Health management - for your goat kids

Enterotoxemia is caused by the organism Clostridium Welchii and/or occasionally Clostridium Perfringens D and is characterized by a goat that is in misery and has diarrhea. As the disease progresses, the goat most often loses the use of its back legs. Enterotoxemia is often misdiagnosed because there is a common belief that giving a CD/T shot will prevent this condition from being probable. Both organisms that cause this condition are present in the rumen - especially when the goat is under nutritional stress from factors such as worms, transit, change in feed, etc. Younger goats are more likely to have enterotoxemia than older goats since older goats can develop a natural immunity. However, if conditions are favorable for the organism to thrive, nearly any goat regardless of age can contract enterotoxemia. Treatment for this condition must be immediate and will require supportive care. There is also a vaccination available for enterotoxemia. It generally occurs with overfeeding and indigestion which leads to "gut stasis", an important reason in the pathogenesis of this disease. It arises in kids while they consume grain though they get abundance of milk.

Disbudding (dehorning at an early age when the horns are basically horn buds). The most common and recommended method of disbudding is with an electric disbudding iron. This is a circular hot iron that is plugged into a wall socket. The circular tip of the iron should be about ¾ of an inch to one inch in diameter. After plugging in the iron, heat the rod until it is a cherry red color and easily burns a piece of wood. If you trim the hair over the horn buds, disbudding will go faster and cause less smoke. Restrain the kid in a disbudding crate or towel held by a friend. Place the circular end of the iron over the horn buds for 10-20 seconds until you see a “copper ring”. This will destroy the horn cells and prevent the horn from growing.

White muscle disease (WMD) is a degenerative muscle disease found in all large animals. It is caused by a deficiency of selenium and/or vitamin E. Generally, it is not known which. Selenium (Se) deficiency is associated with selenium deficient soils and the inadequate uptake of selenium by forages grown on these soils. Certain areas of the U.S., including the Northeast, are considered low in selenium levels. Selenium deficiency occurs when the soil contains less than 0.5 mg Se/kg of soil and locally harvested feeds contain less than 0.1 mg Se/kg of feed. WMD can be prevented by supplementing the diet of susceptible animals with selenium and vitamin E. Since it occurs mostly in lambs and kids whose mothers were fed a selenium-deficient diet, supplementation of pregnant animals helps reduce disease in newborns. This is because selenium is transferred from dam to fetus across the placenta and also is present in the colostrum. While not much Vitamin E is transmitted across the placenta, colostral levels of Vitamin E increase with ewe/doe supplementation.