I have a buckling who was born April 15th of this year. Today at evening chores I noticed he has loose stool. I saw one pile that was clumped berries, and another that was part clumped berries, part stool that looked like dog stool, and part runny stool. None was on his tail area, and it was the normal color, not yellow or green.
This is the first I have seen. I do morning and evening checks on everyone, but it is possible that I simply didn't notice this morning. He has been on a medicated feed, and he was also on the same feed at his breeders. He has been with me since his 2 month mark.
There has been no change in feed, other than that we picked up new hay last weekend. The hay should be identical to the old because it's the same cutting; we had half of our hay in storage because of a lack of space in our barn. The one thing that did change is that I had to move him into a 10x10 kidding stall because he had learned how to jump on top of his hay rack and then out of the fence in his old one. He was in the stall for three days, and we fixed it and I moved him back today.
Because I don't yet have an actual hay rack up in the stall he was in, he would always knock it down and then tramp on it. That's where I'm assuming he would've gotten the cocci, as his feed is up off the ground and attached to the wall (in both his pen and the stall).
I'm sure the moving to different areas stressed him as well. :( At least in both areas he was sharing a fence line with the does, so he was never isolated. The floor in both areas was freshly strawed as well, but like I said the hay falling on the floor is probably how he would have contracted the cocci, if that is the problem.
I have Sulmet in my medicine cabinet. My question is, should I start treatment right away or wait until the morning and see if there is any more loose stool?
Sorry this was so long, but I wanted to cover any possible questions. Thanks in advance for the advice!
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Sounds like he's probably just stressed. Sorry to hear about your other animals, and I understand how that can make you paranoid. It won't hurt the other buck to have medicated feed, and if you bought a 50# for the little guy, it will take him forever to go through it.
The diarrhea seems to be gone this morning. And when I went out there this morning, he had somehow gotten back out of his pen (I guess my hay wrack theory was wrong) and broken into the buck pen. I guess my worries about them hurting him were unfounded. They head butted him a few times, but not hard. I swear I think he knows he is supposed to be with the bucks, because the last time he got out of his fence he went straight over to them. I should've known he'd find ways out of his fence being alone, though. I had expected him to be a little older when we brought him home, so I wasn't thinking he'd have to be alone.
Since the bucks were okay with him, I took my most gentle buck and moved him to bunk with Bazinga. And I think the place he was getting out was a gap in the gate, so I fixed that as well. I'm still working out how I'm going to keep the older buck from eating Bazinga's feed, but I think he'll be much happier now.
We lost our 15 year old lab mix last month (not unexpectedly -- we'd known for while she wouldn't be with us much longer), and then July 5th we came home to find one of our cats deceased on our porch for no apparent reason. He had been completely fine and showed no signs of trauma or illness. So when I saw Bazinga's diarrhea last night I immediately thought about the saying that "death comes in threes" and panicked a little. I'm not normally superstitious, but the timing really caught me off guard. I was also thinking in the back of my mind that maybe someone had poisoned our cat, and then him...even though that logically makes no sense, and there wouldn't be a way for someone to poison just one of my cats and not any of the others. Sometimes when I get worried about something the logical part of my brain shuts down and the paranoid part goes into overdrive!
Thank you so much for the help. I would have probably ended up treating him for something he didn't have if I hadn't come to here first!
Provided a goat appears completely healthy in every other way, there is usually no problem waiting 24 hours to see if diarrhea goes away. Coccidiosis really doesn't sound plausible at all considering everything you've said.
As you are finishing up this bag of medicated feed, I'd just switch him to whatever your other goats are eating.
He had the same amount of grain, so there's no way he ate more than usual. It's locked up in our hay room in a trash can. I have been giving him a little more than 1/4 cup of grain morning and night -- is that too much? He also has free choice bermuda grass hay and alfalfa pellets. We can't get alfalfa hay here. His living area is clean, and he is the only one occupying it right now, so it's definitely not crowded. We do have dirt floors, though, so I can't them as spotless as a concrete floor.
He is alone, but he shares a fence line with my does. I am afraid to put one of my wethers or bucks with him until he's bigger because I don't want them to injure him. I might try it out after this passes, though, and see how they do. I just don't want him to get hurt.
I've never had one with coccidiosis before, so I wasn't sure if I needed to act immediately at the first sign of diarrhea or wait. I definitely don't want to stunt his growth. I've also never given medicated feed before. I got it for him because it is what his breeder was using.
If he is on a medicated feed, it's pretty unlikely that he has coccidiosis unless he is living in really crowded, filthy conditions. If his back end isn't even dirty, then it's not very bad diarrhea. Is it possible that he got into some grain and ate too much? Is he alone? Stress can cause diarrhea. How much of the medicated feed are you giving him? Too much can cause diarrhea.
Oh, I meant to add that I don't have the equipment or know-how to do a fecal myself. But I would be afraid to wait until Monday for the vet to do one if the loose stool continues.