# Two does with persistent mushy poop- I'm getting tired of cleaning it up!



## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

Okay, I haven't had this problem before, so forgive me if it is "not" a problem :lol

I have two does dam raising their kids right now. Kids are about 7 weeks. For the last month or so, both does have had "poop plops" for lack of a better description. They are looser than dog poops, not diarrhea, just a mushy clump-- and MANY of them all over... Getting tired of cleaning them up. I have given them Dimethox 5 day treatments along with the kids at 3 weeks and 6 weeks. Just gave them Equimax dose two days ago, even though no worms on fecal (thinking maybe I haven't seen tape eggs or segments and maybe it's tapes?). I do my own fecal tests and all there has ever been on fecals is just a few cocci (what I would expect on adults). Their kids have not had cocci on fecals (knock on wood). Kids are all having great little pellets. No other signs of any type of illness. None of the other herd (20 head) have any ploppy poops. These are the only does with kids and I just have one other doe in milk (she's been milking through) and she has very normal pellets.

So, is this somewhat normal for milking does? Are they just pigging out on the green grass more than the other goats since they are feeding babies? They get free choice orchard grass hay and some alfalfa hay and they are getting about 1-2 lbs of grain daily. I have had does have "dog poop" and somewhat soft poops right after kidding but this usually resolves in a couple days. Am I being silly? Another breeder told me that her milking does always have this type of poop. In the last 3 years that I have been milking goats, I have never had this happen for so long. Please help!


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Here it is too much grain. I have been adding more rice bran to up the fat in my girls diets right now to mirror the new pellet I am going to be switching to, the extra fat is causing me dog poop in the barn. They will get used to it, I simply backed down the amount of grain. It is the hard part of having does nursing kids, you don't know how much they are milking to know if they need 1 to 2 pounds of grain...I know our Mini-lamanchas could milk off air, no way did any of them need or get 2 pounds of grain!


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

I will try limiting their grain for a few days to see if that's it. The one doe is getting pretty thin, but the other one probably needs it. I was going by the rule of thumb: 1 lb of grain per kid the doe is feeding. The babies are getting bigger now so I can back off. I want to milk them when I sell the kids off soon so I didn't want their production to drop, but I'm probably over graining them. Thanks for the advice!


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## Caprine Beings (Sep 19, 2008)

We have one line that is like that, we started giving grass/alfalfa hay and it cleared up. We figured it was too much protien and not enough roughage.
Whether this is your problem of not IDK.
Tam


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

Yup, grain is the soft poo cause here too.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

Have you wormed for liver flukes? Maybe you don't have them where you are but I've had mysterious mushy poop go away after some valbazen.


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

That is a good idea about the liver flukes. We do have them here, but I usually can see the eggs on fecal because I do a fecal float and a fecal smear (I just take a bit of fecal matter on the slide with the solution and look at it while the float is setting up). The fluke eggs are bigger and don't always float, so usually I see them on the smear if they are there. I had wormed these does with Valbazen, but that was more than a month ago and I didn't do the 3 x 10 days apart regimen. I also have Ivomec Plus, so I think that I will give them a round of the Ivomec Plus as I have had better luck with that with the flukes.

Sure do have a lot of huge slugs here this year, so I'm sure there's some flukes lurking too.

Have had those does on a much smaller grain ration for about 2 days with minimal improvement on their poop consistency, but maybe it will take a while.


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

We get ploppy poops when I've upped corn in the diet....Also with new green stuff in the spring, eating extra grain, etc. It certainly is messy and yukko to step in!


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

These are the only two goats out of 20 that have the mushy poop. The only other thing in common is that they are the only ones recently kidded. So, I'm thinking maybe hormones? Or they are actually ravenously eating more green grass because they are feeding babies. Or they did get worms or flukes because they were primed for it with the pregnancy/kidding/etc. I'll see how their poops are today, and if not much better, I'll give them the fluke dose of Ivomec Plus (I give it SQ 3 times 10 days apart). I will check fecals again before that just to see if anything shows up. It very well could be that I'm giving them too much grain and they should be getting better by today, because they've been on several days now of lower grain rations.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

Julie, you want to give the Ivomec Plus ORALLY. You don't want to give wormers by injection in goats unless for minengeal worm. It doens't get a good dose of the wormer to the worm, and helps build wormer resistance.


