My doe, Spot, kidded with triplets three months ago. She had gotten thin during her pregnancy and had some digestive imbalance right after kidding, but that cleared up with probiotics. We've been slowly increasing her grain ration, and now she's up to 1 to 1 1/2 cups of grain/BOSS/diatomaceous earth mixture three times a day, and STILL her condition is holding steady at about 1.5. She was dewormed after kidding, and fecal testing last week showed about 10-12 worms in the sample. I've also been giving her iron shots once a week--without them, her eyelids are super white. She gets one Brazil nut per day for selenium, as well.
Tonight I put her to bed wearing her "udder cover", and I'll milk her lightly in the morning (this will be the first milking since this kidding) and give the kids grain before I take the cover off, in the hope of reducing their demand on her. She's just nursing two from this kidding now, but she occasionally lets her 10-month-old doeling sneak a snack. Unfortunately, I don't really have the facilities to separate her from the 10-month-old....at least not without that doeling yelling her head off.
Spot seems happy and healthy other than her weight (and her tendancy to be anemic.) Is it safe for her to be so thin? If not, what else can I do to help her gain some condition?
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Following the general idea of a recipe from another forum, I made Spot a "protein shake" with eggs, mashed banana, "Kid Stuff" from Hoegger's, heavy cream, and some of the grain paste. We've been giving her than every 45 minutes for the past day and a half (except at night) and she's much stronger and not as thin. She's eating hay again (and banana peels, with great enthusiasm) and even climbed the little barrier that is supposed to keep her out of the hay storage! (I'm not sure why the hay in storage is always regarded as so much more delicious as the hay out in the feeder, but right now I only care that she's EATING.) I had ordered some Calf Manna and that arrived today. Offered her some and she ate about 3/4 cup pretty quickly and has been accepting nibbles since then.
I also dug out a tube of Safeguard paste yesterday and have been dosing her with that. She seems to be out of the woods. Everybody cross you fingers and pray if you're praying people. Thanks to everybody and especially Deborah for the support and kind words.
When I did her fecal test last week, I definitely identified tapeworm eggs, and what looked like some kind of lungworms.
Yes, her temp was under 100 a couple of days ago. That was early in the morning when it's pretty chilly here--we may even have had frost that morning--and the 104.1 was in the late afternoon when she'd been standing in the sun all day, in the mid-80's. (We're in the desert, so that temp. swing is not abnormal.)
She refused her grain again this morning, but was munching on hay when I went out there. She ate all of a banana peel except the part I smeared with peanut better to try to get some fat and protein into her. Some of the time she just stands still, not chewing her cud and sort of jerking or bobbing her head very very slightly, like her head is heavy. I'm still syringe feeding her the "grain porridge".
Goats' body temperature is not terribly exact. I've seen some people say that 104 is okay, but none of my goats has ever been 104 unless they're sick. However I've never gone out there and just taken their temperature randomly, so I suppose it's possible they might fluctuate that much. It's odd that her temperature was so low the other day and now it's high. Wasn't it <100 a couple days ago? Have the weather temperatures in your area been fluctuating wildly? How is she eating today? Is she walking around chewing her cud?
I'm not sure why I thought 104.1 was a fever--I see that up to 104 is normal. I'll forgo the antibiotics.
Yes, I used Dectomax before, and yes, her former owner used Ivomec twice a year. I have some Hoegger's herbal wormer somewhere but couldn't get her to eat it before, but I could put it in a syringe tomorrow. She's still turning down grain, but after being syringe fed "grain porridge" she has a appetite for hay and weeds. Tonight she was running a 104.1 fever. I dropped and broke my bottle of penicillin, so will have to wait until the feed store opens tomorrow to get more. Any advice?
When you have dewormer resistance, the dewormer could still kill a percentage of worms, which will make the animal feel better temporarily. I couldn't find it, but I thought I had read somewhere that you used Dectomax, which is in the same family as the ivermectin drugs, so if someone had used ivermectin/ivomec a lot in the past, you could have a resistance to the Dectomax, as well. Typically in cases of dewormer resistance, you give two or three drugs together. The worms that are resistant to drug A may be susceptible to drug B and vice versa, meaning that you will kill more parasites by using two or three drugs at the same time. So, if you have something else, you might consider using it along with the morantel tartrate. This is the recommendation of the group that does all of the research on parasites in small ruminants, and their research and recommendations are on www.wormcontrol.org
This morning Spot was refusing her grain again this morning, and only nibbled at it today. We made the pellets and fed her with a syringe.
Spot is eating again! She is obviously feeling MUCH better and the lump under her chin is gone. Hooray!!!!
She's been getting grain mixed with DE and a pinch of probiotics for a couple of weeks now. Usually she loves it.
No beet pulp around here, I'm afraid--it's just not a crop they grow or process here. Our main crops in this region are cotton, alfalfa, and sometimes corn or a little sorghum.
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