A friend of mine has a commercial dairy and I take her doe kids to bottle feed each year. This year almost all the kids are getting severe diarrhea at 2 days of age, killing some of them, while they are still with their mothers. Now she is sure that it is e-coli and has tried a number of 'treatments' including oral gentomicin, bio-sol and a calf scour-stop. She also claims that tubing with a bit of baking soda is helping, but they don't seem to be 'floppy kids'. Seems to me that shocking a young digestive system with antibiotics can only cause trouble, but she says probiotic makes them worse. I don't belive in guess vetting so I have sent off a stool sample for culture to confirm virulent e-coli, but those results won't be back for a few days. Any suggestions?

-- Diannw (yankeeterrier@hotmail.com), January 17, 2002

Answers

Diarhea means that the "good" bacteria in the gut are out of commission--something that antibiotics DEFINITELy will exacerbate. SO--tell her to put a little active yogurt in the bottle to promote good bacteria.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), January 17, 2002.

Try scour halt for pigs. It worked on my bottle fed babies. Although I have never dealth e-coli, I have heard it is a whitish gray diarrhea. Yogurt is always in my refrig for lambs. I would drop the milk and drench with a good electrolite, then once the scours in under control I would add some milk to the electrolite until back fully on the milk replacer. I have had good luck with Pepto Bismo for the lambs too. I am not sure why your vet didnt give you a anbiotic for scouring and e-coli. Mine did, it has a cherry flavor for the lambs and is a drench good for e-coli. You should probably treat for it because it is the one that takes their lives.

-- debbie (bwolcott@cwis.net), January 17, 2002.

Well you've done the right thing getting some testing done. In the mean time I'd be using a sulfa antibiotic/pepto type drug. Won't touch Ecoli but will kill cocci. Nursing kids are not ruminants so I wouldn't use yogurt. Keep then hydrated with electrolites and even subQ glucose injections. Hope the tests turn up something useful.

-- Ross (amulet@istar.ca), January 17, 2002.

The list for neonatal diarrhea complex is long. It's great you got the tests ran. I would be using systemic antibitotics, not oral. The list for kids dieing by day 2 is much shorter. I would guess cryptosporidiosis rather than ecoli, but you could also be dealing with nutritional muscular dystrophy, and supplementing with E orally and selenium injections would be a cheap alternative till the tests come back. If your fecals are clear, I would look quickly into the nutritional aspect of this, most disease would cause early or late term abortions, and not live kids who parish so quickly. Failure to thrive could also be caused by a widespread mastitic colostrum the kids are drinking. Goat kids are born as single stomached animals, it is not shocking to the rumen like it would be in adults to give antibiotics, I would also be posting to Nubian Talk at groups.yahoo.com........and talking with Joyce at saanendoah.com I hope you get back with us on this. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), January 17, 2002.

Ask your vet for some clindamycin or cleocin . It is an especially broad spectrum antibiotic.I had a lamb that had a severe neonatal diarrhea and I contribute his survival to cleocin in pedialyte drench.I use lactinex tabs. instead of yogurt to rebuild the normal flora of the gastrointestinal tract and I have never had luck with probiotic.It is definitely some sort of infection-most probably bacterial and some sort of antibiotic is needed due to the low immune system of a neonate.But most of all-Good luck. Terry

-- Terry Lipe (elipe@fidnet.com), January 17, 2002.