The past few weeks have been a battle on our homestead. Miracle got mastitis as soon as she freshened. It took three doses of Nuflor, an antibiotic shot that stings horribly, to get her healthy. I'm still not completely satisfied with the condition of her udder. She is no longer showing clinical symptoms of mastitis, however, and I am comfortable pursuing natural means to get her back to top-notch health. While the vet was examining Miracle I told him I was not happy with her body condition, despite the fact that I have done everything I know to do to make her healthy. He ran a blood test and discovered that she was infected with a blood borne protozoa (transmitted by lice) that attacks the red blood cells. If she had it, the entire herd did as well. This meant an antibiotic (CTC-10) added to their feed for 30 days and a pour on treatment called BOSS. There would be no milk for human consumption for 30 days. He also did a fecal exam and said she had a high worm load. I had just dewormed the entire herd with Ivomec only two weeks prior. This meant I had to give every animal in the herd daily Panacur dewormer for five days straight, and repeat in ten days.
A few days after Miracle's diagnosis, Twilight's twins started to scour. I had put the bottle babies back with their mommas when I got Miracle's diagnosis so they could be treated with the rest of the herd, and I thought the scouring was from too much milk. I began giving a blend of Sour-Halt and Pepto Bismol, but the scouring didn't improve and the babies were acting like they were in pain. I called my goat mentor and she came down to check them out. She was armed with Neomycin, Banamine, and Kaospect. I already had Di Methox on hand for prevention of coccidiosis. She said that we needed to get them started on all of these medicines and be very careful to keep them hydrated as well. I gave them all their medicines religiously for a total 10 days. I was able to stop the Banamine after four days, and the Kaospect after about six. It was so stressful! Diarrhea is a very serious illness in young kids, and our triple digit weather was not helping their chances of beating this. I set up a fan outside the fence for them to stay in front of, which they took advantage of.
I can finally say that all my animals lived and are off all meds except the CTC-10 that goes in their feed. We have another week to go on that one.
*WHEW* Talk about a wake-up call!
I have always managed my herd using herbs, vitamins, and minerals with only rare detours into pharmaceuticals. The past 10 months have been particularly difficult, though, and I couldn't seem to get my act together. I kept forgetting to give the herd their herbal dewormer every Saturday. That herbal dewormer has many health benefits besides just deworming. The herbs have nutritional value and help build up their bodies in the same way good nutrition helps us humans. After missing several doses of herbal dewormer I decided that I was going to have to bite the bullet and go synthetic to get me through this season in my life. I started giving my herd Ivomec dewormer. However, it didn't occur to me that I needed to start them out with a more rigorous deworming schedule and then switch to maintenance. I think this is what went wrong with the worms.
I have also always kept an immaculate goat pen. Our goats have a lean-to that is about 20'x50' with a concrete floor and full access to lush pasture. (I know goats aren't supposed to be housed on concrete, it was here when we bought the place.) I had heard so much about the benefits of deep litter method for the winter months that I decided to try it. Bad, bad, BAD decision! This was the mildest winter of my life! The deep litter bedding was okay for quite some time. But when the insect population indicated to me that it was time for the bedding to GO, it was all at once! I had to clean out that entire lean-to one wheelbarrow full at a time. It took me two days. Wayne was appalled that I pushed myself that hard to empty it, but I knew my animal's health was on the line. I fear it was too little too late. Now I keep the lean-to swept out with a push broom. I will never try the deep litter method again. Ever.
All these factors combined to create conditions favorable to the deterioration of my animal's health. I have been sufficiently slapped in the face and am (precariously) on the ball with maintaining their health needs now. For the past three weeks chores have been taking me two hours, twice a day. It is exhausting. If I had simply done a better job of keeping my animals healthy in the first place, none of it would have happened. Now I am having to play catch-up: get them healthy, get their bodies back up to their healthiest, and get back on natural preventive health care. I intend to continue using synthetic dewormer and whatever else is necessary to keep my animals healthy until I have proven to myself that I can keep up with the natural methods. I will overlap the two during that proving time, and then transition off synthetics.
9 comments:
Wow! I'm so glad all your animals are ok. It is good to blog about the reality of Homesteading. Far too often we only see the pretty picture and from my own experience there is alot of blood sweat and tears that truly go into homesteading. But if Miracle hadn't got mastitis how long would it have been before you had the goats checked by the vet? Glad everything is on it's way back to health!
DG, I agree. It is unfair to paint a rosy picture and leave others pining for this picturesque life that doesn't exist. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE homesteading. There is no way I'd do all this work if I didn't think it was worth it. As you said, though, it's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. This time of year it is all three things on a daily basis!
The main reason this post was painful for me to write is because I failed to manage my herd according to the necessary standards for natural management, and my animals suffered for it.
I like the way you found a silver lining in all this: if Miracle hadn't gotten sick, there is no telling how long the other issues would have gone on. My first thought is that if the goats had been on a proper herbal supplement plan along with other vitamins and minerals at therapeutic levels, the infection wouldn't have occurred. There is no way to know for sure. In any case, this was the awakening I needed to get back on track.
Oh Michelle, it is so terribly stressful when animals are sick. I agree about using natural methods first, but I never hesitate to fall back on chemical drugs if need be. At least your vet was able to get an accurate diagnosis. You're right though that there's no way of knowing the hows and whys of what happens to our animals. We do our best regardless.
We had concrete floor in our shed when we got here too. Actually, I think it has some benefits. For one, I can hose it down so the urine doesn't just saturate the ground. I've been in some pretty stinky goat sheds like that. On the other hand, straw or hay that gets urine soaked on concrete has to be removed as quickly as possible because it stinks too. I've found too, that in the summer it's cooler for them to lay on. They really seem to like it.
