Long post =)
Due to an error on my part, we are unable to take his body in for testing, so I wonder if anyone can help me diagnose? I know it's very difficult without seeing him, but here are some of the facts:
His poop was normal until the end. He pooped little hard poops every time I inserted the thermometer.
He ran to his feeder at 5:30 when he was being fed his evening hay and began eating.
His coat condition was perfect - soft, thick and shiny.He was bottle fed until 8 weeks old. The only time I have ever bottle fed a kid.
One thing I realized today as I was trying to remember his behavior this last week. On Saturday I always go out and "hang out" with the goats for a while. I went to the bucks fence and talked to them and Zimba did not come over to talk to me like he always does. He talked to me while he was walking around eating whatever little things he could find on the ground, but he would not come over to the fence. He seemed distracted. I wondered about it then, but was not concerned, but in hindsight, as little as that was, I think that was my indicator. He was a lover and he always came over to say hello and get petted. My daughter went in their pen with them that same day and picked him up and petted him and he lay on her lap like usual, so I forgot about it.
Symptoms:
He went from running to his hay feeder to laying on his side and having seizures in 4 hours. When we first found him, I think his rumen was working, and he would chew a little bit and swallow when we put the various remedies in his mouth
He was still swallowing until the end.... and making noise during the seizures only.
He did not have a wobbly gait or stumble, nor run in circles during the times we saw him, which was up until 4 hours before we found him in critical condition.
His eyes were unresponsive when we found him. (did not blink when we brought our finger close)
His head was floppy when not having his seizures and during seizures it went straight back to his spine, his legs stiffened and his eyes rolled back.Possible causes:
My ton of hay has a few bales with mold on the bottom, but we are very careful when we feed not to get any of the mold and I don't think the bale we have open is one of the ones with mold on the bottom.
Lack of minerals, the two bucks do not eat very much of their free choice minerals.
What we tried after we found him:
- homemade charcola paste
- maple syrup and power punch
- 3 lengthy hot baths
- crushed garlic and brewers yeast
Since he was not going to be a buck, I did not feel it was a wise livestock decision to invest en emergency visit and IV into him for several hundred dollars. My heart wanted to in the worst way, but my wallet said otherwise. That said, it might have saved him, although I think he was pretty far gone when we found him.
Chaverah Farm Herd Management:
We use natural methods and do not vaccinate. Although in an emergency situation, I would consider making an exception.
Our free choice mineral mix contains golden blend minerals, baking soda, kelp, DE and Diamond V Yeast
ACV in the water once a month or less.
Grass hay fed twice daily, which is grown down the road. Treated with fertilizer occasionally, no pesticides.
Does in milk get a grain mix of organic barley, organic oats and BOSS during milking time.
We use Hoeggers herbal wormer once every 8 weeks (for non pregnant does) and Mollys #2 wormer in between. The last worming was on April 22 using Molly's. They were due for one on Sunday, but we had company all day due to it being Mothers Day, so I didn't get to it. I have been considering only worming as needed. Other people I know in the state do that and have no problems with worms. They take in a fecal test every 6 months to a year and worm/don't worm based on the results.
Possibilities:
- Tetanus: there were no scratches on him and he was disbudded over 6 weeks ago, before he came here. Not yet castrated.
- Listerosis: the only symptom he had was the convulsions
- Enterotoxemia: had some of the symptoms, but they are similar to Polio and the blindness is more like Polio
- Polio: he was not off of feed, no diarrhea, but did have other symptoms
- White Muscle Disease: usually happens in younger kids, but we do not give extra selenium or vit E except for the mineral mix
- Low glucose and hypothermia: definitely had these, but probably brought on by the initial problem, right?
I have never had a sick goat or any goat die before this (except for one with a compound fracture that we put down) and I have had goats from July 2007 until February 2010 and then again since January 2011. I have never immunized, given chemical wormers or BOSE (although some of my goats had been before they came here). My does have had easy kiddings with all live births and healthy kids.
Replies
Kimberly Martin said:
Kare:
You said this was your only bottle baby? And that the boys aren't eating many minerals or any grain, correct? Are you in a copper deficient area?
Other than that, my "people" medical background points to maybe some sort of trauma, clot?
Kare at Chaverah Farm said:
Jaci Jahn said:
Kare at Chaverah Farm said:
I am not experienced in goats at all. I was reading an article about poisonous weeds for goats at this website
http://netvet.wustl.edu/species/goats/goatpois.txt
when I came across this line
"Deaths from alkaloidal plants usually result from severe digestive disturbances, pain and nervous symptoms. Animals usually die in convulsions."
Thought of you.
Maybe he got to a hemlock plant or something else poisonous to him...
I could be totally wrong too.
Everything pretty much sounds like every goat I've lost, and all of the confirmed deaths were attributed to parasites or copper deficiency. And I think that many of the earlier deaths were incorrectly attributed to parasites when copper deficiency was the real problem. When an animal is deficient in nutrients, their immune system is not functioning at full steam, so it's easy for parasites to appear to have been the culprit because the animal probably was overloaded with them. But without liver biopsies, no one realized that parasites were the secondary cause, not the primary cause.
Given your kid's age, I really think it was parasites. He came from another farm, right? I have really tried hard to not use chemical dewormers here, but I haven't found anything natural that consistently works, and if something works intermittently, then it may just be coincidence, rather than a true cause and effect relationship. I know a lot of new people use various herbal dewormers and assume they work because they haven't had any problems in the year or two they've had goats. When I first got goats, I didn't use anything for two years, and my goats were fine, so I was convinced that any type of dewormers were completely unnecessary -- and then a buck died. It was a buckling that I'd only owned for about a month. He was the first goat I bought that was not given a dewormer by the breeder the day I picked him up, so he came with a load of parasites, and the stress of the move, coupled with being in a small grassy pen with three other bucks caused the proliferation of parasite eggs in there, which he just kept re-ingesting.
I don't think a kid that young would have died from a nutrient deficiency because they pull everything they can from their dam. Copper deficient and selenium deficient does abort at various stages of pregnancy, or they die themselves, so if his dam is still around, he probably was in pretty good shape nutritionally. However, I personally don't think two months of milk is enough for kids, especially bottle-fed because I don't think they get as much milk as dam raised in many cases. My dam-raised kids always grow better than the bottle babies.
And I have no idea if this contributed in any way to his death, but if I understand your post correctly, you are mixing your minerals with five or six additional things, which is not recommended. Those supplements should all be available individually, because goats will take as much or as little of each one as they need. By mixing them together, you are bound to be over- or under-dosing on some things. Two dish, black, mineral feeders are available for about $5 from Tractor Supply or Jeffers (online).
Low blood sugar and hypothermia are symptoms, not causes of death -- unless a kid is caught in a flood or something drastic like that. Any animal will become hypothermic just before it dies, and their blood sugar crashes. That first little goat that died was at U of I, and his blood sugar was in the single digits before he died -- it's supposed to be at least 70, just like people. Before I had livestock, I never understood the importance of a fever, but a fever means the body is fighting. Hypothermia means it is shutting down, so I would much rather have an animal with a fever! It is very hard to bring back an animal that's shutting down, so you were probably right that taking him in would have been futile. At this point, I have everything in my bag of tricks that they have at a vet's office, so I do as much as I can. In fact, I also have IV fluids, and once they get to the point where they need IV fluids, they're already too far gone about half the time.
Okay, I'll be quiet now! I could talk goats all day, but that's probably more than you want to digest at one sitting.