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

Liver flukes are not in the stomach. I always give Ivomec Plus SQ as package directs. Always works. And I don't give more than the recommended 1 cc per 110 lbs. Works well for me, but I don't have problems with resistant worms here. The land has never had goats on it before ours, no other livestock. I always quarantine new goats and I check fecals. I don't really know where the recommendation to give meds in a different route came from. I do oral meds orally, SQ meds SQ, IM meds IM, pour on meds pour on and I don't have problems.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

jejarvis said:


> Liver flukes are not in the stomach. I always give Ivomec Plus SQ as package directs. Always works. And I don't give more than the recommended 1 cc per 110 lbs. Works well for me, but I don't have problems with resistant worms here. The land has never had goats on it before ours, no other livestock. I always quarantine new goats and I check fecals. I don't really know where the recommendation to give meds in a different route came from. I do oral meds orally, SQ meds SQ, IM meds IM, pour on meds pour on and I don't have problems.


Can I ask a question (only because I don't know)? How do you know, for sure, that you don't have problems? At least this time, you are having problems, albeit, you are not sure of where the problems are coming from. I believe a lot of wormers are given orally, despite what the directions say (and in different dosages) because of the goat's metabolism (differs from cows, sheep, pigs, etc) so that it works best given orally and actually does what it is supposed to do.

The example for me is Eprinex: Didn't do a damn thing. Pour-On. No significant change in fecal egg count. Supposed to help with mites. Honestly, last year I'm not sure it was mites that caused hair loss around face, but if it was, Eprinex didn't work for that, either.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

It's not that giving injectable wormers as an injection doesn't work, it's simply a fact that it can't work as well. Injection speeds the time the wormer is in the goats system, because of thier fast metabolisim and the route, orally simply leaves the wormer in the system longer so it works better. You can check any and all of my worming info on the forum, via Texas A&M which not only has paristologist working on meat goats at Edwards Plateau but a working dairy down south by me. Although most of what I write is personal observation from my herd, fecal samples from my herd, worming, refecalling 10 days later....but most of what I learned including how I fecal sample and my numbers I use when I do worm came from A&M. Also the reason we have such resistance to Ivermectin, and your goats didn't evolve at your farm, you purchased them with their worm resistance, came from the fact we injected it for so many years...I was lucky my vet was very forward thinking and on fecal we found out pretty quickly that not only did worming orally with our Ivermectin work better, as it worked with TBZ and why when injectable levamisole came out we moved to it orally, it seemed to last longer in the system....which we now know simply meant that giving it orally killed more adult sucking worms that layed eggs, than anything we chose to do injected. It's also why I will not be moving to injectable Cydectin and giving it as an injection, it's actually shocking to me the number of older breeders who use it like this, as if we didn't learn any lessons from our past fiasco with Injectable Ivermectin!

Perhaps the reason you have flukes as a problem is because of your oral routes. We have huge fluke problems here in Texas they fill the forums with deaths of boers who use Cydectin and say it doesn't work, it's because Cydectin doesn't kill flukes, not because cydectin isn't a good wormer. And I handle my fluke problems with 1 oral dose in the winter/spring depending upon when the doe herself is 100 days pregnant.

For me here the only time I use an injectable wormer is for menenigal worm, lice, mites and nosebots, and thankfully these are not common in our parasite heaven.