So glad things are turning around. Experience is an excellent teacher, but it's such a hard way to learn.
Leigh,
Yep. Terribly stressful about sums it up! For me it's a fine line when it comes to natural vs. synthetics. I am very anti-synthetic drug. (I watched my mother die, not from her cancer, but from an overdose of the drugs the medical personnel were giving her.) However, I also know there is a time and place for virtually everything, and I NEVER want to be that person who shows up at the vet with a sick animal with three legs already in the grave expecting him to work a miracle. Sometimes it can be difficult for me to make that decision about when synthetic drugs are necessary.
I agree about the concrete floors. I personally LOVE them. They are so easy to clean. I grew up with horses and it was my job to muck out stalls and our barn had a dirt floor. It was HARD! With the concrete, it's so easy to get that shovel under the manure and heave it outta there! It's so satisfying to get that pen all swept out and then hosed out, and everything is all bright and shiny. However, I've read all about how hard it is on the goats and causes early onset of arthritis, etc. I try to give them plenty of things to climb on and lounge on so that they don't HAVE to be on the concrete 24/7.
We are truly thankful that we seem to have turned the corner and are on our way back to full health for the herd.
Crystal,
It sounds like we "enjoyed" similar experiences this year, huh? Mine wasn't a result of a lack of quarantine, but still...
Thank you for all the advice, I will keep those things in mind. Miracle's mastitis did not clear up to my satisfaction until I started using herbal remidies on her. There wasn't any evidence in the milk after the third antibiotic shot, but her udder had hard spots and just didn't feel "right." She now thinks garlic is candy! LOL!
I'm unfamiliar with the Gent product you mention. Could you possibly send me a link for it so I can learn more? (A google search was not helpful.)
LOL! Sure! By the time we drove to one another's barns and back again we could have our own in tip top shape. :-P I've taken to using the leaf blower in mine. I'm usually resistant to power tools of any kind, prefering to get a good workout and avoid supporting the petrolium industry. However, that little machine does almost two hour's work in about 15 minutes! It's my new best friend. :-D
Haha... Dunno if "enjoyed" is the word I'd use, but at least we can definately relate!
And, I suppose I should stop using abreviations eh? Gent aka Gentamicin is an antibiotic. I add this to the udder infusion "Tomorrow" and infuse into the udder. Typically, just injecting antibitoics won't really clear up mastitis... It usually comes back. The udder has a knack for walling off baddies..
If you choose to infuse, be as sterile as if you were performing surgery. I wash my hands and udder, then clean teats well with alcohol, slip on a pair of sterile gloves, line the tip up with the orifice, the slowly infuse. You don't have to put the cannula INTO the teat.. I just line up the orfice with the tip. Any doe who has had issues gets an udder infusion at their very last milking... This prevents bacteria from brewing and percolationg away for the entire dry time, just to rear it's ugly head at freshening.
Thankfully, mastitis is a rare thing here. This new doe is my first case in years.
Dunno if you knew, but in suspected mastitis cases, you can send frozen milk samples overnight to LSU and they'll test the sample for free... Will even do a sensitivity test to let you know what antibiotics will work against your strain and what will not. VERY helpful.. Overnight shipping isn't cheap, but the testing is free, and knowing exactly what your dealing with makes treatment easier & more effective. :)
Kind of funny you mention garlic... I have one doe who will knock you over for a piece of garlic.. lol Thinks it's candy :)
Believe it or not, Gentamycin actually came up on my Google search, but I thought that must not be what you are talking about since it said it was not available in the U.S.
Thanks so much for the info on infusion. I've always sworn I would never do that unless it was life or death. I thought it had to be inserted into the teat, and I think that is a horrid thing to do to an animal. However, if you're only putting medicine in, and not solid objects, I could go for that. So does the Tomorrow come with a cannula or do you have to buy it seperately?
I did not know that about LSU testing for free. That's pretty crazy! Awesome to know!
Yea, I was VERY intimidated by the thought of infusions.... I envisioned this painful ordeal that would require 3 people holding the doe for me....
The cannula is meant to be inserted... You can remove the small cap for partial insertion, or the full cap for full insertion. My mentor showed me a less daunting way though. After milking out fully, then washing/sterilizing, if you squeeze the teat end & line up the cannula, the very tip fits right inside just barely... The tip was just fractions of a centimeter inside the orfice..... Push the plunger slowly until tube is empty, then remove. Pinch teat closed at bottom & work the medicine up into the udder, then finish off with a good teat dip/spray.
Star didn't flinch or react in anyway except to the cold alcohol to clean it with (that earned me a twitch & snort). I did 5 Tomorrow infusions on her, 1 every 24 hours (so each dose sat undisturbed for 24 hours). Her udder was grotesquely uneven & a few days after her last infusion they were almost perfectly even. Really looking forward to her next freshening :)
Tomorrow comes in single dose tubes with the cannula already attached.... There is also Today, but it contains less of the active ingredient so I only use Tomorrow or Pirsue (vet RX on that one).
Here is the contact info for LSU:
Ship to: Hill Farm Mastitis Lab 3380 Highway 79 Homer, LA 71040 (318) 927-9654
You have to be VERY sterile when collecting your samples (I use whirl packs for collecting & freezing samples in) & you have to overnight air with UPS.... Samples must arrive frozen or the lab will toss them. So, while the shipping is a pain, the testing & having the sensitivity added is great :)
Thanks for all the info. It's such a blessing to know about more options.
Post a Comment