penicillin for goats

[farm n louisana]

How often can you give a goat a shot of penicillin? I gave her a shot yesterday 0.25 ml. I read it was 1ml for 100 lbs is that right

 

[Stacykins]

How often can you give a goat a shot of penicillin? I gave her a shot yesterday 0.25 ml. I read it was 1ml for 100 lbs is that right

Depends on the penicillin. Is it long acting penicillin or no? It will say exactly on the bottle.

Procaine Penicillin (also known as Agri-cillin or Pen G) is dosed at 1mL per 15lbs of goat, so unless your goat weighed 3.75lbs, you severely underdosed. So if your goat weighs 25lbs, your goat needs 1.7mL of penicillin (this is rounded up to the nearest tenth for ease of dosing). If it is NOT the long acting kind, it needs to be given twice a day for at least five days. Obviously, that means each dose needs to be roughly 12 hours apart.

Always dose an antibiotic for at least five days, ten days is better, even if symptoms disappear before that time. Why? Even though symptoms are gone, the pathogen might not actually be killed, just weakened. A long enough course of antibiotics ensures it is killed, so it won't come back again, resistant to the antibiotic you used. Stopping an antibiotic early results in pathogens resistant to that antibiotic.

Long acting penicillin is dosed at 1mL per 25lbs of goat, once a day. Again, treat for at least five days, even if symptoms disappear.

What are you treating for? What are the symptoms? Does the goat have a temperature?

 

[farm n louisana]

Thanks I'll have to look at the bottle I'm not sure the name she cut her leg on a piece of old bob wire and it got infected I have her in a smaller pen with no mud or water just grass hay and grain for her to eat and she by herself away from all my other goats plus it's a lot easier for me to keep an eye on it

 

[Stacykins]

Thanks I'll have to look at the bottle I'm not sure the name she cut her leg on a piece of old bob wire and it got infected I have her in a smaller pen with no mud or water just grass hay and grain for her to eat and she by herself away from all my other goats plus it's a lot easier for me to keep an eye on it

Aww, poor girl. Moving her into a small, clean pen was an excellent idea!

Definitely treat her with the antibiotics if it is now infected.

If you haven't already, will she let you clean the wound? You might have to restrain her (might even need a second person), but it will help if you can do it. Flush it out with saline (at all pharmacies, you can buy spray bottles of sterile saline, like this) to clear it of dirt, gunk, fur, etc. If there is a lot of fur around the wound, use a pair of clippers of scissors to gently remove it. Less fur around the wound will help keep it cleaner. Then apply a topical antiseptic to help protect it. Red kote, blue kote, Vetericyn, human triple antiobiotic ointment, etc. whatever you have on hand are all good choices.

If the wound is on a part of the leg you can bandage easily (if it is on her upper leg, it can be difficult), then that would help protect it as well. Place a patch of gauze over the wound, and wrap with vet wrap to secure it. The trick is getting it tight enough so it stays in place, but not so tight as to restrict circulation or normal movement.

I hope she recovers quickly!

 

[farm n louisana]

Thanks so much I have did all that already she doing a lot better and is letting me change her gauze by myself with out any problems

 

[WallabyOfChaos]

If she hasn't been vaccinated against tetanus, a shot of tetanus antitoxin may be a good idea as well.

 

[farm n louisana]

Durvet it says 1ml for 100 lbs for 8 days

 

[farm n louisana]

I think I spelled it right I'm not 100% sure that's all out local feed store had

 

[Stacykins]

Remember, goats have higher metabolism than cattle. That means they get rid of any medication faster. So they need a higher dose in order to actually do any good, or else the medication will be out of their system too soon, which does no good. It is why wormer is given in much higher doses, antibiotics are the same way too.

Almost every single medication we give our goats are actually given 'off label'. It means the companies that make the stuff haven't done official testing on goats. So the bottle's dose is the dose for cattle or swine or whatever.

If you want technical goat dosage information from a university, this will help. The stuff you have is called "Procaine Pen. G" on this chart. It doesn't give dosage in mL per lb, instead, it gives the dosage in units Procaine Pen. G per lb (10,000-20,000 IU/lb). The math isn't that hard when you know the bottle of stuff you have likely has 300,000 per mL.

In fact, I just did the math, and the dosage for a 25lb goat is still 1.7mL if I used 20,000 units per lb as a variable. I can't share all my scribble here, but it is easy enough if you try yourself. Multiply the weight (25lbs) by 20,000 units to find the total number of units you need to dose. Then divide that result by 300,000. it actually comes out to 1.66, but in dosage calculation it is OK to round that up to 1.7, since most syringes aren't accurate enough for measuring in hundredths.

By the way, how much does your gal weigh? If you need a second person to double check the dosage you calculate, that is helpful for us to know.

 

[farm n louisana]

She weights 25 lbs that's the kind of penicillin I have thanks for your help