# Giardia?



## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

Hi All,

Well, the recent vet visit had great news for my boys' fecals, but my June doeling, who has never had anything on a fecal until now has issues. I suspected that b/c her stool was getting clumpy over the weekend, now soft...

So we have cocci and are treating w/Albon. Been thru this before, no biggie. I'm not sure why after 3 months of her being here and totally clean fecals that I'm just now seeing this... Guess that's life, but if any of you have ideas in explaining it, I'd be much obliged. I thought maybe b/c immunity from dam's milk is wearing off--would that make any sense? 

The other thing the vet found, and wasn't 100% sure of, was giardia. How do I have one animal with giardia? And I have city water that's filtered. I would think that if it was the water, she wouldn't be the only one with it. She hasn't had access to a creek or pond or anything. Anyhow, vet Rxed Panacur 1cc per 10 lbs for 5 days. I'm wondering if there is anything else that might be confused w/Giardia? If so, would Panacur get that, too? Could one of my dogs brought it back from maybe the neigbors's pond and infected the water buckets? I guess I need to check them and be watching everyone else pretty closely just in case it crops up in others...?

I think that following treatment, I need to refecal, but vet would prefer to wait 2 weeks before refecaling. I'd like to know ASAP if what I'm doing is working. (I know. Get a microscope! I think my mom is borrowing one for the weekend...)

Any thoughts or advise on all this would be helpful. With treatment in hand, and having a tiny bit of experience now with treating and fecals and whatnot, I'm not terribly nervous, but really do want to understand what is going on!

Thanks! ~B


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## Guest (Nov 21, 2008)

I think that many wild animals are natural born carriers of giardia....racoons, beaver, skunks, etc. I think that even some cats have been known to be carriers without getting sick from them. It's really been a while since I messed with this topic, but I think your vet has got you on the right track to get the problem solved.

My opinion about dam raising and cocci.....I better just PM you. 

Whim


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

you have to use a cocci med every 21 days if dam raised or bottle raised there is no safeguard from dams agains cocci.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

> I'm wondering if there is anything else that might be confused w/Giardia?


Yeah, wild plum pollen...but this time of year, it's very doubtful. A vet should easily be able to determine Giardia, especially since I found out that it moves on a fecal slide. :really
Besides, the Pancur (fenbendazole-same as Safeguard) will also get rid of tapes. Can't hurt.
Sounds to me like your vet knew what to do. Do it. And remember to coccidia treat every 21 days next year.
Kaye


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

Thanks, Kaye. I read about that wild plum pollen  

Any idea how we have giardia here? How does this happen?


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/21300.htm&word=Giardia,livestock
Everything you need to know about Giardia.
Kaye


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

Thanks, Kaye. Of course, I'm so curious, it may be everything I *need* to know, but not necessarily everything I *want* to know.  Is that a new avatar for you? Very nice!


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

Okay, the HOW we got this has been bothering me, and I've been searching online and racking my brain trying to figure it out. I think I've got it! Tell me if this makes any sense...

A couple weeks ago, I went out to feed and found that a mouse had got into my grain. (YUK!) I got the mouse out, and don't know how long it had been in there... possibly as long as overnight...long enough to poop, anyway. Since then, have made some changes to prevent that from happening again.

Anyhow, with mice being mammals, can they get giardia, too? If the mouse had it and pooped in the grain, we would have an explainable contamination source. Don't know the length of time it would take for it to infect the goat, but know that 3 weeks seems to be common for other parasites (cocci, HC...) 

Sound plausable? It's the only thing I can figure out...


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## tiger408 (Aug 3, 2008)

that's a really good question... do know that rodents can pass on disease when they are present.... so very well may be where the contamination came from.... curious what others think


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## homeacremom (Nov 6, 2007)

stoneyheightsfarm said:


> The other thing the vet found, and wasn't 100% sure of, was giardia. How do I have one animal with giardia? And I have city water that's filtered. I would think that if it was the water, she wouldn't be the only one with it.


Billie, if you take into account the different immunity levels present in animals I wouldn't think it strange that only one goat has it. Especially if she started with cocci first her immune system is weakened.
I'm still not sure exactly where you are in TN, but according to a doc friend of ours giardia is quite the problem in city water systems in KY and TN right now.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

Unless your goats are different from mine...mine won't eat feed that's had mouse pee on it! Found that out the hard way...and now feed barrels have lids.

