Hello there, We are having some problems with raising some baby goat kids. They are 3 weeks old and we have 19. This is the first time we have had goats but are used to dairy cows,though we are finding there is a big difference. Some have seemed to be getting bloated and some have been getting a weezing and breath hard. We stopped the noon feeding about 4 days ago. They have access to grain, and alfalfa hay at all times. Should we take that away at times? They are in a barn and there is air flow but doesn't seem to be drafts. There is nothing else in the barn other then these 19 goats and some older goats that are 5 weeks old, we have 17 of them. Any help would be really appreciated!!! We are feeding milk replacer morning and night. Thank you again. Also, any websites that would help with the health issues would be appreciated also.

-- Wendy Cole (dwcole686@juno.com), March 19, 2001

-- Wendy Cole (dwcole686@juno.com), March 19, 2001

Answers

Hi Wendy, first thing always what is the goat temp. Wheezing is upper respiratory and can be bacterial or enviornmental (inhalation pnemonia) get down on you knees in the barn, are your knees wet? Do you smell amonia? If you do you must bed the barn deeper, and increase the ventialtion to the barn. Babies who are over "babied" kept in to hot of invironments with no access to sunlight and fresh air, rarely do well. You are trying to protect them from blowing wind and rain, not from fresh cold air and sunlight. With that amount of kids with the two different ages, your probability for having a cocci outbreak is very high. Milk replacer is a juggeling act using it. With soy in the mix it will cause bloat. With the kids stressed from bloat, cocci has a chance to take hold in the stressed kid. Without a good quality colostrum at birth, most kids have failure of passive immunity and fail to thrive. When we choose to artificially raise our kids (me taking them away at birth and raising them together) gives us no choice but to medicate them. I prefer to use sulfaquinoxiline 20% in jefferslivestock.com or pipevet.com because you only have to give them 2cc per 50 pounds in their bottles, guestimate weight and put in the lambar, or mix with some kero and put in the mouths, for 5 days. It not only keeps cocci at bay but also bacterial scours and pnemonia. If you have wheezing and fever, over 102 than you will have to use an antibiotic systemically for the pnemonia or you will lose the kid. I prefer Tylan 50 in small kids, for expenisive kids, I use Naxcel for pnemonia and Banamine for fever. If you have the wheezing with no fever, than look at the inviornment, you may still want to choose prevention with a sulfa, rather than the full outbreak then trying to use treatment, which seldom works in weakend kids. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 19, 2001.