SOS have a hurt baby goat!!!

[kentuckychicks]

Posted on backyard herds no reply yet..... Am giving 1/2 cup of electrolytes between feedings and have cut her feedings down to 8 oz instead of 10-12 as recommend for her age. Her poop is still firm but not actually poop pellets. She is trying to move around and will actually follow me across the room. She cries only if I leave her sight before she's sleepy. I checked our local tractor supply and they don't have the Bo-se for the WMD. But after reading the article wouldn't WMD be getting worse instead of better?

 

[kentuckychicks]

Cute pic MoodyBroody622! So sorry to hear about your goats passing!

 

[cassie]

NO cows milk. I cannot say that strongly enough !

TSC carries goat milk replacer, in a large bag.

What do you mean no cow's milk? Baby goats do just fine on cow's milk. Much better than they do on milk replacer. Any milk replacer. Baby goats can and do blow up and die on replacer, including the expensive ones formulated for kids. Some kids can tolerate milk replacer just fine, others cannot, and there is no way of telling which is which until it is too late. For the record, I have raised many hundreds of kids, and most of them got cow milk. I bred purebred dairy goats for over 40 years, and for many of those years I had a commercial goat dairy. For a long time I and my fellow goat breeders and dairymen could get the excess milk from a commercial cow milk processing plant. The milk was pasteurized and the kids thrived on it.

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: She's cute. Wish you all the best with her.

The way she's lying in the first pic is pretty typical for back injury. I don't think anything's wrong with her legs. Hopefully only a severe bruising or swelling causing inflammation that's causing the lameness, but even if there is a break, with care, she can quite possibly make a full recovery. The waggling tail is not an indicator of no pain. They suffer in silence like most animals. I've seen ruminants including baby goats and sheep waggle their tails in everything from excitement, to frustration, to internal pain.

I'd be careful about how much electrolytes you're giving her, as well, as only a small amount is needed, and overdoing electrolytes can also be harmful. Plain water at her age can also cause problems, even with electrolytes added. Is it possible that you could let her lick at the electrolyte powder or something like that? Goats are quite tough, so she should be ok. I don't know what form the electrolytes are in, so that may be an inappropriate suggestion. While initially I did suggest you have hay on hand for whenever she wants it, having seen her, I now suggest you keep her on a liquid diet until she's walking freely. Her bowel function is almost certainly also damaged or impaired to some extent.

To help her to recover, I strongly suggest you keep her in an enclosure where she can walk freely. Preferably a few meters long at the very least. She shouldn't have to follow a person around yet as she would aggravate the injury trying to follow, but regular exercise is a must. On the topic of her following a human around, baby nappies of cloth or plastic can work fine on goats and sheep too, in a pinch. I don't understand from your post what you're intending to keep her in, but while temporary immobility helps some injuries recover, forced immobility for too long can rapidly cause them to worsen to the point of no return. (Sorry if all this info is in response to a misunderstanding of your situation and intentions with her).

If she was born fine, as I think you said she was, then I'd think the injury she's sustained is a spinal injury, possibly a broken back or pelvis. (A lot of broken backs don't result in paralysis). Babies are amazing at recovering though, and if she's not totally paralyzed (as it seems she isn't) then you've got a good chance.

If you carefully feel her spine you may be able to locate an abnormal diversion if it's a broken spine. I wouldn't try to correct it without vet help, in fact, she's most likely best left as is, to naturally compensate. I had a tomcat who sustained a smashed spine, which bent at almost a right angle upwards, as a kitten. After months of massaging his hind legs regularly he made a full recovery asides from the obvious kink, but to begin with he was screaming in pain, dragging his hind legs, totally paralyzed in the rear quarters, unable to even eliminate properly. Looked like for sure he would need a mercy culling. There are also a lot of 'kinky-backed' donkeys and other animals getting around... I've even seen a tiger in a zoo with a terribly broken spine, multiple vertebrae involved, with a permanent semicircle shape off to one side. Broken backs aren't necessarily a death sentence. It could also be a pelvic injury though, but if she's getting up, she's got a good chance.

Restricting them to a cage or small enclosure can cripple them in a matter of days, it doesn't even take a week, so I think she's lucky you got her when you did.

