protien problems

[steff bugielski]

Can some one tell me the real time problems with too much protien. I am still trying to get some weight on my doe who is close to delivery. She is starting to get some fluid in her udder. I do not have a due date. She is very skinny and won't eat anything. She will however eat soybean meal (45%) and calf manna (38%).
Just to recap the problem.She does not have worms and her eyelids are pink. She just does not eat. She also had been having episodes of bloat. The vet believes she has ingested something like a nail or wire.
I have been giving oil everyday and since then no more bloat. She is eating a bit more but still won't eat more than 1/4lb of anything, cept the soy and calf manna.
If I let her eat the calf manna will it cause immediate problems with her or the kids? I am afraid she just will not have enough energy to deliver those babies. I am pretty sure I will need to put her down after she delivers if she does not start eating.
Any advice is welcome but please don't tell me to just feed her hay, I prefer not to starve her to death.

[goatsareus]

by not eating, do you mean grain type products only, or that she is not eating ANYTHING?

Hay is an excellent feed for a goat if you have a good quality hay, do you?

I am not a good person to answer this. I lean toward a low protein/grain diet for my goats.

Do you think the problem is an ingested nail or wire?

Goats usually eat the level of grain that they can handle. Do you have access to comfrey? It is a high protein food.

[6e]

She won't eat any grains at all?
I don't really have any suggestions, but wanted to wish you luck with your doe! I hope that it turns out well and that she has some nice healthy babies.

[southerngurl]

Have you been giving probiotics? I would be giving it daily if she has an appetite and bloat problem. Oil kills off needed gut bacteria as well.

She needs roughage, so I hope she is eating hay or browse.

You might try some beet pulp, since it high calorie for them and should help with the weight.

[goatkid]

I'm not sure what you mean by she won't eat anything. In late pregnancy, she does need some protein. She needs good quality hay such as alfalfa to keep her rumen working properly. It's also fine to feed Calf Manna. Have you tried mixing in some dairy goat lactation pellets with the soy or Calf Manna? I've never heard any ramifications of feeding protein to goats, but my goat mentor heard at convention that more than 16% protein doesn't offer more benefit to a goat. Will she eat black oil sunflower seeds?

[fishhead]

Exactly what is she eating?

I think some form of roughage is needed for the bacteria in the rumen. If for no other reason than to provide substrate.

Won't she eat alfalfa?

[ozark_jewels]

Have you tried her on a good quality alfalfa hay??

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

She doesn't have worms....unless you worm for cool weather worms you won't know she has worms until you look in her intestines when she is dead. You won't see eggs on fecal during freezeing temps. The only symptom of strongides is skinny emaciated does who come into milk thin...the folks who come on forums asking how they can get wieght on their just fresh milkers. Anemia is a problem only in blood sucking worms. She isn't anemic, her gums are pink, is only part of the picture.

You can't give much oil each day without drowning her rumen bacteria. She bloats when she eats any carbs (grain) because they ferment and start producing gas because she doesn't have a healthy rumen. She then won't eat grain because it makes her feel bad. So she eats only ground products like SBM and calf manna.

Sure she can live on a diet like that and even kid, unless she goes into hypocalcemia because the only calcium in her diet is in the form of carbonate and sulfate in the calf manna, and with the super high protein diet, she can't absorb this calcium. Are you seeing problems in her legs from lack of calcium?

You have to get her rumen bacteria back. Thiamin or Fortified B complex shots daily. Probiotics, kefir if you make it, yeast products (Diamond V Yeast being the best). bo-se, even weekly shots. Get cud from a teaching univeristy to give to her, or steal cud from a healthy goat, do this as often as you can.

This has been going on for a very long time. IF the vet thinks it's hardware disease than treat it, do an xray...or get a second opinon. Sounds like a very typical cow vet diagnosis. If the hardware has made it to the liver than a blood test will give you the answer. At the very least a blood test would have an elevated white count.

If she will eat ground soy than she will eat alfalfa pellets, together or with the calf manna that at least would be a better diet.

Does she have a low grade fever?
Have you checked her teeth, with a speculum so you can really check them? Perhaps she has a dental point grinding against her gums so she won't chew, or an abscessed tooth that needs to be pulled, or an abscess near her cheek so she won't cud.

Your question has already been answered, you can see the effects of a high protein diet with no roughage or carbs on a bred doe. Protein burns up their rumen bacteria, it depletes the calcium stores they should have, they get thinner and thinner. Now fast forward to kidding and coming into milk, skeletally thin.

You shouldn't have bred the doe, or at least aborted her until you find out what is wrong. You breed animals in a gaining plane of nutrition, not just because they are in heat. If the kids are valuable to you than kid her out, don't milk her and fix the problem or put her down.

Chronic health conditions like this can't be diagnosed over the internet, it also brings down the health of the whole herd when it goes for months being undiagnosed. This could be johnnes, and with testing questions in goats and even cows.... she would have to be some spectacular animal for me to keep around with questions like this.

