Category: Animal Health Page 2 of 3

Sick cat…and threw up plastic

On August 4, 2022

Late Sunday night stsrted normally. I did my chores including feeding my cat Rudy…but he didn’t want his dinner. He drank all the liquid around it (wet food and I would add water since he liked the gravy it made) but none of the solid. Usually he cleans the plate so I thought that odd. I offered him some dry food and he grabbed some in his mouth so I thought he was eating it. A few hours later, he made the dreaded noise-glurp glurp glurp-and started throwing up. First it was a tiny bit of food, then a hairball, then varying amounts of liquid and stomach fluid.

The 7th time (!!!) he threw up I noticed something that looked odd in the fluid. Turned out to be several small pieces of a rubbery plastic!

It almost looked like a twist tie…but there was no wire. I haven’t had any plastic coated twist ties in the house in a long time and I always keep small items off the floor because of the animals.

My next thought was a cord, phone charger or something. I took a flashlight and inspected every cord in the house…nothing was missing a part. I even looked on the porch since he did sneak out there last week for a few minutes but found nothing. I then looked everywhere, even under beds for anything that looked like that…or missing pieces…and nothing.

He proceeded to throw up one more time and it was nothing but mucous and another teeny piece of the plastic. By now I was worried as he’s never been sick that many times, and he never before actually ate anything that wasn’t some sort of food. I decided that if he wasn’t OK by mid morning I would call the vet and make an appointment.

I stayed up a couple more hours with him to keep an eye on him. The vomiting stopped and he drank some water, so we went to bed.

Monday morning he outwardly seemed like he was OK at first. Then I noticed that he hadn’t touched the pile of dry food. I realized there was quite a bit of it pulled out of the dish and across the floor, like he tried to eat and couldn’t.

His litter box needed changing so I did that around 8am. I noticed there was not any normal sized fresh poop, only older stuff and a inch plop of newer…usually he goes 2x or more a day as a rule and always by 9 am. Plus his movements were dark and solid and the small one was bright and soft.

Around 10am he started going in…and out…and in…and out…and in…and out of his box. Last time he did that he had a UTI so back in the box I went to look for any evidence he might have “left”. I realized he had not peed nor pooped yet. Since his box was the auto kind, it makes it harder to keep any eye when you’re watching for “movements”.

I unplugged the box and put half a puppy pad on top of the litter so I could watch what he was doing. Turned on the computer (which is next to his box) and started working online.

Another couple trips to the box and he finally pooped…except it wasn’t normal. It was only a tiny tiny bit and upon inspection it was mostly mucous. I watched him walk and noticed he was walking peg legged and stiff like a person does when they’re bloated. Picked him up and realized his stomach was harder than normal and slightly bloated.

Now I’m worried that there was more plastic and he’s got a blockage. The vomiting, lack of eating solid food , and bloating added up to worry for me. I called the vet and explained the situation.

His regular vet was booked up but one of the other vets that fills in was available at 215…so 215 it was.

Pig anti tip progress

By nsmar4211

On July 22, 2022

In Animal Health, Pig

Still working on keeping this guy from dehydrating himself. Bucket is now clipped onto the ring …although he’s already chewed the clip open once!

But look at this face…how can anyone get mad at it?!?!?! He’s lucky he’s cute!

Hot dog cool off method that actually works in Florida heat

By nsmar4211

On July 19, 2022

In Animal Health, Cats and Dogs

It gets hot here in Florida. The dogs have their own end of the porch with an outside covered enclosure for potty and guarding purposes. I put up sunshades, they have a huge bowl of water changed daily, and there’s a fan that runs all day in part of their area that they can choose to lay in front of.

After noticing how often they hang out on the concrete steps, I decided to see if they’d use some concrete pavers as a cool spot to lay down….

Result? They LOVE them!

Nine blocks at $1.50 each is what I would call cost effective cooling! Some days I also dampen the blocks with water for evaporative cooling. This only works if the humidity isn’t over 90 percent though.

Even with the blocks, if I see them panting heavily they come inside for some a/c until it starts cooling back down. If they’re too hyper to be inside, I’ll rub them down with a wet cloth and put them back out-usually they calm down and can come back in shortly.

I may try this out in the pig pens too, couple of pavers in the shade to see if they’ll use them for heat. Whatever works!

