We had an early kidding this Thurs. morning. Quads, one still born. The other three seemed to be doing fine at first, every one got about 6-8 oz. of colostrum and then promptly developed the scours. Not the normal yellow sticky poop, watery scours(and unbelievably stinky) tried getting more colostrum in them, no go. Gave them each 10cc of goat serum concentrate from Hoeggers, saw improvement right away in their energy and sucking reflex. But they are still scouring. Here's what I've done- took them off milk, put them on a salt,baking soda,white kayro solution with sulfer drug mixed in, they've rehydrated well, suck the bottles dry and they're still scouring. Help please. Thanks in advance.

-- Judy Corwin (corwinsusa@nescape.net), March 30, 2002

Answers

Judy you are going to loose them unless you get them back on milk. They need the calcium and the calories. Stinky scours at birth is usually Ecoli or Colibasillis and I slaughter the spelling of that, get yourself some spectramycin, called the pig pump (red liquid in a pump bottle, pipevet.com or jefferslivestock.com) you can order it in all sorts of catalogs and find it at larger feed stores. Sulfas are for cocci, bacterial problems etc. and those don't start at birth! Forget all that calf junk of taking them off milk to stop scours, electrolytes and sugar are not enough calories for a baby with an 8 ounce stomach. They have scours because they are either ill or the dam has mastitis, mastitic milk can cause scours also. If you can't drink the dams milk than put the babies on warm grocery store or other goat milk, don't even try a replacer at this point. At least they got some colostrum, and the goat serum didn't hurt. Get them on the spectamycin, keep them on it until they stop scouring, give them milk with nothing mixed in it, you can offer your mixture between bottles if you want, but give their guts a chance to form a curd with their milk. You could also get some Banamine and give them 1/4cc IM for 6 days only, to calm their guts, it would act as a slight sedative, which would also slow the gut. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 30, 2002.

Vicki, thanks for responding. We have already put them back on the goat milk (not their dam's-but another doe's that freshened last week) But it eased my mind having it reinforced that I was doing the right thing, Hubby had said that the pig stuff might work if the sulfa drug didn't, so I'll put them on that as soon as I can, but with this being Easter weekend everything is closed up tight till Mon. AM. They're jumping all around and playing (and spraying poop everywhere) Any suggestions on anything else I can do for them until I can get my hands on the stuff you suggested? Thanks again.

-- Judy Corwin (corwinsusa@netscape.net), March 30, 2002.

Keopectate, Pepto Bismol, Immodium (even though we were told never to use it, it is on the saanendoah.com site and Joyce uses it. Slippery Elm, in fact if you find the dosage for that, perhaps on countrysidemag.com post it here please. I have even heard that burnt flour, put some flour in a skillet and burn it will stop diarrhea. Stopping them up will help with symptoms but not with the problem. But with two right now here pooping mushy poop, sometimes it is important to STOP THEM UP!!! :) Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (Nubians) (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 01, 2002.