# Wet cough - contagious!! :( ????



## NorthOf49 (Feb 8, 2011)

I'm wondering if anyone has experience with this: 

A couple months ago now I bought a 3 month old doeling and a friend of mine also bought 2 doelings and a buck from the same breeder. The doeling was in good shape when I got her; bright eyed and bushy tailed so to speak. A bit thin but she is from a known 'feminine' looking strain and an Alpine so I just thought it was dairy character. I've copper bolused her about a month ago now and it made a huge difference in the shine of her coat. 

Unfortunately we don't have the room to quarantine   A couple weeks after arrival she had a bit of a snotty nose, and the last few weeks I've noticed she's had a wet cough. I let her be to see if she just had a bit of a cold or what have you... some things do resolve on their own and she was doing pretty good otherwise. This weekend I was in the pen with the kids and noticed one of my home-grown doelings had a wet cough too and I kind of went hmmm and put it in my: must look into this list. (Please don't point out the obvious and say I should have done something sooner) 

Anyways, my friend who also got animals from the same breeder just contacted me: apparently the buckling came to her with a bit of a cough and now her whole herd has the same symptoms as mine. Which seems to mean that it's a fairly safe assumption that whatever it is is contagious.

What can it be? My first thought it pneumonia but... I didn't think that was contagious. Lungworms? Any way to look into that... I don't have a microscope yet and I thought I read somewhere that lungworms don't show up anyways. I was hoping to avoid doing antibiotics but would that be an idea? 

I'd appreciate any help you can give me: if you would suggest drugs (4cc of this, dose of that, etc) please explain the why to it, not just a list of stuff. 

So far I have to give kudos to this forum: I grew up with goats and we did the basic grass/water/salt lick management and they were some lovely healthy animals so now I'm hard-pressed to adopt the what-seems-to-me high maintenance plans for goats suggested here but I've seen personally now what a difference copper bolusing does to the animals and I've seen a herd that feeds alfalfa and I'm whole-heartedly jumping on that bandwagon! Thank you!


----------



## goatkid (Oct 26, 2007)

Take your goats' temperatures to se if they have a fever. With pneumonia, you usually see a fever. If the goats are coughing, but not feverish or acting sick, they could have a virus similar to when we get a cold that just has to run it's course. My goats have picked up stuff like that at shows and in most of them it has not turned into pneumonia. Benedryl can help and if the goats do act sick or get a fever, Nuflor gets rid of the problem.


----------



## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Call your local vet and see which lab runs tests for lungworm and simply have a test ran. That way you will know, your friend will know and you can tell the breeder, it's easily gotten rid of with Ivermectin. Lungworm is passed to other goats by coughing, coughing in the water troughs, coughing in their pen mates faces, and coughing at the feed trough...why quaranteen isn't just recommended.

Goats don't get colds, they do carry pasturella pnemonia in their nasal pasages all the time...stressed from the move, the number multiply. A good immunity and the kid quickly kicks this, not so great immunity and the kid can carry this around for a good long time, it then infects other animals she coughs on. We vaccinate for pasturella pnemonia.

Living in the frozen north, you really have no reason at all to pattern your management after mine, that is a given.

Just take temps, there is little reason to treat unless they run a temp, or breathing effects their ability to graze or they loose their appetite. You can bolster immunity with Bo-se, making sure you have taken care of any mineral defficency in your area etc... Vicki


----------

