# doe leaking amniotic fluid.....



## peregrine (Dec 9, 2008)

Hi there-
I have 2 does. One had a late term abort about a month and a half ago (viola), she is now in milk and doing well. Her penmate is Sparrow and I guesses her due date to be mid-March--both were pen bred. I was just thinking about a week ago that it seemed Sparrow was not likely pg, because she didnt seem to be getting any wider, well, just after saying this she starts widening, and I am thinking, Ok, so maybe we will have kids....
So, point being, I am not sure exactly when she was bred, so this is iffy, and I am also concerned about an "abortion storm" since the other doe aborted. Could go either way here.

So Sparrow is leaking amniotic fluid. I noticed today at 1:30 pm when I went out to retrieve the other for milking. At the time she had a wet tail and some clearish goo string hanging from her vulva. I watched her for quite a while, at around 2:30 she climbed up with her front feet to reach the top of the hayrack, thus stretching herself out, and the repositioning caused a long stream of clear fluid to stream out, and later there was more dripping of clear fluid...i mean dripping--like a leaky faucet. UNder her tail she seems to have a small amount of cloudy pinkish tinged mucous. She seems far-off, and moves slowly, but is not pushy at all. Not at all. She just carries on like normal. Her temp is normal, she is eating, she walks about as normal, its like nothing is happening. It's been 6 hrs since I noticed the wetness/goo, this has been going on for longer though, I dont know how long, but since before 1:30 pm and after last night at 10 pm....Although I dont reckon she has been pushing at all because her vulva just looks normal, and she is behaviorally normal, no stress or exhaustion, just fine in spirits.

So, this is abnormal, correct? Or could it be within normal limits? I am not keen on "going in...." but dont want to miss a chance to clear out any problems while the cervi is open. I have never gone in before, so I want to be sure it's necessary in this case before I try. 

Thank so much for any help....
Alisa


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## peregrine (Dec 9, 2008)

I went in and checked her. I have never done this before, so all new to me. I believe the cervix was very soft and that my fingers went beyond the opening. It was just softness in there--no kid parts to feel at all. So I need to get deeper? Or let it ride til morning...? There is still just clear fluid. A small amount of clumpy brownish stuff came out on my glove, but it just looked like light colored old blood....the clear fluids smell normal....
She is laying down a lot, doesnt want to get up, and is quiet, but otherwise she is normal and eating, drinking and still trying to nurse off her mother who is penned with her.


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## Legend Hills (May 29, 2008)

I really don't know what to say but am hoping that she is doing well. I congratulate you for going in. That is always the best policy if in doubt.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I would take her to the vet and have more experienced hands go up in her, have them clean her out and do a uterine flush and give her 2cc IM of lutelyse. Leaking amniotic fluid means she is in labor (very late abortion or delivering) and the kid is malpositioned, the sack around the kid has already burst and she is no longer laboring. Either way, dead kid or she aborted she needs to clean better, if the vet feels the cervic is open enough and her uterus empty he may simply want to flush and give her 1/2 cc of oxtytocin every few hours until you feel she has cleaned well enough, perhaps 2 or 3 shots over 6 hours.

If there is any tissue at all he could send it in and some blood for an abortion panel, or you could simply put the does on tetracycline, the buck also. Any 200 mg tetracycline 3.5cc per 100 pounds subq every day for 10 days, and if you don't drink the milk you might want to put the feed through aeuromycin (tetracycline) in their feed (info on goatkeeping 101) until you breed them again...for sure do the bucks. Although they will not abort next season if this is an abortive disease going through the herd (did the same buck breed both?) but the buck can carry it to the next does he breeds, and they can give it to their herdmates and the buck breeds them and if they are carriers your next does will abort also. Nip this in the bud now. vicki


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## peregrine (Dec 9, 2008)

