| Author | Message | ||
     Maggie Leman (Unregistered Guest) Rating: N/A |
Sudden death from a parasite load is not uncommon. It often happens before any diarrhea has a chance to form. Symptoms also sound like enterotoxemia. Anything that disrupts the normal passage of food through a goat's digestive tract sets them up for an acute case of entero, such as a heavy parasite load. Her being off feed, perhaps for longer than you thought (a couple of feedings) and getting drenched with a sugary med (Nutridrench) may have put those clostridium germs into high gear. Nutridrench is loaded with propylene glycol a very easy to digest sugar. Sugar is bad for a goat with entero...Or could she have been poisoned or eaten a toxic plant? Recent change in feed even a new bag? The blood like water and very bright red is very much like that found by my vet in a herd with severe parasite problems, but these goats seemed to be dying from a number of ailments too. Goats are very good at hiding the fact they are sick, until they are near death. Let us know if you find out anything. Please post emergency questions to the 911 list. This one is a fundraiser list. | ||
| Michelle (Unregistered Guest) Rating: N/A |
A couple of days ago on the old goat 911 forum I had posted about a wether who was very ill. Even after extensive treatment the goat died. Yesterday I had another goat die. This time the symptoms were the same, white gums, lower than normal temp (99.8) inability to stand, but the thing is that with this doeling (8 mos and 75lbs) the time from the first symptom until she was dead was under three hours. She was fine when I checked her in the early morning. Her eyelid and gum color were fine. (I checked all of the babies after the first one died because I thought the wether had maybe had a heavy worm load) At 10:30 am my son called me at work because she did not want to go with the rest of the goats. He brought her up to the house and gave her water and food which she consumed. He took her temp at that time and it was normal. At 11:30 he called me back because she began crying. When he took her temp it was 99.8 and now her gums and eyelids were white. I had him give her a Thiamine shot, Visorbin, Goat Nutridrench, and begin SQ fluids, while I started home. By the time I got home (30 minutes later) she was crying non-stop, but he had managed to raise her body temp back to 101. I gave her a shot of banamine which calmed her breathing and got my vet on the phone. While on the phone with the vet, she began convulsing. But then she sat up straight and acted like she was more normal. A minute later she shuddered and died. My vet had me meet her at the clinic to perform an autopsy. Gross findings revealed severe anemia and a badly colored liver, but no seable cause. There was no blood in the urine, she did not have diarrhea anywhere up the rectal tract. The oddest thing was that her blood was like water. It would clot, but it was cherry red, not dark like you would expect from dead animal. Her stomach contents were normal and her rumen smelled fine. My vet took several tissue samples and the lymphnodes, as well as the brain and sent them to a lab to be examined, but she has no idea what killed the goat. Does anybody here have any ideas? I should get the results back in the next week or so, and I'll share them, but I would love to have some idea what I am dealing with. Losing two goats in two days and not knowing why is scaring me badly.}} |