Many of you with goats should already guess where this is going………..pretty obvious. Let's be perfectly clear, we aren’t giving you medical advice, but we are going to talk about kids, kid goats that is, and kids with runny stools………so as long as you aren’t eating……..let’s talk……..
Everyone has had at least one kid with a loose stool……..panic and Facebook have been the option for many………. Don’t get me wrong, the first time for us, diarrhea had us running for the internet, the local chat group, anything as we searched and despaired over WORMS or WHAT???
We, however, take it mostly in stride now, and use it as an opportunity to practice what we preach. What do we preach? Keeping it simple, as natural as possible, and before you dose with chemicals? Find out what is going on. So let’s talk about some of our run in’s with the runs.
Everyone has had at least one kid with a loose stool……..panic and Facebook have been the option for many………. Don’t get me wrong, the first time for us, diarrhea had us running for the internet, the local chat group, anything as we searched and despaired over WORMS or WHAT???
We, however, take it mostly in stride now, and use it as an opportunity to practice what we preach. What do we preach? Keeping it simple, as natural as possible, and before you dose with chemicals? Find out what is going on. So let’s talk about some of our run in’s with the runs.
Drywall………yup, they ate it…….can’t believe what those little’s will do if you let them. Let them? Well, of course not, but they did manage to eat some one year and yes, we had diarrhea. They’ve eaten wood paneling, vinyl, paper – OH HOW they LOVE paper!! Plastic, did we include plastic? Well you get it, they will get into anything that they can when little………this is an easy fix, at least for their rumens. Our first step……probiotics of course! Patching a wall on the other hand…….well you get the picture. Probiotics work amazingly for this, usually one dose will do, but you can give them some for a couple of days. Regardless, whether in the barn or in the house, goat kids will taste anything! We find that goat proofing is impossible, we just wait for their imaginations to show us what we missed…….any parent learns this too! Remember what stunts your cuties did, or almost did?
Green runny stools, ok this one will take some investigation. Could be worms, could be other reasons. First step is to do a fecal and take their temps. If they don’t have a high temp, say it’s 103, we don’t panic. (Regardless of what you’ve heard or read, 103 is NOT a goat’s normal temperature.) Kids lost to worms – cocci in particular, usually are lost due to dehydration from the diarrhea not worms. Because a fecal usually takes 24 hours…..we give them water a couple of times a day…..we also add organic pumpkin (1-2 tsp) to their bottles to firm their stools until we get the results of the fecal. If their constipated, it’s all about probiotics!! Everytime the kids had loose stools, they came up negative for worms. …..so what are reasons for a kids runs? Could be new grass hay from a different farmer, changes in feed – did they get too much grain, to early? Grazing for the first time in a while? Did they get into something you didn’t goat proof? Usually the problem is something they got into, or too much of something new without a gradual introduction. One time, for us, it was a reaction to the CD&T vaccination our buyers requested they have. Did we say we HATE vaccinations….CD&T is the only vaccination we give and to the kids only…..we have NEVER given vaccinations to our adult goats unless we have HAD TO. An example? Davi had a major hoof injury a few years ago, cut/tore in between her toes. Bled like crazy, difficult to keep clean, etc. Needless to say, because it was a open wound on her hoof, the barn does have fecal and urine regardless of how well you clean…..she got a tetanus shot that year.
So what if it isn’t runny stool? Constipation can be a problem with kids…….especially when they are first introduced to hay and are not yet drinking enough water out of the bucket. We work on getting them drinking as early as possible before we introduce hay. It just takes one to start drinking water to get the rest to follow……again, probiotics work wonders for this. We use a product from Kaeco called Fortifed Vit. B Complex Oral Gel. Here’s where bottle feeding comes in handy, just giving them a bottle of water in between feedings to keep them hydrated, etc.
Green runny stools, ok this one will take some investigation. Could be worms, could be other reasons. First step is to do a fecal and take their temps. If they don’t have a high temp, say it’s 103, we don’t panic. (Regardless of what you’ve heard or read, 103 is NOT a goat’s normal temperature.) Kids lost to worms – cocci in particular, usually are lost due to dehydration from the diarrhea not worms. Because a fecal usually takes 24 hours…..we give them water a couple of times a day…..we also add organic pumpkin (1-2 tsp) to their bottles to firm their stools until we get the results of the fecal. If their constipated, it’s all about probiotics!! Everytime the kids had loose stools, they came up negative for worms. …..so what are reasons for a kids runs? Could be new grass hay from a different farmer, changes in feed – did they get too much grain, to early? Grazing for the first time in a while? Did they get into something you didn’t goat proof? Usually the problem is something they got into, or too much of something new without a gradual introduction. One time, for us, it was a reaction to the CD&T vaccination our buyers requested they have. Did we say we HATE vaccinations….CD&T is the only vaccination we give and to the kids only…..we have NEVER given vaccinations to our adult goats unless we have HAD TO. An example? Davi had a major hoof injury a few years ago, cut/tore in between her toes. Bled like crazy, difficult to keep clean, etc. Needless to say, because it was a open wound on her hoof, the barn does have fecal and urine regardless of how well you clean…..she got a tetanus shot that year.