It was a malpositioned dead kid. We worked for a long while getting that baby out of her. She went into what seemed to be a normal active labor at around 11 PM. Bubbled membranes coming out and long strings of amber goo. At 1:00 I got my husband up and I got a dairy vet on the phone to walk me throught it. It was not pretty. The kid was about 3 weeks from term and coming out right knee/shoulder first. The head was twisted back and the left leg back. She is very swollen now. I gave her 1 ml oxytocin per dr instruction, but no placenta came forth. I managed to get some membranes pulled out of the cervical opening last night, and gave her a dilute chlorhexidine uterine flush last night as well. I used a tube, and do not know if I got to both horns. I am going to call another vet today (now) for further advice. I have her on 1.35 ml bayrtil 100 and banamine. I will get them started on tetracycline. Yes the buck bred them both. They are all (does and buck) from the same original herd in VA and the woman I got her from doesnt have any abortion problems, which makes me think it is something they picked up here? It has been a ghastly rainy year and our pasture has been flooded off and on. Its just muddy and mucky and swampy out there. I took the does out in January and have them on dry ground at the neighbors lot, all the goats are housed with chickens. I am relieved to hear you say they should not abort next year because I am feeling just drained over this. I want to give up. Because I am so far away from anything, and the placenta won't come, I just feel like it will be a pointless endeavor to send off the fetus and a tiny scrap of membranes. I am so tired, 3 human children here, a working husband, I cant just drop it all and drive 3 hrs to the lab......

I am sad...but thank you for the advice Vicki. I will follow your instructions and get them all on tetracycline. can i use biomycin? Or what should I get specifically? Thank you....

Alisa


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

Alisa, sorry for the troubles you are having with your goats. It can be very depressing some times, I really know. You can only give 100% and your family is your priority. I am trying very hard now to prioritize and take care of myself first so I can have the energy to be happy in my passion. I am not telling you anything you do not already know, just feel like talking about this, when raising livestock, there will be losses that are painful and sights that are horrendous. But we are living with nature. We are Blessed with the most amazing gifts as we live with our herds on the land.


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## Ping (Jan 21, 2010)

So sorry you are going through this, how very frustrating and discouraging :down


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## Legend Hills (May 29, 2008)

I'm so very sorry.


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## Caprine Beings (Sep 19, 2008)

Sosorry this had to happen Alisa, I agree with Diane. We truly are blessed with our creatures. They teach us so many new lessons in life. Some of the toughest lessons, yet most important, are the ones that are the hardest to deal with. You are holdin' on and being a trooper Hang in there. I am wishing you the best of luck with the recovery of your doe. Tam


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Just contine the oxytocin while the cervic is open, it's all a vet can do either, and don't use 1cc, just use 1/4cc or 1/2 cc. Give it IM every 2 hours, milk her, it will bring down the placenta. If you have already let her close down than use 2cc IM of lute it will open everything back up and empty the uterus. You might want to give her 30cc subq of warm CMPK also if you don't have good alfalfa or problems with copper or iron or the girls haven't gotten alot of sunlight (vitmain D) in late pregnancy. Yes biomycin is perfect.

Most abortive disease in goats is chlamydia or mycoplasma, both make the does abort but they then are immune to abortion from this the next season. Did you have pinkeye in these does this summer or fall? Do you have cats having kittens or young cats in the barn, in your haybarn, at your hay/feed dealers? This can also be toxoplasmosis. But most of the time the buck brings this onto your place via an infected sheath...or you have a doe who not only will test positive for this but is a carrier, although they usualy never are the ones to abort from the first two...toxo is manure borne. Play detective and maybe you can figure this out.....if you can you can also send in blood on the does and buck. Vicki


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## peregrine (Dec 9, 2008)

Thank you everyone for your replies. You are all right, it is a blessing to be here with these animals...I know that nature is cruel, it's just that I have only had these goats for a year or two, my first kidding went great with a brand new doe from the breeder (came to me pg), this breeding was to be my first 100% on site breeding/pg/kidding, and it was a disaster....it's too much for a newbie, imo....but again, nature doesn't discriminate...

ok, so I took her to a vet that dabbles in livestock today. That is he is the only vet willing to see large animals in this entire region. He was great, I could go on and on about him, and the price was right too. A real country vet. So, he said I did well so far, and that he recommends we cover all the bases with her on the antibiotic front. Before I go ahead with all this I hope to hear from yall on whether its all ok to do. He says continue with baytril for 4 more days. Also to start her on biomycin (as well as the buck), AND give her penicilin once or twice a day for 3-4 days. He said with all that she shouldn't get any sicker than she is and should come out of it after around 4 days time. 

He also gave her a shot of lute and gave me 2 more doses for the next couple days.

