The blog has been a little slow lately because… I’m still in Texas! I have been waiting to hear back about a remote job (final rounds this week!) that I can do from back home in Alaska. Kyle is holding down the fort at home, our daughter is having tons of fun playing with her cousin, and we’re both enjoying our extended vacation in Texas’s 80 degree winter days! Which brings me to this post, because I’ve learned quite a lot about bottle baby goats in the last few days, and that’s something that translates no matter where I’m at!

On to the story:

My mom has been planning to have goats since she purchased this little homestead. She’s seen them at flea markets and rummage sales, but it was never the right timing. Recently my dad was talking about goats with his coworker and mentioned my mom was looking for some. Later that night, she called and asked if my mom wanted free goats from her neighbor. You can bet she said yes!

Not that she specifically wanted Boers, or males, but my mom is a sucker for a baby in distress (Hi mom!), and these little guys had been rejected by their dam.

At two days old, they hadn’t nursed, and only one had taken the bottle. We came home with some colostrum and two baby goats that had about a 50/50 chance of making it through the night. The person who gave them to us didn’t have the time to try to get them to eat and warned us he thought both would die. Both had fleas (it is Texas after all), were anemic, and starving. One was about half the size of the other and was just shaking. The other was blind in one eye and limping.

All in all, not a very good start to life for either of them. The first thing we did on getting them home was get some colostrum in both of them. Then they got a few baths. One with flea shampoo, one with apple cider vinegar, and one with Dawn. Let me tell you, Dawn dish soap practically killed the fleas on contact! There has been an ongoing battle with fleas here on the dogs and cats. Now we have a secret weapon!

The next morning, mom went to the feed store and grabbed a whole mess of goat things.

The bigger goat was still having trouble standing and walking, as well as breathing oddly. Our first thought was pneumonia, so he got antibiotics for that. Then they also got iron supplements and Nutri-Drench (Amazon). The smaller kid was taking the bottle well, and seemed to be fine. The larger still had problems standing the next day so we started doing research.

The first thing we ran across was White Muscle Disease, or selenium deficiency.

After checking this map, we found this county is selenium deficient. This means goats will not get enough selenium naturally through their diets, and would need to be supplemented. We thought it was likely because the kid was not able to stand, latch to suckle, and also had a weak immune system. Kids with white muscle disease often have pneumonia from aspirating milk. The treatment for this disease is selenium and Vitamin E, which he was already getting in the Nutri-Drench. We decided to wait a day and see if he seemed any better.

The next day he was able to latch on the bottle, but he suddenly started going downhill fast. He stopped even trying to avoid laying in his own pee. The poor little guy was obviously not feeling well, but was eating as much as we would give him. So we went back to the drawing board to research, and that’s when we found Floppy Kid Syndrome.

Floppy Kid Syndrome – the bottle baby disease

While no one is exactly sure what causes FKS, it happens most often in bottle babies. It seems to be tied somewhat to white muscle disease, infections, and access to too much milk. Symptoms include depression, inability to suckle, stand, or walk. Because he was getting worse, we decided to treat for Floppy Kid Syndrome as well as white muscle disease, anemia and pneumonia. Like I said, these guys had a rough start!

Treating Floppy Kid Syndrome was hard in the sense that it seems very counter-intuitive.

The treatment includes taking milk away from the baby, and that was hard with how weak he was. Floppy Kid Syndrome causes a toxicity in the stomach of the kid because they are not properly digesting milk. That’s right, in trying to get this baby up and moving, we caused him to be even sicker! In order to help flush his system and neutralize the toxins, we fed him a mixture of 2 teaspoons of baking soda in a quart of Pedialyte (Amazon). We also limited both kids to 4 oz per feeding for two days, and only let them eat 4 or 5 times a day instead of every few hours. Yeah, we were really over feeding them. Goat kids are not at all like bottle baby puppies or kittens! Those 4 part stomachs need time to actually move the food along before the next time they eat.

After a few feedings of the Pedialyte mixture, the kid started having terrible diarrhea. While worrisome at first, this is actually a good thing! It means that things are moving along in the digestive system and the body is flushing all those toxins. Once his poop seemed more solid, we switched him back to milk, still limiting the amount of milk and feedings. I’m happy to say that he is up and running today! He still has a bit of trouble with stumbling, but is making huge strides.

 

Now that we know they’ll make it, the little guys have names. Meet Bo and Jangles, the latest addition to my mom’s Texas homestead.

Disclaimer: I am not a veterinarian. This information is an amalgamation of personal experience and research. I am not an expert in floppy kid syndrome or any other goat illness. If you have any concerns about the behavior of your animals, please seek professional care for them!