Bottle Goats

Special thanks to Vicki,
Any suggestions on what to do when one of my goats are down and out. I have 2 now that look bad. I brought them in the house, put them beside the fire and tube fed water/electrolytes/asprin/and brown sugar(only sugar I had).
Then I read Vicki's response.
The goats seemed to come around but fade slowly after a couple hours. I just tubed their regular milk into the with a little sugar. Both are still breathing, but one is on his way out, he is weekly breathing, stiffening up, pulse is week but steady. The other looks worse than he did this morning, but is still standing and watching the fire. But he looks dehydrated, skin is tight.
Any ideas on how to keep them coasting until they can recover.
On a good note all my other goats are doing fine. I actually began doing Viki's recomendations yesterday. All goats look fine. I started Cocci meds in their milk. However I can not easily get probois in Northern Ontario. Is their something else I can give to increase rumen capacity?

I think you can substitute yogurt as a probiotic in a pinch.

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April

Gardener Chick, Poultry Wrangler, and Goat Mama!

All I have to say is that i sure hope that those poor babies don't die. I will be praying for them, for you, and for the rest of your goats if they are still not doing as good as they should. Bye.

I would say although most illness in goats is of course worms, cocci or disease, that 99% of goats die from dehydration. The very first thing they do for you when ill is to put you on IV. IV is hard to do in infants especially dehydrated ones, but lactated ringers subq works just as well. Just get an IV setup, in fact in your goat stash everyone should order one from their vet each year, or order one from pipevet.com, they are cheap. Just insert the butterfly needly under the skin high up on the shoulder and make a huge bubble, at least one large enough to cover your small hand, large hand is an adult. It slowly absorbs, make sure the lactated ringers is warm, not cold or cool. When the bubble is nearly gone make another lump on the other side.

Baby goats here get no water until they are 3 weeks old, in any form, in fact water buckets are a huge danger in pens with lots of kids. They get into enough trouble without a water bucket to drown or get wet in. Milk, milk and more milk, in small amounts.

You can order probiotics from all the farm stores jefferslivetock.com Sharon Miller has a site in Arkansas (come to our dairygoatsplus.com site to find her) I started purchasing from her this year and are very pleased, pipevet.com is in minnesota, surely you have a place like this in Canada. Kefir is better than yogurt. Ton's of names for Probiotics, Fast Track, Probios are both brand names.

The problems with trying to rescue the ones who are failing is that by the time you bring them in they are too far gone. With changing your management you will have alot less loss with this group, none by the next group armed with your new information. I don't baby, babies, and with yours being meat marketed even if you got them over this, they would lessen the amount you would get for the whole group by not being fat and sassy. In breeding stock sickly kids don't make good adults, so are culled. If they do make it you will then have to acclimate them back out to the cold barn.

That's a hard pill to take for folks who only deal in pets, but they are livestock. And the emotional toll it takes, let alone the financial one and your time, which is much better spent out cleaning the barn for the kids that are going to make you money!

Glad I helped. Vicki

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Vicki McGaugh
Nubian Soaps
North of Houston TX
www.etsy.com/shop/nubiansoaps

A 3 decade dairy goat farm homestead that is now a retail/wholesale soap company and construction business.

I brought three kids in last night. 2 were down looking, one had bloat. Luckily they all look good now. They will go to the barn in the morning. 2 more in the barn look like they have a little bloat. I have given pepto, and I was told to try gripe water. On the good side everyone else looks good. I started them on a mix of cows milk and replacer. I live beside a dairy farmer. They all look healthy now. Even jumping and playing when out of their pens. I hope this is the end to my problems.
Thanks again Vicki and everyone.

So do I. Good Luck. Bye

I think it is enterotoxemia possibly...we vaccinate our does 3-4 weeks prior to kidding. This provides the kids immunity until they are 12 weeks. We then give covexin 8 at 12 weeks and 21 days later. If we miss a mom, the kid gets a mix of antitoxin and polyserum every two weeks until they are 12 weeks. Vaccinating them prior is wasteful. We have meat goats and believe very much in cd&t. Our wethers are sold to kids for 4-H projects and breeding purposes. So they will be around for a while.
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I think its the milk replacer. The first year we had goats, my partner tried raising bucklings he got from a goat dairy that way and lost lots of them. They either died from bloat or scours as very young kids or failed to thrive and died when they were weaned. These babies all got colostrum and all got CDT vaccinations. I think the replacer does not provide what they need and they are more succeptable to a host of illnesses including coccidiosis. I've raised lots of babies on pasturized goat milk and even cow milk with no problems. I do not want to have to use replacer. When my kids are weaned, I start freezing goat milk for the next crop of babies so if the first does to kid have more than twins, I have some milk for the extra babies.