The lamb I have now had locked front legs, stuck in the bent position, after only two days of being left laying on her chest, as she recovered from total paralysis from tick poisoning. Her owner gave up on her at that point and gave her to me. Took another two days for her to recover to being able to stand, but I expected much longer. I had to put her into a sling and gently massage and stretch her legs, very carefully. Then she was galloping around after me with bent legs, and a day or two later from that point, looked about 99% normal. She's normal now, at about 10 months old.
Quote: Bloating can kill in a matter of hours, or almost immediately. Sorry to hear of your loss.

A lot of people have a whole arsenal of tricks they use to cure bloating immediately, including things like stout beer and bicarb of soda. I'm not going to dismiss anyone's favorite cure, as sometimes one seemingly un-advisable thing will do the job where the smart option failed and a life is at stake.

Sometimes people even puncture the gut wall with a knife or poker... Not that I advise that, of course. Once upon a time cows used to be suspended upside down from cliff edges by some peasants. People have done crazy things to fix bloating. One really old cure for cattle was to reach up their anus and take some poop, put it in their mouth right at the back, and while they desperately try to remove the manure from their mouth you wriggle your arm with a bit of blunt edged hosing around in their rectum. Gas comes out of both ends, since both ends are open at that point. Or at least that's what the person said.

As I said, I don't endorse any of this, it's just an example of how people have tackled the often desperate life-threatening issue of bloating in the past. Nicer cures include charcoal and raspberry leaf. But bloating can be caused by many things and one cure can't fix all of those things.

Best wishes to all.

 

[kentuckychicks]

Ok after much feeling watching and holding up her back end to let her rear legs barely touch the floor. I think that it's I know this isn't the right term but her knee joint on the rear leg. She doesn't bend it like the other and it seems to feel a little larger than the other is also flinched a little when was feeling it. Do I need to wrap it in like an ace bandage ?

 

[kentuckychicks]

She's much more active today finding hidey holes and mouthing everything in sight. She is getting up on her own more her right leg is just held straight so it hinders her getting up. That being said just watching her it's hard to tell if it's her leg and/or her hip. She likes to sit with her back legs straight about instead of bent up under her. It seems her hock (yes I looked it up I'm learning here) is frozen in an extended position. Not perfectly straight but not really bent. After talking to several people and looking online I'm switching her over to cows milk. I have just left her on the replacer that she came on. Any advice on switching her over? I know not to do it all at once. I found a recipe online on you tube from Jack Maudlin on what they use to bottle feed their babies. That's the route I'm going to go. I'm thinking of adding 1 oz to the milk replacer for a few feedings then 2 oz on and on until she's off the replacer..... Sound right?

 

[cassie]

That will work. The switch to milk is a good thing. The only reason to feed replacer to kids is for economic reasons. A good calf replacer is cheaper than milk but for just a few kids, it just isn't worth it. By the way, you can greatly reduce the risk of bloat by mixing the replcer half and half with milk. I know several dairies this do that. I just threw this last in for general information. By the way, your kid needs to be vaccinated for entero as soon as possible. You can get clostridium perfingens toxoid at the feed store or livestock supply. The kind that is combined with tetanus is the best. It is usually called something like CD/T.

 

[cassie]

This is me and my baby goat Bullwinkle. I bought him around Easter this spring with his brother, They were inseperable little Rocky and Bullwinkle. About a month after we got them Rocky got sick and quickly passed away within 24 hours, of unknown causes. Just two weeks ago his brother and my adopted child Bullwinkle (I'm a teenager and no human children dont worry!) died of unknown causes as well. We think something was wrong with their intestines because Rocky bloated really bad BEFORE he died. So everytime I hear dairy goat I think about my babies! Good luck, keep me updated!

If your kids bloated and died, chances are they died of entertoxemia. Entertoxemia is caused by the bacteria clostridium prefingens. All kids and goats should be vaccinated for entero. You can usually find the vaccine, clostridium perfingens toxoid, at your local livestock supply. Entero is a killer. It strikes without warning and kills very very quickly. It is very common in goats, but oddly a lot of vets don't recognize it.

 

[kentuckychicks]

Should I wait to vaccinate her until I get this worked out?

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Should I wait to vaccinate her until I get this worked out?

Was her mother vaccinated?
That can make a difference in the timing
Generally though, it can't hurt to do it anyway
http://www.sheepandgoat.com/articles/flockvaccinations.html
Quote: Lambs/kids should receive their first CD-T vaccination when they are 6 to 8 weeks old, followed by a booster 2 to 4 weeks later.

If pastured animals are later placed in a feed lot for concentrate feeding, producers should consider re-vaccinating them for enterotoxemia type D.