So what if it isn’t runny stool? Constipation can be a problem with kids…….especially when they are first introduced to hay and are not yet drinking enough water out of the bucket. We work on getting them drinking as early as possible before we introduce hay. It just takes one to start drinking water to get the rest to follow……again, probiotics work wonders for this. We use a product from Kaeco called Fortifed Vit. B Complex Oral Gel. Here’s where bottle feeding comes in handy, just giving them a bottle of water in between feedings to keep them hydrated, etc.
Our one AND only instance of cocci with kids? It wasn’t diarrhea, but constipation that screamed there was a problem with the kids. Two kids started showing signs of fevers, 103 at first..…than high fevers of 104…..couldn’t get a stool sample because of the constipation. Our first step was the vet, tons of probiotics to ease the constipation. Tested our herd to see if we had inadvertently brought a parasite in from the barn……..NO. Vet suggested sulfur drugs for cocci, just in case…….how excited we were when the poop finally started! Finally got a stool sample, and of course we had cocci. Now HOW did they get it? Remember our ‘Red Paint’ analogy from our Nasty Nematodes blog? Our granddaughter had fed two of the kids that year, in fact the first two to get sick (and the sickest ones) were the kids she bottle fed. We had asked about her going to the Fair before she feed the kids and were told she didn’t go to the goat barn. Yet after she fed the kids she proudly proclaimed she had seen the goats that the Fair 6 months prior. We didn’t think much about it until the next day when kids started acting off. Within 24 hours we had two kids sick, next 48 hours all the kids were sick. Yes, we had a warm winter that year. Not cold enough to kill the cocci she inadvertently brought home on her shoes….even though she wore different shoes, the cocci was still active in her yard – so she brought it to gramps & grams…..constipated kids for a week, high fevers for a few days……needless to say $600 dollars later the kids were all back to normal.
Now we use a product called ‘Regano’, you can read up on our blog Cocci? Crap! about our personal experience with it. We haven’t had one instance of cocci since we started with the Regano….our kids get exposed to it in numbers that help them build a natural immunity to them without getting sick or loose stools. Again, we practice what we preach.
Lesson? Not every runny stool is worms and having worms doesn’t always show signs that you find listed on the internet. It pays to know your goats, slight changes in behavior, changes in eating habits, changes in their coats, and other signs can tell you a lot about your herd and your herd health. Our first step has always been probiotics…..never over the counter products like Pepto or MOM. Our methods may be different, but giving them some probiotics won’t hurt them, even if we’re wrong and there’s nothing wrong…..giving them chemicals when it isn’t worms? Well, that’s not how we want to do things around here.
Needless to say, loose stools can cause concern.....our jobs as goat 'parents' is to do our best to keep them healthy, happy, and safe; fix what we didn't realize was broken; and keep learning all those things that we didn't realize we didn't know....
blessings
Brenda Lee
Now we use a product called ‘Regano’, you can read up on our blog Cocci? Crap! about our personal experience with it. We haven’t had one instance of cocci since we started with the Regano….our kids get exposed to it in numbers that help them build a natural immunity to them without getting sick or loose stools. Again, we practice what we preach.
Lesson? Not every runny stool is worms and having worms doesn’t always show signs that you find listed on the internet. It pays to know your goats, slight changes in behavior, changes in eating habits, changes in their coats, and other signs can tell you a lot about your herd and your herd health. Our first step has always been probiotics…..never over the counter products like Pepto or MOM. Our methods may be different, but giving them some probiotics won’t hurt them, even if we’re wrong and there’s nothing wrong…..giving them chemicals when it isn’t worms? Well, that’s not how we want to do things around here.
Needless to say, loose stools can cause concern.....our jobs as goat 'parents' is to do our best to keep them healthy, happy, and safe; fix what we didn't realize was broken; and keep learning all those things that we didn't realize we didn't know....
blessings
Brenda Lee