I hope for your herds sake she is quaranteened from the rest of them, I would take special care in getting her kids away from her, pretty tough to do with not knowing a due date.

I would put her on CMPK injectable and treat her for the calcium imbalance she is in now, and likely throughout the rest of the pregnancy and even into milking. Vicki

[susanne]

i don't do that very often but in this case i have to agree with vicki.
cae, johnes and cl are all wasting diseases. if you are sure you have your parasite management under control, you might want to look in this direction.
vicki i see some very view strongyles eggs on fecals. seems i have a breed of strongyles that are not smart enough not to lay eggs this time of the year. my goats are looking very good in flesh and i have to watch them not gaining too much weight on the end of their pregnancy.
btw, since my daughter brought fecalsol from the vet office, i finally see the eggs. before i had made a saturated solution with epson salt and i was always thinking my goats don't have parasites because i never saw an egg.

steff too much protein will damage the kidneys and the joints.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

made a saturated solution with epson salt
.......................

Never used or heard of anyone using epson salts before.
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vicki i see some very view strongyles eggs on fecals.

HC? So do we just not enough to warrant worming. These eggs will overwinter in the barn bedding. Vicki

[susanne]

not HC, and not enough in numbers to warrant worming during pregnancy.

i thought you have the veterinary parasitology from foyt?
epsom salt is magnesium sulfate.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

i thought you have the veterinary parasitology from foyt?
........................................

You know I have this book and you only know about the book from me! So why write that?

Just because it is written in a book I use to identify worm eggs, doesn't mean it is the instructions that I use for fecal sampling goats. When you learned about the book from me, it certainly didn't come with the caveat that I also use the instructions written in the book. You certainly have read me say that I use salt. I use uniodized table salt, unless I am at my vets and get some of her stock salt. It was how I was taught by a small ruminant parisitologist, it is what I teach. I can say that I don't know anyone who teaches or uses epsom salts. And although the book may say that, I will have to go reread that section again, I have had such good success with the way I do fecal that it wasn't anything I absorbed in reading the book the first time to make note of it.

Hot water in a pot on the stove, until no more salt will stir in and you have a good puddle of undissolved salt in the bottom of your container. Cool to room temp, store in the fridge in a mason jar....nothings easier or cheaper than that. The vet who teaches the classes doesn't even super saturate his solution...he just uses hot water in a 5 gallon bucket out of the water heater, stock salt with his bare arm until no more will stir in, and we all dip our containers in it and go back into the room. Vicki

[hoofinitnorth]

In MOST animals you ABSOLUTELY can have high worm loads during freezing temperatures. The existing worms don't die off and they don't stop laying eggs just because it's winter. It is simply that the chance of spreading the worms in grazers is lower because the parasite eggs and larvae released in stool don't usually survive long enough to be picked up by another grazer. Unless, of course, they remain in a heated pile of manure... or even a compost pile.

I live in ALASKA where we have REAL winters and far subzero temperatures. We ABSOLUTELY have animals (dogs, cats, horses, cattle, goats, chickens, etc.) that are carrying worms (I've seen many animals that are even overloaded in any season) at ALL times of the year AND you don't have to wait to do a necropsy to see them. You CAN see them in a fecal if you collect straight from the animal (not from a cold pile in the yard) and the parasites are at the right time in their lifecycle when you collect. This is often why veterinarians suggest you fecal MORE than once at certain intervals, depending on what parasites you are trying to identify and in what animals. Hookworms, pinworms, strongyles, tapes, all sorts of stuff lives year 'round in the gut (not likely any one individual worm living for a year, but the presence of those species of worms will be there without intervention). Yes, we've had to de-worm rescued horses in the dead of winter and then do them again before spring hit. Big bloated bellies, pale gums and eyelids, unthrifty appearances, and nasty fecals to match.

Some animals do not need to be de-wormed, even when they have high loads, if they are not showing symptoms or having difficulties handling the load. Some animals just carry higher loads naturally. Some animals are highly susceptible to the affects of even light parasite loads and will be appear sickly even if the numbers are not high in the fecal.

It was once thought that high protein diets caused enteroliths and kidney stones but now they realize that most of those instances can be explained by an imbalance of Calcium:Phosphorus.

[LMonty]

I agree with Vicki and the others who suggest that you try to get some probiotics into her, some Vit B hopefully some BoSe if you are in a selenium deficient area, and I'd feed free choice hay, with alfalfa or some legume in it, and alfalfa pellets, BOSS, and Beet Pulp. the beet pulp is excellent at putting weight on. Feed it and see if she starts eating it soon, sometimes they will turn their noses up for a bit then suddenly decide its manna from Heaven. Mix the calf manna in with it, as she picks thru to eat that she may get a few bites of the other and decide its good stuff!

