Hello,

It's my first year raising bucks, but I've had does for several years. My buck is 7 months old and was fine yesterday morning but last night he refused to eat. His temp was 107 and his ears were cold, but body felt warm. He's alert and interested in what's going on around him. Seemed to have a slight raspy breathing too. I gave him Probios and PenG and Triaminic decongestant/expectorant cough syrup. This morning, he was the same so I called my vet. He said to switch to LA200, so I gave that and more probios. Vet said that if that doesn't bring his fever down, to call back and he'll come out to see him. Is there something else to check that I'm forgetting? Thanks in advance.

-- Charleen in WNY (harperhill@eznet.net), October 04, 2001

Answers

I know of two things that have a fever like that either listerosis or pnemonia. The raspy breathing suggests pnemonia which the LA 200 should be good for. The things I know of here is giving the right dose. Some vets know goats real well and some do not. LA 200 is 3 ml or cc/ 100 lbs. when dosing a goat. Please go to this site and look it up www.saanendoah.com under injectable meds then LA 200.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge will come along soon to help. If you have not given enough LA 200 it will do nothing so regive the medicine. Also do not bother trying to be exact just round to the nearest 50 lbs. Also The vet can give you some banamine for the fever. And if you have not wormed in awhile or do not know for sure your wormer is working you may need to worm. Worms can make things worse whenever the animal gets sick and what would not normally bother them would.

I do not want to confuse things but if you have vitamin C, my book says 8 grams injectable then 3 grams every hour till crisis is past, then a tsp or 5 grams vitamin c powder a day till better. Also a gram of B12 injectable at the onset of problems.

Make sure you give a drench of some kind, or at least warm water with apple cider vinegar 1 cup to 3 liters. When their temperature goes down it means they are dehydrating and it is harder to save them. If you have nothing but the water and LA 200 use that.

Please keep us posted and we will try to help.

Lynn

-- Lynn (johnnypfc@yahoo.com), October 04, 2001.

Excellent advice by Lynn. And actually my choice of over the counter drug for pnemonia is Tylan 200. If I have to use LA200 which is nothing more than 200 mg of Tetracycline, we choose Biomycin or Oxytet 200. Both have none sting carriers and are less expensive. Read the saanendoah.com site also on the info on giving these shots sub q rather than IM. Though he would get the first two loading doses here IM, (gets the meds in the blood stream faster) all other shots would be give subq.

I would be worried about the immunity of a 7 month old buck coming down with pnemonia. Pnemonia, unless chemically caused by the owner limeing the pens, or making the buck live in wet bedding, that smells like ammonia, is not something an aggressively growing 7 month old buck would usually get, unless he didn't recevie adequate amounts of good quality colostrum. You may want to boost his immuntiy with one of the ID-1 products from goatworld.com or the other blood product from Hoeggers.

Banamine from the vet would bring the fever down quickly, and a better much more expensive antibiotic from the vet is Naxcel, which is the best drug by far for upper respiratory, and what a valuable animal here would be on.

Pen G is really only good anymore for prevention of wound infections, and for certain types of mastitis. It is given (the 300,000 unit type) at 3cc per 50 pounds, twice a day and subq. First it was Combiotic that was ineffective, now it is Pen G and now with the miss and overuse of LA200, it will be Tetracycline soon. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), October 04, 2001.

This is Charleen with the sick buck again.

Many thanks to Lynn and Vikki for their help.

I neglected to mention that I gave the buck a B complex injection. I realize that this is not B12, but it's what I have. My boys (2 bucks & a wether) are housed outside in a 20x16 pen made from cattle panels. They have a calf hutch and a tarp over one end of their pen to get out of the rain and/or sun and they are protected on one side with pine trees. Yes, we did have quite a bit of rain last week, but this week has been dry. After the rain, I had removed wet bedding and manure from their area and replaced their bedding in the hutch with dry straw. I have not used lime. I do not know that it is pneumonia. He received an excellent amount of colostrum at birth and they have been vaccinated with BoSe, CDT and they have been wormed. I have reconstituted Naxcel in the freezer from another health problem (one of the does)since July. I will talk to the vet again about giving that instead of the LA200. Oh, regarding the LA200, the vet said 4 ½ cc per 100#, and the buck weighs 105, so that's the amount that I gave him SubQ. Thanks again

-- Charleen in WNY (harperhill@eznet.net), October 04, 2001.