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DIAGNOSING ILLNESSES
It Is Usually The Simplest Thing

When a goat gets sick, the cause is usually the simplest thing. It is often something that you didn't think of, or you considered and dismissed as unlikely.

Start With the Basics.

1) Check for stomach worms. Use the FAMACHA field test, then follow up by doing fecal egg counts using a microscope. Almost all goat health problems begin with blood-sucking stomach worms (Haemonchus contortus aka barberpole stomach worm). Worms compromise the immune system, opening the door to pneumonia and many other illnesses. I estimate that in 95% of the calls I get for help with goats , stomach worms turn out to be the underlying problem.

Wet climates and goats don't go together, yet many people are raising goats under wet conditions that make successful goat raising very difficult. WET = WORMS.

Just because you dewormed does not mean that it worked. You must do fecal counts using McMasters slides to determine eggs per gram both before and 10 days after you deworm to determine if the dewormer that you used actually worked. If you don't get a 95% worm kill, your dewormer failed, you are killing off susceptible worms, and you are keeping the resistant worms. See my articles on www.tennesseemeatgoats.com on how to do your own fecals and deworming basics.

2) Take the goat's rectal temperature with a digital thermometer to confirm or rule out high body temperature that could be caused by pneumonia, mastitis, or other illnesses. Normal rectal temperature is 101.5*F to 103.5*F for all goats. If goats don't die from blood-sucking worms that cause anemia, the next most common cause is pneumonia. Read my article on Interstitial Pneumonia on the Articles page at www.tennesseemeatgoats.com and learn how to identify and treat pneumonia in goats. The symptoms are not what you think they are.

Sub-normal body temperature (100*F or less) indicates hypothermia or the goat is already dying.

3) If the sick goat is a kid, check its tummy for fullness and its dam's udder for adequate milk. It is likely starving, either because:

(a) its siblings are getting all the milk

(b) its dam isn't producing enough milk

(c) its dam has mastitis or congested udder and milk is not available for the kid

(d) the kid got chilled (or overheated) and could not control its body temperature, so it is starving (Weak Kid Syndrome) or feverish and not eating

(e) the kid got separated from its dam and is starving

(f) the dam has soremouth blisters on her teats and isn't letting the kid nurse so it is starving

If the kid is a bottle baby, you may be overfeeding it on milk and it is going into Floppy Kid Syndrome (over-eating on milk).

Adult goats can become hypothermic, dehydrated, or develop fever under the right conditions. These aren't only problems of kids.

These are health, nutrition, and management issues that you must recognize and prevent. Failing prevention, you must know how to identify and promptly treat.

4) If the basics are not the problem, then move on to the more "exotic" issues like listeriosis, goat polio, tetanus, etc. I have articles on almost every illness or condition that a goat might contract on the Articles page at www.tennesseemeatgoats.com.

A goat is seldom sick because of some exotic problem without worms being the underlying reason that the immune system was compromised and predisposed the goat to illness. For some reason, people tend to overlook the simplest thing. I suspect there are gaps in their management program which result in their not recognizing symptoms. Learning to THINK LIKE A GOAT goes a long way towards helping you better understand how goats function.

START WITH THE BASICS. Eliminate the obvious first. Most of the time the cause of the illness is the simplest thing you could have thought of . . . but didn't. .

Suzanne W. Gasparotto Onion Creek Ranch 5.9.19