Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Worries, part two

The vet came out today to check out Juju, my very thin goat that I'm worried about. He agrees that she is too thin.

He gave her the going over. Clear lungs, eyes look good, temp is normal. He listened to her rumen (Gut) and said that it sounds good, normal sounds. He then looked in her mouth, looks good, no sores, teeth look good.

He agreed that it was odd that she was so thin and Maggie is a tad bit over weight. Juju got a broad spectrum de-wormer and also she got a antibiotics shot, that I will have to follow up with two more of them. (Friday and Sunday)

Juju then peed on the garage floor so we got a urine sample and I ran that into the vets office. No diabetes, and no bladder infection. He also drew blood and that will be sent in. He's going to test for
Johne's (Yoh-nees) disease. If that comes back negative then we will re-test her again in a few weeks. He says that false negatives are common. The test only cost 25 bucks. Diarrhea and weight loss are the two signs of this disease, Juju has not have any diarrhea at all. He doesn't think that she has it but he wants to rule it out. Most likely Juju has a bad case of worms and with nursing she became stressed (First time mom and all) and that lowered her resistance to worms and now the worms are keeping her from nutrients.

Some of the reason why he thinks that it is NOT Johne's is that there have not been animals on this land for a long time, if ever. The goat lady that I got Juju and Maggie from has not had a case of Johne's and I have the goats on a bunch of land so that there is no over-crowding.

I talked to the feed store. The grain mix that I get from them does not have copper in it. So maybe Juju is lacking some of that. But then why is Maggie overweight? She eats the same as Juju does. But I went ahead and got 50lbs mineral supplement that is made for ruminants (But not sheep, sheep can't have copper)

I am really hoping that it in not Johne's disease. There is no cure. It's kind of like Crohne's in people.

Update on my sister. She did not make the flight, they are trying again tonight. If they miss that then they will visit me some other time.

6 comments:

  1. oh the joys of flying non-rev! I dont miss that a bit.

    hope all is well with JuJu.
    Rose

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  2. Oh I hope all is alright. A lady around here had it. Well her goat did. They had to put her down. Fingers crossed.

    Has he checked for CAE? That causes weight loss also.

    But it's probably a bad case of worms. When mine get diarrhea I deworm them and they're fine in a few days.

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  3. It could simply be that nursing has taken more out of Juju than previously thought. Some animals are like that. I've seen it happen with dogs and horses.

    I am really hoping her tests all come back negative and she picks up weight again soon.

    Thought: Could some of it be from the heat you've had recently?

    -OS

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  4. If she is real wormy, she is more than likely deficient in copper.

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  5. Sorry Kathy didn't make it down yet. I haven't heard if she made it out tonight or not. Hope so. It's a pain sitting at airport with impatient husband and whiny kid. Not that they are being that way, but it's very possible!

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