HELP! Sick goat??

[ShayBaby]

In advance, I apologize for the novel. I just wanted to be as specific as possible, to help give an idea of what could be going on with her.

About the goat:
So my DH, son, and I live on a 120+ acre family farm, with our only "neighbors" being family. We have one single pygmy goat doe. Her name is Eleanor. She is adored by everyone on the farm, and spoiled rotten. She is so special to everyone, especially us. We bought her as a "teenager" a year or two ago and she was so incredibly skittish and unsocial. It took a long time, but now she is just the sweetest, friendliest goat you'd ever meet. She actually lives on our front porch, where everyone can visit her and bring her daily treats. On the coldest days of winter (well below zero), she would actually come in the house and camp out in the spare bathroom. So she thinks she's a house goat and will walk right in the door and try to make herself at home when the door is opened. Last night she had a bad night and we thought she was passing away, so we carried her inside, laid her on the living room floor, and I stayed up with her all night until I got too tired and made a bed on the floor next to her and slept with my arm around her, so she wouldn't die alone. (Thankfully, I woke up to her standing up and over me, looking down at me. lol) She is so very spoiled and loved, and I couldn't imagine life without her.


The issue:
A few days ago, I noticed she was starting to act a little strange. She would hold one ear up and one ear down, all day. I thought maybe..an ear infection or something. Looked in and didn't see anything abnormal. The next day, she couldn't walk right and kept falling over, and the ear thing had progressed into holding her head towards her left side. I looked up the symptoms and the only things I could find that fit them all were Listeriosis and Goat Polio. Symptoms sounded almost identical and treatments were pretty identical..penicillin and Thiamine (vitamin b1). By that time of day, the local vets were closed. So we called around to all the Tractor Supplies and farm stores in a 1-hours-drive radius and found only one Tractor Supply that carried the thiamine, an hour away, so we rushed there and got it and the penicillin and rushed back. I found dosage instructions online, and we estimate her weight at around 50 lbs, so we started giving her the Penicillin, SQ, 3ccs, every 6 hours, and the Thiamine, IM, 2.25ccs, also every 6 hours. We did that for a couple days and that brings us to today. The Penicillin would make her weak and loopy every time we injected it, so I'm kind of afraid to keep that up. Today I started giving her the Thiamine orally, because the 18 gauge needle was really hurting her and she was starting to look like a pincushion. The directions I read said orally after a few days was fine. Anyways, I've seen no improvement yet, though I understand it could take weeks. However, she's developed a new symptom. If you read the "About" paragraph above, I mentioned last night. About midnight, I heard a commotion on the porch, so I ran out and she was on her side, flailing. She had her head stuck through the wooden posts on the porch, so I helped free her head, but she kept flailing. It slowed down to where just her head would try to jerk to the left/back every few seconds. Her eyes were jumping all over the place. I thought that was the end for her, so I ran and got DH to say our last goodbyes. We sat out there with her while she did that for about an hour. Then I decided if she was going to die, she was going to die happy, so we brought her in. Well, you can read about that above. She did the head jerking thing all night, until about 5am when I woke up to her standing up over me. I was so incredibly relieved. I should mention, we would have rushed her to the emergency vet right away if we'd had the money. In an unfortunate coincidence, our old dog started having seizures the night before and we had to rush him to the emergency vet. They didn't expect him to make it, but he pulled through, but left us with a $400 bill that wiped out the last of our Care Credit, and bills this month left us with no spare change, so sadly we can't afford to get her to a vet. Again, anyways, today she acts fairly ok..still weak, tired, a shadow of her former self, but another new symptom. I guess it's the same thing that happened last night, but not as bad. About once every 30-60 minutes, she'll fall over and start rolling/flailing. It doesn't really look like a seizure (but what do I know?), in that she doesn't shake, just rolls, trying to right herself. It lasts just a minute or two and passes. She'll stand back up and lean against something for a minute to steady herself and then be ok again. After she's steadied herself, so far, she's always urinated right away, but perhaps that's from freaking herself out..
A few dietary details... she eats mostly grass/weeds. She's usually tied up in different areas for hours a day to eat all the greens she wants. She always has clean water. She gets a flake of hay once or twice a week. That's been her main diet since she's been sick, since she's too weak to be tied up to graze. She did get into some cat food a week or so before the first symptoms, but not much, and I don't know if that's even bad for goats. Her treats include carrots (her favorite), watermelon (which she's decided she doesn't like now), tomatoes, apples.. I think that's about it.


