The Wunder Goat That's Not So Wunderful

So I had a crazy experience within the livestock enterprise this week. I was challenged in so many ways by a little 3 week old baby goat. On Tuesday I went up to the dairy to milk the goats with the new pecan intern Jess. We walked down the road to go herd the goats in and I noticed that all the kids came running over to the fence except for one. It was just laying under the tree not moving. So I threw some some pebbles from the road to see if it would respond to movement around it and nothing. So I dropped my stuff and hopped the fence and by hop I mean almost fell just sliding over it and went over to the goat. Still didn't move. She was laying with all fours in front of her straightened out, labored breathing and a stomach that looked she swallowed a volleyball. I sweep her up in my arms and hand her over to Jess and again "hop" the fence. We rush her up to the dairy where all my medical stuff is. My first instinct is bloat, not me, but the goat. I go to my dry fridge that houses all my medicines and supplies and look for my awesome medical booklet Jess the previous livestock intern wrote me. I should tell you now that there are 3 different Jess's in this story. The book wasn't there! Crap. Now what do I do. I know the remedy for bloat is powered laundry detergent in water but how much! So I called Jess and said I was in a bind and couldn't find the book at it was an emergency because this goat was seriously dying! We talked about the symptoms and she said it had to be bloat. So I dissolved some detergent in water and gave it to the baby with a syringe. She swallowed it well enough but she wasn't moving. She was incapable of standing. As you can see in the photo she was really
pathetic looking. Her stomach was hard and she was having difficulty breathing. An hour later, her stomach seemed to soften but not decrease in size. So I gave her another squirt of laundry soap water. Note that if you happen to find yourself in this situation, do not I repeat do not use liquid soap, it must be the powdered laundry detergent. That's for all you dreamers out there wanting to raise goats. An hour after that there was no change and now David, the farm manager had joined in the great mystery of what was happening with this goat. I was very calm but freaking out on the inside. If you have been keeping up with the blog you might recall another story of a baby goat that dyed in my arms and I had no clue what to do. Well now this kid had similar symptoms!

David looked her over and then Aaron joined in sitting in the grass with me while David ran back to his house to search for some remedies and reasons online, whoops sorry reasons first then remedies. Can't do it the other way! I'm not Quentin Tarantino here. So I'm thinking maybe it's floppy kid disease. Pretty sure, 100 percent that the other kid dyed from it. Only there is one symptom missing, the flop. So I said I think I want to proceed with the treatment for floppy kid, which is baking soda water orally and a shot of penicillin. David didn't really agree with me but said whatever you think you need to do. So I mixed up some baking soda in water and did the same thing as the other liquid except instead of 6 mL, I gave her 15 mL of this stuff. Then loaded up my syringe and gave an intramuscular shot of penicillin. Intramuscular shot is one right into the muscle, opposed to the subcutaneous shot which is right under the skin.

After this I decided it was time to call... Jess M, the livestock intern a few years ago. She is almost a full blown vet tech now and very knowledgeable not only from her time on the farm but from her schooling and experience there. Now I'm super intimidated by the idea of this Jess because I've heard some crazy stories and Jess if you're reading this I'm sorry but I have to be honest here in the best way. This girl had to be the best livestock intern ever! She went above and beyond for every goat. She slept in the dairy during kidding season to catch all the births to reduce CAE in our herd. She got a goat fully recovered from a broken leg once. Anyway, Jess was super helpful and she asked me a ton of questions and we threw around all the possibilities. She walked me through putting a tube down into her stomach to relief some of the pressure. She also suggested I give her some pepto. So I did both these things. Then I checked her temp which was 104 and that is good, meant she was still fighting.

By 9 pm there was nothing more I could do and I called David the farm manager and left a message saying that when he got back to the farm, he could put her down. So I stayed out there til 11 and then finally wrapped her up in a blanket and put her in the warmest and most dry area of the kid barn and left. I was worried sick about her and when I got up in the morning, I knew I would just find a dead goat wrapped in a blanket who suffered all night.

When I got to the barn, she was standing away from the blanket! It was amazing! She was doing so well, still a little weak but she was on the mend. So I continued to give her the penicillin shots to finish her cycle and gave some pepto for her tummy. I put her on an electrolyte solution made of molasses, salt, baking soda and water. We gave it to her in a bottle. For 4 days she was constantly getting better. Then on Saturday she just crashed. She stopped eating and was laying down again not moving except no large belly this time. So I got a bottle of electrolytes in her and some pepto with the help of Annali who was on weekend duty. We left her there and Annali called me in couple hours later saying she found the baby goat dead. What the heck? I felt so good about this one and thought surely we will save on that gets really ill. It's just a total bummer.

So Annali took care of it and farm life moves on once again. I feel better prepared now for next time something happens. I feel comfortable putting a tube down into the stomach now and it wasn't hard at all. I'm getting more and more shots experience. It's good to also have a community that is there for you and shares in experiences like this. I don't have to be bummed alone because Annali is right there with me on this one. We have our joys as well, like baby goat births! I'm still waiting on one last momma to give birth and then kidding season is officially over! We also got a great health inspection last week. Nothing wrong! Well, except for our somatic cell count in our milk. That is an up hill battle but one I'm working hard to get down. I sent in milk samples from all my milkers this week and should have results by Friday so I know who to treat for mastitis and so on. Well, that's it for now. I'll post a more general overview of the past couple weeks after this. Just wanted to get this story out. So until next time.....