Nutrition management including dealing with defficency is of course the best way to deal with all of this so we don't have to worm. Vicki


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

Well, I have not seen anything except the expected few coccidia on these particular does. I did not see any fluke eggs, so I doubt they have flukes. However, I had not treated these does (or any of my herd) so far this year for flukes with Ivomec Plus. The clumpy poop is actually firming up with decreased grain and I haven't really seen any other signs of worms or coccidia in the herd. So, I probably won't treat with the Ivomec Plus if their poops continue to firm up. I always do a fecal on quite a few goats in my herd before I worm (and I don't usually worm adults unless they are symptomatic or i find lots of eggs on fecals, or famancha scores are low, but always check a fecal before so I know what I'm dealing with) The only ones I routinely worm are does right after kidding and kids at weaning, or if I check fecals sooner and there is something to kill. I do use Eprinex for lice, because it works well for my fiber goats. I also check fecals a week or two (after worming, not lice  ) after treatment to make sure they are clear.

So, as far as flukes go, I have always been able to see the eggs on fecal float or smear, and they go away after using Ivomec Plus SQ with the 3 doses about 10 days apart. The other thing that I have noticed with flukes is that the fecal pellets, instead of becoming mushy, become shriveled. So I don't really think these does with mushy poops have flukes. And its been a few years since I've seen deer on the property, so maybe our fluke problem is stopped. We did have a fair number of goats a couple years ago with flukes and they cleared with the SQ ivomec Plus. 

I do think that at my place we don't have the more serious flukes (Fasciola hepatica or Fascioloides magna). I think we have the smaller fluke: Dicrocoelium dendriticum-- there are subtle differences in the eggs and the dendriticum seems to be a milder infection. So that may be why I have good luck with the injectable. Also, since we haven't had livestock on our property before, I haven't seen any haemonchus contortus (I have seen it in other goats on friends farms in the area, but not in my herd). So I haven't had to battle that one. I can see where the oral route would get the stomach worms better, and I do use the oral meds if I have seen some stomach worms. I was just saying that the liver fluke is not in the stomach, so you are relying on the absorption into the blood stream and through the liver to kill those. I have had tapes in our herd, and I use oral Equimax paste for tapes mainly for the praziquantel. I have also seen thread worms, but these seem to be easily treated with most wormers regardless of the route. I highly recommend getting a microscope and learning to check fecals. It has saved me a lot of money in unneeded wormers in the long run and helps to know what the real problem might be.

So, hopefully the does continue to improve without any more meds. I don't want to have to waste their milk when I sell their kids off in the next week or so. Looking forward to the yummy milk!


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## Holly Govero (Mar 26, 2009)

I do remember that the vet told me sometime long time ago that liverfluke is hard to see in the fecal and sometimes it dont always show up on the fecal. I may be wrong. It been awhile. But I would not use ivomec plus as injectable or SQ if it is not about lice or mange just for worming I would use orally. 

But Good Luck.


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

If it lasts in the system longer with oral dosing, why wouldn't you use it that way for lice or mange which are harder to kill than worms? Also, the "Plus" part (clorsulon) of ivomec plus is only killing flukes. You wouldn't want to waste it on lice or mites. Use the regular ivermectin or others with out the clorsulon. I have always wondered why everyone started using the injectable wormers orally? I have also heard that it may be more dangerous to get a really fast kill on the stomach worms because if they all detach at once, the goat could have intestinal bleeding and that may be worse than a gradual worm kill. I would like to see the studies that show why using the wormers orally works better-- it certainly can be easier to administer that way, than injections. Also, everything I have read says you have to use a triple dose if you are using it orally, that gets soooo expensive! Using it injected saves me money, and so far... with my herd, it has been working. Some goats think the ivermectin or ivermectin plus stings like crazy, so that is another reason I would like some info on using them orally. Really the only one I use injected is the ivomec Plus. It is easier to use the ivermectin horse paste if I'm going to use just plain ivermectin. Does anyone have any links to scientific studies on why they use the pourons or injectables in the oral route?


