Serious Illness In Goats: Signs

By Deb Haines

Healthy goats are usually quiet, yet energetic and playful. They do not cry a lot accept for their normal bleating for food, or the doe in heat and buck during mating times.

You will learn these to be the healthy sounds of your goats. Goats that are ill can usually be noticed easily, because they try to separate themselves from the herd and a healthy goat usually seeks his herd companions.

As an owner or caretaker, you must be able to recognize the signs of serious illness that require immediate intervention:

IMPORTANT SIGNS:

• Refusal or inability to eat or drink anything at all
• Fever over 105 degrees Fahrenheit or subnormal temperature below 99 degrees Fahrenheit
• Labored or noisy breathing, or prolonged rapid breathing
• Signs of dehydration that include tacky MM, CRT > 2 seconds, sunken eyes
• Decreased or absent gut sounds, especially if not burping or chewing cud, or with bloated abdomen
• Dramatic change in behavior or mentation
• Straining to urinate or absence of urination, or red/brown urine
• Severe watery diarrhea (looks like brown pasty water)
• Vomiting or foaming at the mouth
• Acute, non-weight bearing lameness of a limb
• Inability to walk or stand, or if circling, leaning, walking like drunk person
• Bleeding for any reason that does not stop in 5-10 minutes or bright red bleeding that pulsates
• White inner lower eyelids, especially if accompanied by signs of bottle jaw
• Shivering and moaning along with standing hunched
• Seizures or complete lack of responsiveness

THE 3 RULES

Important to remember that if you exceed these, then death can occur.

• 3 minutes without oxygen (or blood if it is an arterial bleed)
• 3 days without water
• 3 weeks without food

So intervention needs to be started well before the maximum in order to have any hope of saving the animal.

But take a look at the list again…..only one has an immediate, right now, gotta-do it before I talk to anyone, time-frame….that is the ability to breath.

Without oxygen, nothing much else matters…..(same with blood)

So if you find an animal that is truly gasping for breath and struggling to breath, you need to find a way to unobstruct the airway…..NOW!

So clear their airway of foam, or unhang them from the fence, remove the collar, etc.

Decide what is causing the inability for air to flow and do what you can to correct it.

Blood loss also needs to be addressed immediately.

Most other things you do have time to assess and then decide what to do. Maybe not hours or days, but time to think, not just react.

Keep in mind, early intervention can make all the difference at times between life and death.