Well, she’s still not feeling good. Another picture of the attitude of a sick goat:
Through the breeder I got the number of the vet she has used before and set up an appointment. He came out that evening (luckily he had a meeting not far from me) to see the goats. He agreed that the smallest did not look like she was feeling well and took fecal samples from all three. I was used to fecals being off found pellets, but apparently now you take the manure right out of the animals’ butts! I’ve seen them do it for the cat and dogs, but they use a plastic loop thing. For goats you apparently get to go right to the source with a finger…but in these little guys even a finger is huge and I had 3 very unhappy goats when it was done!
While he was there we discussed possible outcomes and treatments and I showed him the list of medications I had recently gotten. Turns out I’ve gotten a large majority of what I may need already.
I showed him the dandruff on the back of the black goats’ head…andddd it turns out it was lice nits!
Lice! On MY goats!!! *shudder*. He saw the look on my face and laughed, let me know that goat lice are not transmittable to humans. Whew.
Add that to the list of things to treat for! He showed me how you could tell when the nits attached-basically the further away from the body the nits were, the longer ago they attached themselves. He told me to go ahead and treat everyone for it using the Dectomax I had on hand as well as a bath in any Pemetherin containing shampoo. I asked if the Adam’s brand was good, he said yes. He also told me repeat the bath in 12-14 days to get the next batch of lice, and if still some do it again after that. Below is a blurry picture of the nits on the girls’ head, and one of it in the fur of the white one which I discovered after the vet left….
Well. That’s fun. NOT.
We spend a few more minutes discussing goats and discussing my plans to get the supplies to do my own fecals in the future (already ordered). He left with a promise to let me know in the morning the results.
The next morning bright and early he sends me a text and tells me all three have coccidiosis, and the smallest one was heavily infected! I suspected it in the smallest one based on the dirrhea and attitude but now it was confirmed. He said to get them treated NOW, especially the smallest one. Based on what I had on hand, he suggested Corrid or Baycox as the treatment. He also told me snag a sample of feces from the smallest and keep it in the fridge until my supplies come in. Said it would be great to learn on as there were a lot of coccidia visible in her sample, and it would keep for up to a week in the fridge.
Next up…bath and treatment time for everyone! This is not going to go over well!