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

My understanding of this issue is that when doing an injection some of the dose of active ingredient is broken down during the process of getting it from the skin or muscle to the blood stream. The body beings changing the ph of the injection immediately and so also the structure of the carrier and the anthelmentic within the injection site so it is not delivered to the blood stream in the same form as it was delivered to the skin. This is where the rapidity of goat metabolism works against the intended therapy. Since NONE of these products were designed for the biology of the goat we are using personal results over time as a way to judge efficacy. 

In delivering to the digestive system it is not that it kills parasites because it encounters them physically- 
one little dose of anthelmentic in a 60 gallon drum of churning muck isn't going to do much. It is that it is delivered to the blood stream via the lining of the gut more rapidly than via injection.

Liver fluke eggs can be very difficult to detect since the eggs are heavy and fall out of a float solution. 
They are often confused with HC even by veterinarians. There is only a slight bit of difference in the roundness or sharpness of the ends of the football shaped egg.

If you see any eggs at all you have liver damage where the adults are living and should be watching closely for secondary problems like clostridial activity in a compromised digestion. Doing a 3x10 days dosage of I-plus will eradicate but it will also stress the liver even more so nutritional support and no other stressors should be considered part of the treatment. Keeping b vitamins high is essential to good recovery. If you have diagnosed liver fluke infestation enough to see eggs passing consider using a livestock liver tonic that includes hepatoprotectives like chicory burdock ginseng orgeon grape root and gentian. Even just parsley and yellow dock which they love can be tonic. 

Lee


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

Thanks! That's good to know that those herbs are helpful. knock on wood, since we got our better perimeter fence up on our property, our dogs have kept deer from coming in as far as I have seen. Liver flukes are carried in by deer, spread around by slugs and snails and then get to the goats. I have not seen any fluke eggs for a couple years in my goats. Now, I've seen them on other friends goats who have brought me samples to test. It's a big problem in our area with such wet weather and a million slugs (Pacific Northwest). Plus not really recognized by the vets around here.

I know the difference between the HC and fluke eggs. The BIG difference is the size! They do look somewhat similar but the fluke eggs are SO MUCH BIGGER! Trouble is that you hardly ever see them on the same slide with other worm eggs to compare the size. 

Any of you doing fecals, try this next time: While you are waiting for the 10 minutes or so for the floatation solution to sit with the cover slip, just take a tiny amount of the fecal material and put in on a slide. Take a couple drops of solution and mix it up on the slide with a toothpick and look at it with a coverslip. This is consider a fecal smear. Granted, you have to look at lots of debris, but you can see heavier eggs such as flukes, and I've seen some lungworms etc. Some of the things that might not float up to the top on a float. And it's something to do while you are waiting for the floatation slides to get ready. But, then, I like looking at the slides


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I didn't learn to fecal using coverslips. After my floatation has sat, I then take an eyedropper to get material underneath the floating debrie, it goes into my chambered slide, so I can count eggs per gram. Giving me hard numbers of eggs identified on slide to know if I need to worm or not.

I think when doing fecals on ruminants we have to get all the single stomached information out of our heads especially statements like this "I have also heard that it may be more dangerous to get a really fast kill on the stomach worms because if they all detach at once, the goat could have intestinal bleeding and that may be worse than a gradual worm kill." This is decidedly large animal vet information for horses because it is what my vet used to say, and also my mother. I have fecaled with my chambered slide in the same room as the tech who first used the same exact vial for her cover slip, she was not able to give me good accurate counts telling me if I needed to worm or not and it was much harder to identify eggs because of the debrie floating with the eggs, it also did not show the numbers of HC on the slide that the way I learned got me...it was so dramatic that we called my vet in to view each slide.

Seeing some flukes or seeing some lungworms is not helping, you never would worm here and no see some...you need hard numbers, and for me flukes, I don't want to see any, you can break the lifecycle to never see them again with just prevention in the dry period, so why would you not want to use prevention? Lungworm is a pretty specific test so much so you have to call around seeing who does the test, once again since Ivermectin Plus works orally on both of the above, and it gets the 4th stage larve of HC that no other wormer gets, once again using this wormer during the dry period (for us meaning winter/spring) as prevention, we don't see a problem then.

