Sorry to keep posting all the death and despair in this blog, but we’re hoping it helps others in our situation!
About two weeks ago, we both came down with bad stomach flu, and at the same time, a few doelings also started acting sick. We ran fecals, but there were zero parasites. We had our vet check the worst two kids, and she also found nada on the fecal she ran. But as always (because it’s usually the case), she suspected coccidiosis and gave them BoSe, iron, and had us start Albon.
Since both girls were refusing all food and we didn’t want a repeat of our much older buckling last year, we drove the 2.5 hours down to UW Madison to see if they might be able to tell us more. They ALSO ran fecals showing zero parasite, but also suspected coccidiosis and put both kids on Ponazuril and the worst one on a couple antibiotics. The two kids stayed at the clinic for care for about 4 days. One started perking up and acting mostly normal after they got some electrolytes into her, but the other was still lethargic. Both did eat a bit of alfalfa and grain, so the vets thought we’d be safe and had us take the kids home.
About two days after they got home, the worst doeling started going back downhill again. Yesterday, as we were helping to welcome two new doelings into the world, JKShrunkTheKids Thru the Rain (aka Pants), passed away, stretching her belly and softly crying in pain with each breath.
UW Madison offered to do a free post mortem on her, and we’re waiting for the results & praying that we can figure out what’s going on – we just feel like it can’t be coccidiosis! The buckling last year was older than the usual dangerous time, and how could multiple fecals all show nothing if the parasite loads were enough to kill these kids? Plus, we clean the pens religiously and use both herbal preventatives & Calf Pro, as well as medicated grain. Baycox and Albon both failed to cure this, too.
We’ll update once we get the necropsy results!
Another older doeling looks like she might be coming down with the same thing – we gave her Baycox first & saw no improvement, so now we’re doing Albon with also zero improvement. She has had watery scours for two weeks. This absolutely sucks.
