I have a pair of 6 weeek old Saanen doelings. They are on about 40 oz of whoole cow's milk (store bought) daily. Also nibble grass and alfalfa pellets. For 36 hrs now one doeling has refused all but an ounce or two of her bottles. Posed in "hunched" position, belly sl. larger than normal. No diarrhea. No coughing, no runny nose. Vaccinated x 2 since birth with Covexin 8. Wormed with Ivermectrin a week or so ago. Any suggestions? I have tried syringing bloat remedy into her, also force fed some baking soda. Thanks, Julie in OK

-- Julie (okwilk213@juno.com), May 04, 2002

Answers

Hi Julie, I would use a sulfa. Sulfa's not only are for cocci (which can kill without diarrhea) but also bacterial problems. Take her temp, you can be very surprised how high a kids temp can get! Listen really careful to her lungs, also with Ivermectin really only doing a really good job of adult worms, perhaps with her being on the new grass she has a just recently matured group of worms in her system. If she were mine I would reworm her, put her on sulfa for 5 days, and give her milk of magnesia to try to get her moving along, even if it did cause diarrhea (unless she is pooping normally) then I would oil her up good or tube her with the bloat release or what have you. You have to use quite alot of oils and the like to get the gal going. I would also replenish her newly formed rumen with probios.

Having just thought that, I can tell you that young kids just forming their rumens, with it full of grass and grain sometimes don't have the right bacteria to get it working, you may want to try the probios right off. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), May 04, 2002.

Hi Julie, It sounds like your girl as bloat. What I've given in the past for it was one tablespoon of epsom salts diluted with warm water and syringed in mouth and followed by one teaspoon of b.soda also diluted. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's worked great for my gang.

Hope she feel better soon!

Lorna

-- Lorna (clstuckless@thezone.net), May 05, 2002.