Goat acting odd

[TexasArtist]

One of our nubians has been acting strange for the past 3 hours. She has seperated herself from the others. I went out ot check on her and her backside is messy from diarrea. She seems to have stiff mucsles, no softness like when I normally pet her and she also seem to not want me to touch her head. She did feed her little boy oscar for a few seconds while I was out there. He was born on december 4th if that makes any difference.
Thanks for any help

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

All the normal things.
What are you worming with?
What color are her gums and eyelids?
Is she running a fever?
Is she eating?
How old is her buckling?
Milk her out, is the milk normal looking and her udder soft and warm when you are done?

Vicki

[TexasArtist]

Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]All the normal things.

What are you worming with?
The vet had told us not to worm her until oscar gets done nursing and I can't remember the name of the stuff. It was what the vet gave her about 4months ago.
What color are her gums and eyelids? I haven't seen her gums she won't let me look. Almost like she has a migrane headache. Her eyelids looked normal but her eyes were kind of distant.

Is she running a fever? How do I check her for fever? Termomerter in the fanny like cows? I have to get a new one. I origanal one was broke.

Is she eating? I haven't seen her eating when I wrote but about an hour ago she was up and nibbling grass.

How old is her buckling? Oscar was born on December 4th so hes about three months now. Hes half the size of his mom which is a surprise because non of the others have grown that big.

Milk her out, is the milk normal looking and her udder soft and warm when you are done? I'll check her udder and get back to you with an update.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

She won't let you :haha: What a novel concept

Check her gums for color, you want a nice bright red, like her under eyelids. I would bet that you are dealing with what everyone in the south deals with, hemoncous, barepole worms. We worm the day a doe kids because the worms are activated by the birth hormones, they start sucking blood and laying eggs, cause the massive black diarrhea you are seeing which is part blood. The goat gets anemic, doesn't have energy to browse, or fight other for feed, or do much of anything, their heads are down and it is a great effort to walk. In trying to feed her youngster she gets thinner and thinner and the kid gets larger and larger.

Worm her, disregard the out and out nonsense the vet told you. A wormer is not in the milk to worm the buckling, who needs a dose of wormer along with mom anyway, but the carrier in the wormer he gave you is not going to harm the kids!

Use something that works, get you self some Cydectin, use it at 1cc for every 25 pounds of weight she is, him also. Get some Probios from the feeds store and give her 5grams several times a day. Blanket her, I use sweatshirts with the sleeves cut off (I use the sleeves for baby jackets. She does not have enough blood to regulate her temp. It is very likely she will die if you don't do some good nursing here, keep her dry and warm. Get powdered gatoraide and keep it in her water, warm it to keep her drinking. Feed her seperatly, lots of good quality hay, alfalfa pellets, some grain. It's going to take nursing care to get her over this, and build her blood up (any blood building products for horse work, Red Cell, Lixtonic etc...

And all of the above is why we worm the day a doe kids. Prevention is so much eaiser than treating disease. Imagine that she was your only source of family milk, not only is it now going to take some real nursing to get her back into shape, but you wouldn't have any house milk, or milk sales, and if she does die, you aren't going to get that buck of hers onto a bottle, so that means butchering him early.

Get some wormer for yourself to use on your herd.

Vaccinate your own herd it's cheaper.

Get basic things for your barn, a vet thermometer in a case or keep it in a tampon case. Good luck with your doe. Vicki 281-592-6914

[TexasArtist]

Thanks for the help. She is up walking around and when I put some feed out for the other goats she went up to the trough and was elbowing and shoving like the others so she was either real hungry or is feeling a little better. Maybe she got ahold of something that upset her tummy? I gave her the powdered gatorade you recomemended......she wasn't real happy with her water being yellow / green. When I said she wouldn't let me check her gums and such it was because she usually let's me grab ahold of her anyway I want. I guess I have an odd goat?!?
First thing tomarrow I'm heading into town to get these medicines you've recommended. The reason we let the vet do things is because this is our first herd and we are still learning. We also have been going by what some of the other goat raising people around this area have said. My mom grew up on a dairy (cow) farm so all this is totally new to her as well. I'm also going to look around for a different vet since this one seems to be more of a mill then an animal health care place. We picked this vet only because other people around here recomemnded him. What should I look for in a goat vet?
Thanks again for all the help

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

I think the best way to find a vet is to try several of them. First being in Texas there are goat clubs all over, find one, visit with the folks and see who they use. I love my vet, but there are those even in my own area who don't like her, it's personalities (I like my vets matter of fact manner, she lets me have as much input as I want, and although she will try to steer me in the direction she wants, she also knows how much I have invested in this and deffersto me to try what I want also). So for me a good vet is someone knowledgeable, but since goats will never be a money making part of their business, someone who will listen and wants to learn something new. I think you also need a livestock vet and not a pet vet, once you are trying to make money at this. Vicki