CD & T

Morning everyone!,

This is our first full year with goats, and I always have lots of questions when it's the first of everything! We did everyone's CD & T shots yesterday.  One goat is a little limp on her leg, still able to walk, jump, eat, poo, drink etc.  They all seem a little more quite than normal as well!  I am going by humans when we have had shots to travel we get an achey shoulder and feel a bit under the weather for a couple of days so I am presuming it is the same for them?

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  • We have that discussion a lot too, Lori! And I went the same route with vaccinating my children.

  • I get a lot of flack from my husband for the vaccination thing. I decided to vaccinate my children to a point and then stopped too. My DD got her scheduled shots until she was 17 months and my son was 3 when he stopped his. They have had the biggies, polio and MMR but the others seem really obscure and I wonder if a lot of health problems that we see today in children and animals are from over vaccination and use of chemicals.

     

    I haven't vaccinated my goats at all since getting them. I have my feed stored in bins in a separate building so they cannot get in there. I only buy one bag of feed at a time and use it all up before getting more. I don't know a lot about the vaccines and what they are for. All the medical stuff kind of freaks me out. There's being prepared and then there's being paranoid, ya know?

     

    It just seems that we are breeding animals that are too dependent on people for survival and the natural instincts and defenses are being bred out of them in favor of animals that are totally controllable by humans. My husband constantly asks the question "what did these animals do before humans took care of them?"  My reply is always "they took care of themselves and the weak and the sick either got better or they died and that was population control. The problem is that we have domesticated animals and put them in habitats that they never would have been in in the first place and they either have to be allowed to adapt or humans have to intervene in order to ensure their survival. " 

     

    We have this discussion a lot. LOL 

  • The CD is for clostridium, which causes enterotoxemia, and the T is for tetanus. Enterotoxemia is a disease of the intestinal tract usually caused by overeating or eating bad feed, causing an imbalance in the digestive tract, and the overgrowth of clostridium bacteria makes the animal sick. Some people mistakenly think that the CD part protects them from bloat, but that's incorrect. Symptoms of bloat and enterotoxemia can be similar so I suppose that's where it comes from.

    If you are going to use it, I'd follow the manufacturer's directions to the T. A lot of people don't, and I'm sure they think it's not important because "it still works," but personally I think that entertoxemia just isn't that common of a disease so their animals aren't getting it in spite of the fact that they're not following the directions. The manufacturer puts those directions on there based upon their research, and if you don't follow the directions, it's kind of pointless to be using the vaccine.

    And you can always change your mind. I vaccinated for the first 3-4 years because "everyone" else did it, then I quit because I was more worried about vaccine reactions than the disease. It kind of depends on which one scares you more. Neither one -- a vaccine reaction reaction or enterotoxemia -- is pretty.

  • I haven't done any vaccines on my goats as of yet...I know  the breeder I got them from does CD/T but as far as anything else I'm not sure. She  doesn't do BoSe either. I am trying to go as natural as possible with all my animals (including my poultry and bees). I don't vaccinate anyone and usually try to use natural methods, like DE for my birds and Molly's herbals for wormer in my goats. I know of several people that are trying to go vaccine free as well.

     

    What exactly is the purpose of CD/T...I just assumed that everyone used it but now I'm finding out that a lot don't. I'm on the fence if I want to use it with my animals but Beth has 5 weeks to go so I need to decide whether I am going to use it or not.

     

    Sorry for hijacking the thread, btw.

  • I quit vaccinating my goats six or seven years ago but continued vaccinating kids I sold. I quit vaccinating all kids about three years ago, and my website says that I don't vaccinate them, so if people want to vaccinate when they take them home, they can. In addition to bad reactions, I also heard about goats dieing from enterotoxemia that had been vaccinated. Actually, the majority of goats that die from enterotoxemia have been vaccinated. Some people have taken that to mean that they need to be vaccinating every six months. But one thing that I think a lot of people completely ignore -- including vets -- is that the bottle says that all contents should be used as soon as it is opened. I don't know anyone who does that. They vaccinate a couple goats today, some in a couple weeks, a few more in a few weeks, and they keep using the bottle until it's empty. And if it warms up it's no good. There are too many variables that can make it ineffective. You have no idea what happens to it at the distributor and if someone forgot it on the loading dock in the sun or in the warehouse for a few days before putting it in the frig. I had a goat die last year from enterotoxemia, and it was our own dumb fault. Our intern fed grass in the evening that had been cut in the morning and had started to heat up and ferment. We're lucky only one goat died. I'm sure that if the same thing had happened to someone who'd vaccinated their whole herd, they'd have credited the vaccine for more not dieing. But this tells me that my goats are healthy enough to deal with some nasty bacteria on occasion. I know someone who took home her first two goat kids and gave them unlimited access to grain, and one died of enterotoxemia after a couple weeks, so even vaccinated animals are not immune from dumb mistakes.

  • I think the only vaccine I am going to give is CD/T. Seems like a lot of other stuff just isn't necessary. How long have you been vaccine free Deborah? I'm trying to get away from it but with this being our first kidding I figured better safe than sorry.

  • Oh, sorry about that! When you said it was like a human getting an achy arm, that's why I associated it with the site of injection. The age doesn't make a difference in response. We never had any of our goats respond negatively other than the lump at the injection site, but after hearing about one too many goats having a bad reaction or dieing, it was too nerve-wracking for me to keep doing it. I usually forget to mention that everyone should have a bottle of epinephrine on hand when vaccinating or only vaccinate during your vet's office hours so you can rush a goat over there if necessary.

  • Did inject sub-Q and it was not into the muscle of the leg.  Was reading the leaflet for the drugs and one of the side effects is that is causes older goats to limp and become lame.  Elly is four years old!  We think this is why it effect our Elly rather than our two younger goats who are just a year old.

  • Most people who vaccinate will do so 2-4 weeks before the doe kids, and they do the kids at 4-6 weeks of age then again 4 weeks later. We quit vaccinating six or seven years ago, so I don't remember the dosage, but it's on the bottle.

    Also, it just clicked that Sally said her doeling is limping. Goat injections should be given sub-q, so she should not have injected it into the leg. It is possible to damage the nerve in there, especially on a small kid.

  • how soon before the projected kidding date did you give the CD/T to mama and how soon after kidding did the babies get a dose? Does she get another dose after kidding or is she good? I have my first pregnant doe due the second week of April so I know I need to think about it soon. What is the dosage for nigis?

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