she is doing.

 

[Oakroot]

So she is not progressing as fast as I want but I don't know how fast I should expect progress. (I have seen other posts where it took people several days to get blood sugar really back up to normal) I was able to get ketosis strips and test her. Slight to small amounts of ketones detected. Temp is still staying steady and normal. I have seen her have three normal bowel movements today so I hope that means she is eating SOMETHING. She has been interested in coming out and grazing. This morning she did not want to actually eat anything but this afternoon she had probably 15 smile bites of grass. The husband also said she had a bit of warm water on her own too.