Doe with bad diarrhea

Hi guys...my doe Reba is not well.  She recently had her kids weaned off, the buck was sold and I moved her doeling to another pasture @ 8.5 weeks because she is a heavy milker and I left a single doeling on another heavy milker and she got so fat it was embarrassing and then got a milk goiter.  This doeling takes a bottle too, so I decided to take her away from her mom and give her some milk in a bottle for a few more weeks.

Anyway, about time I weaned the doeling Reba started losing weight.  She tends to be  a little bit of a hard keeper anyway, I figured she was stressed about her kid.  I had moved her out of the barn and into a night pen.  So I moved her back into the barn where she could have her own hayrack and chaffhaye and so on, hoping it would stop her losing weight.  This may be totally unrelated to today's problem.  Her milk production tanked at the same time her weight dropped.

Today I moved everyone to a new pasture, and Reba came in tonight with the worst diarrhea I have ever seen on an adult.  Totally liquid, had run down her udder and everything.  I had to hose her off, poor dear.  Also her doeling had escaped and got back in with her and drank her empty.  So I did not give her any grain tonight because I wasn't sure if that might just make it worse.  She got her usual bowl of chaffhaye in her stall and I gave her the acute dosage of Fir Meadow GI Soother which I have had good luck with plus probiotics.  I did refresh the loose minerals in that pasture and I did see her chawing on that, maybe she over did it with the minerals?  Only other thing I can think is she ate something bad in the new pasture?  I don't know what.  No one else was effected.

I did see Reba had clumpy poops in her stall from last night.  When I checked on her this evening there were little splats of liquid diarrhea in the stall with her.

I am thinking to do all the supportive stuff I can with herbs and electrolytes until Monday and if she is still this way get a fecal to the vet and see if they can help?  Her eye membrane color is very good.  She was dewormed at kidding about 9 wks ago now.  Anyone have this happen?  Know why?  What to do?  Thanks!

You need to be a member of Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats to add comments!

Join Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats

Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • Sorry I forgot to update you guys on this.  I panicked and threw the whole cabinet at her.  I dewormed her with Ivomec and treated her for coccidia too.  She was starting to recover by Sunday night after the first doses of those drugs.  Her milk still tanked and has not totally recovered.  She is down to about 3lb a day now so that's a bummer but I'll take it because it was scary how sick she was and I was afraid she was going to die. 

    Moral of the story, time to start doing fecals and get serious about this parasite business.  I have been procrastinating, can't do that anymore.  So I did my first fecal yesterday.  Collected samples from almost the whole herd today and am going to do them all and see where everybody stands.  Wish me luck!

  • Sounds like worms and/or coccidia. There are some worms that cause diarrhea rather than anemia. Coccidia causes anemia, although rarely affects adults. However, sometimes a worm load can kick the snot out of them and then coccidia can cause additional problems.

This reply was deleted.