If you can, pull blood and have the vet check her for CAE and CL and johhnes and get a fecal done. At least worm with a broad spectrum dewormer known to work well in your area, and safe for use during pregnancy. Yea, its a shotgun approach, but these are the things that you do to try to support an undernourished and or sick animal, and they shouldnt hurt her, and hopefully will help.

[LMonty]

Oh, and what kind of goat is this, approx weight, and what age, and has she kidded before? It might be a metabolic problem, too.

[susanne]

Originally Posted by Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians

You know I have this book and you only know about the book from me! So why write that?

Vicki

i wrote that because you said you never heard about using epsom salt (magnesium sulfate). secondly i'm a book person and i'm reading it and not only look at the pretty pictures they sometimes have.
my vet told me that epsom salt is not a good solution. really vicki, i don't care what you do or how you do it. the point i made in my first post was that i had not seen any eggs when i used epsom salt and that somebody else might get a light bulb on and change the fecal solution in case they don't see any eggs.
i also doubt that "parasite moms", how you like to call them, have the intelligence to only lay eggs when the conditions are right.

oh, fiasco farm also recommend epsom salt.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

i also doubt that "parasite moms", how you like to call them, have the intelligence to only lay eggs when the conditions are right.
....................

But they do have the intelligence to know a doe is in labor and kidding, so I should unarrest in the system and start laying eggs as fast as I can to get as many of my kids in the manure while the does immunity is in this weakend state.

That cocci occysts know when kids are in crisis, even from stress and can move from hundreds to thousands of occyts in just 12 hours.

Bacteria, larve, eggs, virus, are intelligent in that they live only to reproduce. Whatever you doubt is fine, but your post was meaningless.

Her goat is not anemic so she says that she can't be wormy. An anemic goat from worms in the north during the winter in an anamoly. Winter cool weather worms are not blood suckers, they cause emaciation. Warm weather worms are blood suckers, why anemia and diarrhea losses are so huge in the spring through fall.

If worms are not intelligent, explain arrested larve. Literally worms put to sleep in the system until it's a more suitable time to become adults and suck blood and lay eggs.

Heather, I didn't say they wouldn't have worms. Goats will not have HC blood sucking worms, hence...with this post her saying her goat 'didn't have worms because her gums were pink' is meaningless because her worm problems right now would not be blood sucking worms. So yes she should do a fecal and see if the reason her goats is skinny and not eating is because of worms that cause these symptoms, and not cause anemia. Vicki

[hoofinitnorth]

Originally Posted by Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians

But they do have the intelligence to know a doe is in labor and kidding, so I should unarrest in the system and start laying eggs as fast as I can to get as many of my kids in the manure while the does immunity is in this weakend state.

Most likely this is less a factor of "intelligence" than it is a sudden lack of resistance from the infected goat as her system concentrates on other things, like kidding. Less resistance allows parasite activity to increase and this can happen any time the goat is stressed.

Originally Posted by Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians

Her goat is not anemic so she says that she can't be wormy. An anemic goat from worms in the north during the winter in an anamoly. Winter cool weather worms are not blood suckers, they cause emaciation. Warm weather worms are blood suckers, why anemia and diarrhea losses are so huge in the spring through fall.

I agree her goat is not likely overloaded with with blood-suckers if the goat is indeed not anemic. However, I do not concur with your assertion that anemic goats in the north during the winter are an anomaly, nor do I think blood-sucking worms in northern goats during the winter are an anomaly. If the goat is exposed to worms and the worms, of any type, are allowed to multiply and even overload the goat when it is stressed (such as is common in times of winter), the goat will have them no matter what time of year and may be anemic. Often animals in bad shape get into worse shape in the winter up here. Likewise, a borderline healthy animal can go south in a flash in the winter. All because of the greater demands placed on their system and the existence of pre-existing problems that can worsen as the animal's system is stressed.

[steff bugielski]

Hey guys chill out!
I did do fecals, a few of them, no worms. She was wormed at the beginning of her pregnancy even though the vet came back with a slightly heavier than normal worm load. Under the circumstances we wormed her anyway.

The reason she is so skinny is she does not eat, think an anorexia girl. She picks at her food and spends an hour eating 1/8 lbs of grain.
Once again she will not eat beet pulp. alfalafa pellets or anything. That is my problem.
She does have hay, all day long. I do not have access to alfalfa hay.
I consulted the vet and will give her the calf manna and corn. She will most likely need to be put down after she kids.

[goatsareus]

I find exchanges like the ones in this thread, very interesting and revealing. I learn a lot about the folks who advertise here that they have goats for sale. From reading their web sites, I would be interested in looking at their goats for a potential purchase. But when I read some of the nonsense they post on the goat forum, I rule them out as a potential breeders.

Please, folks, remember this forum can be viewed by anyone with an internet connection. I know I have ruled you out for a potential purchase, based on the way you present yourself in this forum. But keep your comments coming, they are more revealing than you can imagine.