Pest Control and Rabbits

By nsmar4211

On June 14, 2022

In Animal Health, Rabbits

A post on Facebook reminded me of something that happened to a friend of mine. She sold a rabbit and a couple days later the buyer sent her this video asking what’s wrong.

This is a neurological twitch! Since the rabbit didn’t have it when sold, it had to happen after the sale. After some questioning and eliminating mishandling as a cause, it turned out the buyer just had the house sprayed for pests. This rabbit is a house rabbit. Despite the company not spraying near the rabbit, this happened. The residue is still in the house (that’s how the sprays work!) and the rabbit was exposed.

An old neighbor of mine owned his own pest control company and he’s the one who explained that the “safe for pets” only meant dogs and cats…they don’t test on rabbits, rodents, etc. He refused to spray inside a house if someone had any pets like that because of it.So if you’re selling, warn your buyers not to use bug sprays of any kind in the house!

BTW, cleaners kill bugs too…I dispatched a wasp with 409 yesterday. I’ve used Windex, dawn +water, and disinfectant spray as well (whatever was in my hand). Makes cleanup easier too!

This rabbit did recover after some time as the exposure was mild. The owner was instructed to not allow spraying in any room the rabbit has access to or put it outside in a shaded cool area for a week after spraying was done.

Response to someone with a new carport type rabbit area concerned about heat.

By nsmar4211

On June 3, 2022

In Animal Health, Rabbits

Texas? Forget the swamp cooler, too humid. Misters will NOT work on the rabbits and will just rust your cages-your humidity is too high. Now, if you rig them up to wet the parts of roof that are in the sun, that would help. Do not enclose this unless you are putting in an a/c unit, they will die. Fans-you said one in the middle? Not enough unless it’s a giant oversized one. 35′ is a long way to push air. I’d put three at least in this…stagger them, so one on the end on left, one in middle, one on the end on right. I have 3 going in a 10×20. You need more airflow pushing the hot air out. I would also add one at the end of that middle row…I can’t tell what that is, but if it’s two levels down the middle they’re going to get hot fast, too many bodies too close together. If you have solid dividers in cages, put those at the end of the rows -the dividers block airflow. The end that’s in “full sun”…how much of it? Can you put shade cloth across the back at that end (use the beige ones)? You’ve got to get that roof out of the sun-the metal will literally bake your rabbits. If you have to buy shade cloth and throw it over the top and tie it down, do it. Best thing would be insulation under the roof, foam sheets or anything. You might consider something on top of the cages for an added buffer between them and the roof-the corrugated plastic at home depot comes in 8′ sheets, I’ve cut those in half so they’re 2×8 and laid them across the cages. It looks like you have an auto waterer, seriously consider adding crocks especially in the cages the struggling animals are in…I never set mine up after I moved because I came out one hot day and half my rabbits were curled up against the water bowls cooling off, even the plastic bowls. Some also put their feet in the bowls (watch out they don’t stay there too long and get a fungal infection, if they start losing hair on top of their feet it’s plan B time). Source: I’m in Florida…its 92 in the shade right now…

Lice in goats!! Eeek! Quick post of pictures of nits in fur.

By nsmar4211

On May 29, 2022

In Animal Health, Goat

My goats ended up having lice. Ugh. I thought the black goat had dandruff (the blurry picture below), but a vet told me nope. Those are nits. I looked closely at the white goat’s fur and was able to see them as well, pictured below. So if your goat has “dandruff”, check closer-it could be lice!

Vet showed me to try and pull it off-the lice nits stick to the fur and don’t pull off like dandruff would. Also showed me how they were in layers on the hair, hair keeps growing so the ones close to skin were new and the ones further away were the ones that hatched before that.

When asked about mites, he said mites you aren’t going to see easily with naked eye, but you’ll see them rubbing excessively on everything they can.

Good news is humans and goats do not share the same lice and mite species. Whew!

Sick goats-treating for lice and coccidiosis ( and some awesomely cute pictures )

By nsmar4211

On May 21, 2022

In Animal Health, Goat

Well, I managed to get everything together needed (recommended by vet and things I’ve read online) to treat my trio.

Kaolin Pectin is for treating the diarrhea in the two with it. They weigh 6 and 9 pounds each so I’m giving them 3cc each.

Micro B-12 to boost their nutritional amount of B12, given per label instructions.

