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WEAK KIDS or FLOPPY KIDS

Weak Kid Syndrome and Floppy Kid Syndrome are very different health conditions. Goat raisers, as well as some vets, tend to confuse them. If a wrong diagnosis is made, the kid will die.

WEAK KID SYNDROME occurs in newborns and very young kids. A weak kid is a starving kid, either from a stressful birth resulting in hypothermia (sub-normal body temperature) or from other conditions beyond its control. The kid may have failed to bond with its dam, might have gotten separated from her, or could have been denied sufficient milk by more dominant siblings. The dam might have mastitis or congested udder, resulting in starving kids. If she did not receive adequate nutrition during her pregnancy, the dam can't produce enough milk.

A weak kid born to a doe infected with an abortion disease is starving because abortion organisms cut off the placental food supply to the fetus at about 42 days of gestation. If she is infected in the early to mid part of her pregnancy, the fetus will starve, die, and hopefully she will spontaneously abort it, or she will also die as a result of the dead fetus decomposing inside of her. If the dam is infected in the latter part of her pregnancy, the kid can be born weak but unable to stand and nurse. To survive, the kid will require your assistance as the dam can do nothing to help a kid that cannot stand on its own.

The potential for weak kids is high when triplets (or more) are born, especially if the more naturally food-aggressive boys outnumber the less aggressive girls.

FLOPPY KID SYNDROME occurs when a kid that has been overfed on milk. Newborn kids do NOT have Floppy Kid Syndrome. FKS is common in bottle-fed kids and is often the result of bottle feeding too much milk at a time. Dam-fed kids may develop Floppy Kid Syndrome if the dam and kid have been confined in such a small area that she cannot keep the kid from nursing too frequently. This usually doesn't occur until a kid is about 7 to 10 days old. The kid is unable to digest the contents of its milk stomach quickly enough before more milk is put into it. This accumulation of undigested milk turns toxic and the kid is poisoned from within (enterotoxemia, i.e. overeating on milk).

No vaccine exists to prevent pre-ruminal kids from overeating on milk. If the kid is being bottle fed, you must learn how much milk can be fed and at what specific intervals of time for the kid's weight, age, and activity level to prevent Floppy Kid Syndrome. See my article on Overfeeding Bottle Baby Goats on the Articles page at www.tennesseemeatgoats.com. I also have detailed articles on how to treat Weak Kid Syndrome and Floppy Kid Syndrome on the Articles page at www.tennesseemeatgoats.com.

Suzanne W. Gasparotto, ONION CREEK RANCH, Texas 4.1.26