Giardia can be in any water source. They can and DO drink from mud puddles. One lazy goat that doesn't want to walk all the way to the water barrel?? she takes a sip from a puddle. Creeks, ponds, etc...why do you think we humans are warned not to drink from a water source that hasn't been treated??
Kaye


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## Jami (Oct 8, 2008)

Dogs are common carriers of giardia, I learned the hard way having a dog kennel, if you have a dog and it went to the bathroom where your goats are pastured they could have picked it up from your dogs. Most animals do carry a small amount of giardia that doesn't effect them, and sometimes just being stressed cause there immune system not to be able to keep the level down where it doesn't effect them. I had a bitch dog that was never sick but every time I bred her and she whelped her immune system could not keep up with the stress of having puppies and nursing puppies. She would get so stressed and overwhelmed she would have giardia the whole time. As soon as I weaned the pups and she dried up she was fine. She never had giardia when she didn't have pups. My vet told me that sometimes when you treat for giardia you kill the bodies natural immunity and then they are more proned to get it. He told me that unless my dog showed signs of having the giardia when she was not under the stress and as long as she showed no other symptums besides the diarrhea to not treat her, and to give her body a chance to fight it off first.


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

No creeks or ponds or puddles in the goat pen... And where I take them out to forage is rocky hillside with lots of trees as well, still no puddles or other water. This particular goat is the big grain hog and will eat when the other (older) two would rather come get lovin's from me. I'm not sure she'd turn her nose up at anything I put in the feeder! So that is still a possibility, as is the water source, since the rest of us (goats, dogs, and humans included) could have it but not show symptoms... I guess I'll quit trying to figure it out now.  

The only thing bothering me is that she still has loose stools. I asked the vet and she said that it could still take up to 2 weeks, even with meds finished, for her to flush it all out and that if she's still acting normal in every other way not to do anything and we'd re-fecal in 2 weeks. I just don't like those loose stools.


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## Guest (Nov 25, 2008)

If my memory serves me correct.....giardia is one of those bugs that chlorine has little effect on, and it is harder to filter out than many other bugs that make us sick.

I was treated for giardia myself a few years ago, when I worked at that vet office. We were treating a house cat for this problem at that time, and obviously I didn't do good enough job washing my hands after handling this animal and it's "stuff".
....so, you need to be careful with this stuff, or you will be taking Flagil 3 x's a day for 2 or 3 weeks.

If it was possible for me to be pregnant, I would avoid this situation if at all possible.......let someone else treat and deal with this problem.

WHIM


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

Thanks, Whim. I hadn't thought about that. Thankfully, I havent touched the poo except through a plastic baggie and with the bottom of my boots and wash my hands every time I come in from handling the goats. (Boy do we go through a ton of soap here now!) But that's definitely a good excuse to have DH clean out the barn when we're through with all this.


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

Huh. Funny how answers come... The man from the water company just came to the door and said he was going to have to turn off my mom's meter... They've been trying to track down a leak for a while now. 

When my oldest son was a baby, it was a leak that they were trying to get worked out had allowed contaminated water in our house that gave him diarrhea. I will never know for sure, but certainly is a possibility.


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## Haglerfarm (Aug 11, 2008)

I had giardia a couple years ago. Never was sick just showed up at my yearly exam.
Took my little meds they gave me and no more giardia.
Les


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

Thanks whim, I couldn't remember the blasted name of the drugs we had to give dogs. Flagil...duh, yep, now can remember the lable and blue bottle.
Kaye


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## Guest (Nov 25, 2008)

See .....I've been telling my wife I was more than just a pretty face. 

No, giardia is something I won't be forgetting anytime soon....that was about 18-19 years ago, and I still have toilet seat burns on my butt from it.

WHIM


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

:rofl :rofl :rofl


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## Jami (Oct 8, 2008)

you can try giving your goat probios that it what I would give my dog when she had it


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## stoneyheightsfarm (Jan 19, 2008)

That's a great idea! Thanks!


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## FRW (Sep 29, 2008)

Whim you are right about the clorox not having any effect on the giardia. It takes a 10 percent solition of Ammonia sprayed down and left for 45 minutes to and hour and then rinsed and also repreated for the entire time period that you are treated for the giardia. Giardia is a like a sister to Coccidiosis and is allot of times over looked because it take a special solution to find and detect the giardia.That is unless they have came out with something different.
You have a good vet to detect this in your goats. The test itself is not very accurate also because the giardia has to be sheading the cysts for it to show up in a fecal exam test.They do not do this very often and it just most of the time has to be luck for you to find it in a fecal. I think I have had one positve in 28 yrs for giardia. Giardia is also a protozoan and lives right allong in your drinking water supply with the coccidiosis. There are different treatments out there that we used with the dogs. We gave Valbazen 1 cc/ml per 10 lbs twice a day for 2 days and it was said that this would kill it.It being Albendazole instead of Fenbendazole it did have the properties it was said to kill it and did a good job on Cocci also. We also used this same treatment for tapeworms and repeated at 20 days and again 30 days.
I am not telling you to try this on yout goats. We used a company named Revival Animal Health and they mainly sold dog kennel supplies and had veterinarians on hand that would give you dosages and tell you how to make your own meds using there products. There are legal sales of some prescription drugs if dosed to me given to other animals like birds and fish. They may can give you a dosage at Revival to help with your goats. I would advise anyone to have a catelog from them. They sell good products. Ask about cattle vaccines they use to carry a certain amount of them, 
I hope this helped some one out.


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