Pygmy Goat Kid questions: PLEASE HELP!

[Earthologie]

And sorry for a third, and needless, post tonight. but I just want to scream it:

I AM SO MAD that this has happened!

(I will pick up an array of different nipples tomorrow, more milk, electrolytes tomorrow.

If you guys think that I should, I will also pick up a vaccine and antibiotics tomorrow as well.)

 

[LydiaB]

Please do not vaccinate her. If you want her vaccinated, wait until she is healthy. at this point it would hurt her.
For the diahrea, give her a raw egg in the milk. It works to stop it. Then get an herbal wormer from Fir Meadow, LLC. She sell GI soother which gets rid of Cocidia. that is probably what is causing your little girl to have diahrea. I do not think antibiotics would help her. Is there any way you could get goat milk? she may do better on that. also try to get her a probiotic. A human probiotic would work fine, but they do sell probios which is a supplement for animals. You could also try raw honey or raw apple cider vinegar for probiotics.
Polled goats have bumps, they just don't grow. I have never had a polled goat, so that is about all I know.

 

[WallabyOfChaos]

Which immunizations you choose are between you and your vet. If she were mine, I would do the vaccine and not the anti-toxin. LydiaB is right, giving the vaccination now isn't a good idea.

Here is a great resource for sheep and goat owners: www.sheepandgoat.com
It has tons of information about small ruminants in general, as well as diseases, care, and such.

 

[Earthologie]

Well this little pygmy is still alive.

She has had the scours for a week now and is not dehydrated. I do the "skin pinch" test and her skins always pops right back.

I assumed it was cocci, since I noted that chickens on my property elsewhere had some blood in their poo.

I treated with sulmet poweder.

This helped with the chickens. The goat gained energy back but still had the scours. It was horrible.

I kept electrolytes going and whole milk.

Pepto bismal. yogurt. Nothing.

Poop, poop, poop.

I went and bought scour-halt, which is for cows. The local TSC did not sell scour ease which is for pigs and is ussually reccomended.

I gave a tiny amount after much research. Morning and night. I also took the milk away and only fed elecrolyte water in a bottle in between the scour halt.

This morning the baby pygmy had one long black colored turd. A big improvement from the runny green diarrhea it had had all week.

I can only hope things continue to improve. This had been one long, nasty battle. Every time I needed to bottle feed the goat, I would be covered in poo. Add to this "mess" the fact that my washing machine is starting to quit on me and the stress has been HIGH!

I gave another small amount of the scour halt this morning, followed by electrolytes 30 minutes later.

If the poop remains firm I will slowly introduce milk back into this goats diet: SLOWLY.

I did NOT want to take the milk away at all yesterday. I have been reading about the debate on doing some people say you have to since things are off balance and perhaps the kid is getting to rich of a diet. Others say NO WAY: the kid needs it.

I suspected that this goats diet was too rich: from being taken away from his mother, to refusing to bottle feed, and then finally bottle feeding like mad after a weeks time (diarrhea had already started at this point).

So far, so good.

Oh, I also wormed this goat with safeguard as well.

 

[Earthologie]

I will also be looking into more natural remedies for the future.

 

[Earthologie]

I tried the raw egg, and it didn't help for this little goat. I was really hoping it would! I think perhaps her diet was too rich? It had been raining alopt lately, and we had a drought before that, so the grass was growing like mad. Therefore, perhpas pasture was too nutrient filled? In addition to the milk?

 

[LydiaB]

I have never tried feeding cow milk to goats. If anything, goat milk is richer than cow milk, but goat milk is much easier to digest. I have never used raw eggs with my goats, they have never needed it. I just had a friend tell me it worked. I don't think her diet could have been too rich, but after rain Coccidia is more prevelent. If you can get goat milk it would be best for her, otherwise you could try feeding probiotics in her milk or using some yogurt/kefir mixed with it.