Hi all,
I'm a new owner of 2 Nigerian doelings. One was born 3/1, the other 3/16. Although I've grown up on a farm with horses, cows, chickens, and dogs...we never had goats. So, I have animals my whole life.
This is the problem: we purchased the kids from a highly respectable breeder south of us, and he brought them to us, on the way to a show....3 weeks ago today....we were given a couple days of goat's milk, then were to switch to whole cows milk...which we did...but are using organic. We were also to give them 2cc of the Calf-pro he gave us...2x a week. (which we've been doing).
The older one has had a cough and off & on snotty nose. But eats well and plays happIly. After a week, she was still coughing and I called the breeder...and he said he had given them each an anti-biotic the morning they left his farm. So it was probably just the stress of the trip.
This week they both didn't finish their morning bottle. Looking around in their straw, I found a log poop (3 in long) and also a greenish pudding poop. They were lethargic---so I called the vet who happened to be driving by our farm. He listened to the older one to see if she had pneumonia...and she did not. Her temp was 103.6 and the other one's temp was 104.5----so he gave them both a shot of anti-biotics and said it must be the stress from the trip....
The anti-biotics worked...but yesterday, I decided to take in fecals...and there were NONE...
I checked the eye lids...and they are not red (if I'm examining it correctly) but darkish pink.
They are eating great...and were playing like crazy just a few minutes ago....but I watched them poop. The older one (with the cough) had perfect poops....but the other one has the pudding poops again.
I have no idea what to do. They stay out in the pen in the day (25' round pen of great grass...with a little house in the center. Under a big shade tree. Fresh water, orchard-grass/Timothy hay mix...pellets (that they don't eat), and some alfalfa...that they nibble on...occasionally. In the evenings, we put them up with fresh straw, water, new hay, pellets, etc. They seem fine but I don't want something to be incubating and have a problem that I could be doings something about it now.
Thanks in advance...
Replies
If you are saying that each kid is drinking 40 ounces total per day, that will certainly cause diarrhea. Most breeders don't give more than 24 ounces a day.
Not sure what to tell you about the cough. We bought one with a cough seven years ago, and we used Vet Rx, which I think is just an herbal oil preparation that you dab on their nose. It lasted a couple weeks and then went away within a few days after we started using the Vet Rx. Could have been a coincidence, but either way, it only lasted a couple weeks.
J Maple said:
The pellets are the pelleted goat feed that the breeder gave us---which was about 3 cups---and we still have at least half of that left. And, I've tried to keep it fresh...so I'm saying they eat maybe 1-2 Tbs..each...of the pellets...IF that much...daily. If I put them in my hand, the younger will sort of nibble. They do chew on the hay through the day, and I see them chewing their cud.
They are drinking 20 oz of milk twice daily each from the bottle---which they gave us...Pritchard nipple.
correction: there were NO parasites....sorry