He took tissues from the fetus and a couple of cotelydons from a small chunk of placenta I was able to retrieve last night. He also took blood and is sending off to the lab tomorrow. Can you believe he only charged me $10 to collect the biopsy and blood and $20 for shipping to the lab? He says the lab (Rollins) will test for free or nearly free on livestock. So we are looking for causes of late-term abort, toxo, chlamydia, etc. 

I am going to treat everyone with biomycin, but I can't treat my other doe because she may be bred. Or can I? 

I don't have cats, but our neighbor does. I rarely see the cats in our area and never see poop on our pasture from cats. Our wet mucky yard has goat/chicken and horse manure in it. We do occassionally have problems with raccoons and possums. A broken septic line flooded into the goat yard a few months ago. It was truly disgusting back there after the flood from tropical-storm Ida. 

If it's toxoplasmosis, this can happen again, right? If it's myco or chlamydia, it won't, correct?

If it's mycoplasma, shouldn't I treat for that with Tylan? I won't overwhelm her too much now though and will wait for the lab results. Hopefully they find something, although the vet said it is very difficult to find diagnosis on late-aborts, they need the samples very fresh. But he said everything was in very good condition so he thought it was promising that we could find out something.

I know I asked a lot of questions, sorry about that, I really appreciate your help and support, all of you. Thank you.
Alisa


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## peregrine (Dec 9, 2008)

Forgot to mention her temp at the vets today was 105, she is not eating hay, but is interested in grain, she is chewing cud. She's traumatized and hiding in her box a lot....

If this is chlamydia, mycoplasma or toxoplasmosis, causing these abortions, is this going to be in milk? My other doe viola aborted a late term fetus (probably 6-8 weeks early) around 6 weeks ago, we got her into milk and have been enjoying a gallon a day out of her. Now I am worried....The goats have no other symptoms. No pink eye, we don't have cats, although the neighbors do but I never see them in our pasture (doesnt mean they arent there at night)....Vi's milk is great, her cmt's are always good, the keeping quality is good, she is a happy, healthy little pita lol....


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I would finish with the Baytril and then move to teracycline, do everyone, and be agressive with it, twice a day for 2 or 3 days, subq, then move to single shots once a day and finish off 10 days with it. I know he wants you to use pennicillin because you are then using gram negative and positive, but, you can't give tertracycline and pennicillin together at the same time.

I would want the Baytril to have that temp down, especially using banamine already. I have no idea why he has you given lute over the next several days with multiple shots. There are just such better drugs he could have given you like Naxcel to use that we know gets uterine infection.

Mycoplasma as pnemonia yes you can use tylan...not as an abortive agent or mastitis. Tetracycline is the best drug to use for this, but it is not for the uterine infection she obviously has.

Other than being allergic to the meds, I have no idea about milking an aborted doe due to a veneral disease, if it effects anything. You figure in dairies both cow and goat there are plenty of carrier does/cows with these. Vicki


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## peregrine (Dec 9, 2008)

Thanks Vicki so very much. I was wondering about the tetra and the pen at the same time, I have opted not to do the pen now. I am going to go ahead with the baytril and do the tetracycline on everyone but the aborted doe for now. When she's done with the baytril I will start her on it too. 

He stuck with baytril and the other meds because I had already started her on baytril without his advice, she had already had two doses. His literature told him also pen and tetra was ok, but I had feelings about it so I posted here....

I am really freaked out now about the milk. We have been drinking the milk of Viola, the doe that aborted in early January. We've been drinking her milk for 29 days now (I figured it out because I was looking into q-fever incubation period). I had her tested for 3 common milk borne pathogens last year to be safe, I did this for safety purposes feeding my family and really thought raw milk would be best for us. Now with these potentially dangerous zoonotic abortive diseases brought in by cats, birds, rodents and wildlife I wonder if I will ever feel safe. I am not all that crazy about home pasturized milk so I may not continue with this dairy endeavor (this does not make me happy but I am really normally a very cautious person). I feel now like I have been feeding my kids something akin to a potential toxin or poison for the past 29 days. You think you are doing the healthful thing and then the rug gets pulled out. One saving grace is that I have purchased a bunch of soap making supplies so much of this milk I will have to discard, at least til we know what we are dealing with, and during the antibiotic treatment period I can get my practice turning into soap....

Thanks for all the help everyone. I really appreciate it....Any further thoughts or experiences on dealing with milk on an "abortion storm" doe would be much appreciated....

Best
Alisa


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