So goat folks, any ideas what's wrong with Eleanor? And if there's anything else I should be doing for her? Am I doing something wrong? Do I just need to wait it out?

Healthy Eleanor:




Sick Eleanor:
(Taken just now. This shows how her head stays to the left. And obviously she's noticeably thinner, although she's still eating very well. Sorry for the lousy quality..snappy iPod pics and after dark.)

 

[H Diamond]

What's her temp?

 

[ShayBaby]

Hate to say, I'm not sure. I have two therms, but both are useless and read very wrong.

 

[cassie]

Based on the picture I think I may know what might be wrong with your goat. It looks like polio, a thiamine deficiency. Polio in goats and cattle is by no means rare and it can cause some truly bizzarre symptoms. Polio is treated by injections of thiamine. You have to get thiamine from the vet as it is available only by prescription. If that is what is wrong you will know soon enough because once treatment is started improvement is very rapid. If you can't get thiamine large doses of injectable vitamine B complex might work. You ought to be able to find injectable vitamin B at the livestock supply. The only problem here is that the thiamine level in the B complex is lower than what you really need but it will do in a pinch. You just have to up the dosage.

 

[ShayBaby]

Based on the picture I think I may know what might be wrong with your goat. It looks like polio, a thiamine deficiency. Polio in goats and cattle is by no means rare and it can cause some truly bizzarre symptoms. Polio is treated by injections of thiamine. You have to get thiamine from the vet as it is available only by prescription. If that is what is wrong you will know soon enough because once treatment is started improvement is very rapid. If you can't get thiamine large doses of injectable vitamine B complex might work. You ought to be able to find injectable vitamin B at the livestock supply. The only problem here is that the thiamine level in the B complex is lower than what you really need but it will do in a pinch. You just have to up the dosage.

Thank you! That's exactly what I was thinking it was, but our dosage must be too little since she hasn't improved at all (gotten worse, actually). We did get the B vitamin complex at TSC. It says it has 100 mg of thiamine? We'd been injecting 2.25 ccs into her thigh muscle every 6 hours-ish. Do you know if that dosage is way too low? Or what we should up to? I also started giving it to her orally today instead of injecting because that huge needle hurt her so bad..it's like watching your child get poked..heartbreaking. Should we stick (pun intended) with IM?

 

[ShayBaby]

Here's the article I found, from tennesseemeatgoats.com:

