Doe panting heavily

[madness]

One of our first fresheners is behaving oddly. My mom just called from the farm and I'm in town for the night. Here's what she told me.

Shelli is always impatient to be milked but tonight my mom had to actually go find her and encourage her to get up from the ground to come into the milk room. She is panting very heavily and her udder feels extremely hot. Mastitis test came back negative and she is eating her grain while being milked but she continues to pant and act oddly. It is well into the high 90s today. She does have blood on her head and we've been seeing some herd order shakeups lately.

What are your suggestions? I told my mom to add molasses to the water in the barn where they will be penned tonight to encourage her to drink in case she is just overheated or over exerted from a fight. She is also giving the doe some Vitamin C. My mom is really freaked out because Shelli is not acting like herself at all.

ETA: Just some more info that might be helpful. We don't have a means to take temperature (that will change first thing tomorrow!), we've had her for 7 months, she is over a year old and been in milk for about a month. She is a French Alpine and has had CDT vaccine. She is on Molly's herbal wormer and tomorrow I had planned on doing a fecal to see how things are going. All the girls have nice pink eye lids.

[Cheryl in SD]

I wonder if she got over heated today. Was there shade for her to get into? Any day over 86 is a possiblity for this and not wanting to get up and panting makes me wonder.

Here is more information.

Heat Stress in Goats

[madness]

Their pasture is mostly wooded so there is plenty of shade. But it's still 90 degrees in the shade...

Thanks for the link! Looks like my mom's first instincts were good. She said that she just naturally wetted a rag and put it on Shelli's forehead like she was one of her human kids! She wiped down her udder and legs as well. I'll have her keep doing it.

[chamoisee]

Is the water full and clean? Goatsitters often don't understand that goats will not drink dirty water, even a little dirty can be an issue.

[madness]

My mom and I share the responsibility of the goats so she is aware of all of goat weirdness issues. Shelli did dunk her face in the trough and take a huge drink when she got in the barn.

This morning, Shelli assumed a position on the log that usually only Maxie the herd queen gets on! So I'm thinking it was a combo of the heat and a battle.

Thanks guys!