Adams Flea and Tick Shampoo…which ended up being almost empty so I used a new bottle. Pyrethrin was the important ingredient the vet wanted me to use and Adams has worked well for me in the past on other animals. I wish they’d put better labels on! As you see, handling and them getting wet wears them off.

Dectomax is a doramectin sold as an injection. Everything I’ve read and heard, and the vet confirmed, says do orally. Apparently goats “process” their feed quicker than other animals so the doseage has to be adjusted higher. I settled on 1ml/35 lbs, ORALLY for their doses. I still had to have a needle (bag behind the bottles) to draw it out of the bottle though, and gave it using a 3cc syringe (not pictured).

Probios was to restore some of the gut flora from being sick, given at label dose. They LOVE the taste! I could only find cattle version so turning the dial was veryyy slow :).

The yellow packet is electrolytes, I mixed up half a cup worth (using package directions) and gave everyone 6 ccs orally. Usually you put it in their water, which I have been doing, but I wanted to make sure they all got some.

Last up is a generic for Baycox-Toltrazuril- which per the vet local breeders have said works the best. I had to get the generic as the name brand was out of stock everywhere, I got it online from a racehorse supply site. He said Corid would be next up to try if I didn’t have that, but you have to do it for 5 days in a row and supplement thiamine. The Toltrazuiril is a one day dose given orally, rate is 1cc/5lb.

Fun part is , all of this will be repeated in 10 days again :).

So after wrestling three little goats, singly, in a nice warm shower I got to have a little fun…This is a towel. Oh, no, my shower is not pink…that’s weird…but anyway this is a very cute towel isn’t it?

Tada! See? Cute! Bambi was not much of a fan of a bath, although she was quiet until I stepped out to grab all the supplements….then the whole neighborhood could hear her!

Back out in the pen after their baths, three goats all lined up getting an apology handful of pellets :). You can see that Molly (far left) is feeling good with her tail nice and perky. Bambi does have abdomen now so she’s filling out slowly. Lizzy (far right) never showed signs of feeling bad, but her eyelid color is improving so the lice treatment seems to be helping.

Here Molly is checking out the minerals…vet said it was ok to start them on em. Left is plain baking soda, and right is Manna Pro brand Goat Minerals. I had gotten them since it was a smaller bag and I figured 3 goats are not going through 25lb of minerals that quick. The vet confirmed my choice as well and said he recommends that type over the generic bagged minerals anyway.

Face picture of Lizzy…who still is very shy of being petted although she is realizing I come with food. And she likes food!

Sick baby goat now feeling a little better but still depressed

By nsmar4211

On May 19, 2022

In Animal Health, Goat

Ew!! Not that! Aka Sick baby Goat Vet Results

By nsmar4211

On May 17, 2022

In Animal Health, Goat

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!

What does a sick baby goat look like and the start of the treatment saga.

By nsmar4211

On May 5, 2022

In Animal Health, Goat

After bringing home 3 baby goats to start my herd, I noticed that the smallest didn’t seem to be feeling good. When I had picked them up , the white one had diarrhea suddenly but I was hoping it was just stress. I gave everyone a dose of Selenium and Vit E as they had not had anything yet (7 weeks old). Two days later, the smallest still wasn’t feeling good. This is how she was standing. Note the head carried down, the ears flat and facing backwards, the hunched up back, and the wet tail being held behind her instead of up or relaxed.

Top view showing the ear carriage as well as the sunken in area in front of the hips.

And this is how she was in the pen-note the backwards low ears and how she’s propping her head up against the fence.

At this point I checked her for dehydration and found that she was (by gently lifting a piece of skin away from body and seeing how fast it went back flat…hers “tented”). I then spent the rest of the day giving her Kaolin liquid, electrolyes, probios, and as much fluid as I could syringe into her mouth.

After 10 hours of treatment, and a dose of ScourGard (a pig medicine useable in goats at 3x the label dose), she was no longer dehydrated and she started struggling when I picked her up (much better sign than the limp body). At one point I noticed the little pieces of hay in the bottom of their hay bowl and put a pinch in her mouth. She immediatly started chewing it up and nosed my hand, so I ended up giving her a good sized handful of the little pieces that she ate.

At this point I started looking for a vet I could either take them to to have their feces checked or one that would come to the farm. I knew it wouldn’t be cheap to do but it needed to be done!