Goat Polio (Polioencephalomalacia) is a metabolic disease with symptoms that often mimic or overlap those of the brain-stem disease Listeriosis (Listeria monocytogenes). In most cases, both of these diseases are seen in goats raised under intensive management conditions. Improper feeding, particularly feeding too much grain and too little roughage (hay and forage) is a significant factor in both diseases. Producers pushing the animal to gain weight too fast can induce these potentially fatal diseases in their goats. Sudden changes in feed can also cause the onset of these diseases.
Polioencephalomalacia (also known as Cerebrocortical Necrosis) is basically thiamine (Vitamin B 1) deficiency. Any change in the rumen's environment that suppresses normal bacterial activity can interfere with thiamine production. Too much grain decreases the pH of the rumen, predisposing the animal to Goat Polio. Glucose cannot be metabolized without thiamine. If thiamine is either not present or exists in an altered form (thiaminase), then brain cells die and severe neurological symptoms appear.
Causes of thiamine deficiency include feeding moldy hay or grain, using amprollium which is a thiamine inhibitor (brand name CoRid) when treating coccodiosis, feeding molasses-based grains which are prone to mold (horse & mule feeds), eating some species of ferns, sudden changes in diet, the dietary stress of weaning, and reactions to the de-wormers thiabendazole and levamisole. Each of these conditions can suppress Vitamin B1 production. The usage of antibiotics destroys flora in the rumen and can cause thiamine deficiency. It is important to repopulate the gut with live bacteria after using antibiotics or diarrhea (scour) medications.
Goat Polio generally occurs in weanlings and very young goats, while Listeriosis most frequently affects adult goats. An increase in Goat Polio occurs in North America during winter when the availability of forage and quality hay is low and producers start feeding increased amounts of grain or expect goats to survive on very poor pasture.
Symptoms of Polioencephalomalacia can be any combination of or all of the following: excitability, "stargazing," uncoordinated staggering and/or weaving (ataxia), circling, diarrhea, muscle tremors, and blindness. Initial symptoms can look like Entertoxemia (overeating disease). There is a component of "overeating" involved in that the rumen flora has been compromised. As the disease progresses, convulsions and high fever occur, and if untreated, the goat generally dies within 24-72 hours. Diagnosis is available via laboratory tests, but the producer does not have the luxury of the time that such tests take.
Thiamine is the only effective therapy, and treatment can result in improvement within a few hours if the disease is caught early enough. Thiamine is an inexpensive veterinary prescription. Producers should always keep thiamine on hand; the most commonly available strength is 100 mg/ml. Dosage is based on the goat's weight (4-1/2 cc per 100 pounds liveweight for 100 mg/ml thiamine) and must be given every six hours on a 24-hour cycle until all symptoms have disappeared completely to avoid relapse. Thiamine, like all B vitamins, is water soluable, so the goat eliminates daily what it doesn't utilize in the rumen. A sick goat's rumen doesn't produce B vitamins, hence the importance of adding them to the goat each day until it gets well. Initially thiamine should be given IM (into the muscle) but can be given SQ (subcutaneously) or even orally after several days of treatment. Some thiamine comes in 500 mg/ml strength, making the required dosage 1 cc per 100 pounds bodyweight. If thiamine is unavailable but the producer has injectable multiple B vitamins, check the label for how much thiamine (Vitamin B1) is present. Fortified Vitamin B Complex contains 100 mg/ml of thiamine, so the 4-1/2 cc per 100 pounds bodyweight dosage is appropriate. Injectable multiple B vitamins containing only 25mg/ml of thiamine require four times the 100mg/ml dosage (18-1/2 cc) per 100 pounds bodyweight, so the producer can quickly see the importance of obtaining the proper strength of injectable B vitamins. The key to overcoming Goat Polio is early diagnosis and treatment. Complete recovery is possible under such circumstances.
Since symptoms of Goat Polio can easily look like Listeriosis, this writer recommends that procaine pencillin also be used. Better to cover both possible illnesses with appropriate treatments when symptoms are so similar than risk the goat's dying. Administer high doses of procaine penicillin (300,000 International Unit strength) every six hours on a 24-hour basis until all symptoms have disappeared and another 24 hours have passed. Higher-than-normal dosage of procaine penicillin is needed to cross the blood brain barrier to put sufficient amounts of the antibiotic into the tissue of the goat's central nervous system. A chart of dosage by bodyweight accompanies this article. Give this medication SQ over the ribs with an 18 gauge needle so that the goat doesn't become a pin cushion of holes from repeated injections. Very Important: Continue all treatment until 24 hours *after* the last symptom has disappeared to avoid a relapse.
Summary: To try to avoid this disease, decrease grain, increase roughage, avoid moldy hay and grain, and don't use feed that is susceptible to mold (molasses-based/textured feeds). Complete avoidance of Goat Polio is impossible. After doing everything "right," producers can still have a goat contract Goat Polio occasionally.

 

[H Diamond]

I ask for temp because frequently listeriosis presents with a fever as well. That being said, both take the thiamine. .. What did you get? And what dose is it?

 

[cassie]

Thank you! That's exactly what I was thinking it was, but our dosage must be too little since she hasn't improved at all (gotten worse, actually). We did get the B vitamin complex at TSC. It says it has 100 mg of thiamine? We'd been injecting 2.25 ccs into her thigh muscle every 6 hours-ish. Do you know if that dosage is way too low? Or what we should up to? I also started giving it to her orally today instead of injecting because that huge needle hurt her so bad..it's like watching your child get poked..heartbreaking. Should we stick (pun intended) with IM?

Goats should be given all injections except IV subq. Under the skin. Easier on the goat. Easier on you. It has been so long since I have dealt with this that I don't know what the thiamine dosage should be, but whatever you are giving isn't enough. You can increase it a lot. I have never heard of a goat dying from an overdose of B vitamins. Consult a vet if you can. You might also try googling polio in ruminents and see what you can find. You might find the proper dosage there. I wouldn't give it orally because it most likely would get broken down before it can be absorbed.

 

[H Diamond]

, here is the deal. .. You can give up top like 500 mg of thiamine per 100lbs, BUT that needs to be straight up thiamine. Whatever extra they get of that they pee out. If you are using b - complex you can't give those high dosages because the extra b 12 is too hard on the kidneys. In the morning, you need to go get a vet rx bottle of thiamine. It is pretty cheap. And give it subq, not orally! I don't think you need an 18 guage needle, but I can't remember off hand how thick it is. I bet you could drop down to sty least a 20.
You really should be giving some Dex or banamine (will have to go check which one it is)to help with the rumen and possible swelling.

 

[H Diamond]

It is dexamethasone.