If you are just treating lice than sure use your Ivermectin anyway you want, the lice isn't going to breed resistance to Ivermectin. You also have 20 other medications and powders to use if it doesn't work for you. But our wormers need to be treated with the respect they deserve because overuse, underuse and using the wrong drug and route for the wrong worms is at the detriment of your herd...much more so in the south.

You can google.com A&M all the info from the major teaching reserach facilites tell you that the oral use of wormers is the preferred way.

This subject for people in the south is so important that information like how you worm sends up huge red flags, there is a major Nubian breeder who I would love to have some of her stock who still worms her girls monthly, still injects, no way would I ever purchase anything but an infant from her, because I would never bring her superworms onto my place! Vicki


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

The Baermann (sp?) test for lungworm isn't that expensive. Michigan State will do it for $13.


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## dreamriver (Jun 1, 2011)

please also note that fecal test/exams are notoriously inaccurate. They will only be positive if: you have an adult population, female is laying eggs, sample tested( very small amount of 'berries' is a very small sample of the entire gi tract) must have ova/eggs in that particular specimen tested. A whole approach is described above, thriftiness of animal famancha ( internal blood loss is significant ) etc are helpful in deciding to deworm. my .02


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

It's why you want to fecal 10% of each pen. Rarely picking the herd queen, and although important to include the low men on the pecking order, it's the mid does who will teach you the most. IF you have very small groups than simply do 2. Famacha works better for meat goats where production isn't as harmed so quickly as it is in dairy goats. It's definetly a tool. Fecals are so important up north because blood sucking worms aren't going to be your problems, condition eating worms are, and since they don't suck blood, Famacha will be of no help at all.

It's so important to learn to fecal in the south, not only to tell you if you need to worm but more importantly if your wormer is working. Vicki


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Famacha was developed for 3rd world countries where they cannot afford and do not have access to expensive anthemintics and so cull their animals for parasite resistance. If particular stock is valuable and shows anemia they then opt to spend their small resources on worming this particular stock.

IMO this approach has NO value in a modern US dairy herd or small hobby herd and has been responsible for much neglect. Letting your dairy stock become anemic to the point of body tissues paling is just plain and simple abuse. The climb back to optimum health and full potential from anemia in a dairy animal is not fast and maybe never happen totally.

There are far more effective ways to manage parasites than wait for your animal to suffer so much BLOOD LOSS that their tissues are pale. Think about what pale eyelids and gums must mean about the condition of their gut lining. Think about the sheer numbers of reproductive parasites shedding into your environment.

If you wait to decide on pale tissues and do not have a management schedule for optimum resistance then you have young stock that will never grow to their potential and milk stock stressed before they even get to the serious stress of gestation and lactation.

I feel very strongly about the way this system has been represented in the US. I wrote to the people who were pushing this via seminars on large farms to object to this sense of false security this supposed 'test' gives livestock owners. If you plan to run marginal stock in marginal conditions and eek out what you can at the sale barn maybe it works but I don't think anyone caring for just a few animals within their budget should wait for a goat to be bled out with a scarred gut and compromised immune system to take action. 
:soap until next time 

Fecals are not notoriously inaccurate- the persons reading them are inexperienced in what conclusions to draw from what they are looking at. The tests themselves show you what they show you- what you decide this means is based on your level of experience and knowledge. This takes keeping the same animals on the same management on the same piece of land over time with a very full notebook including weather conditions and any changes in management. If you are changing stock and changing management frequently you will learn nothing that is applicable broadly except when it is full of eggs - treat- if not- you might still need to treat. Vets will report to you a 'clean' fecal. This is not misleading- the sample contains no eggs or few. What you decide this means is your responsibility. 
Lee


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Good post Lee, parasitologist's call it worming at salvage....the least effective way to manage your goats. Vicki


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## smithurmonds (Jan 20, 2011)

Thank you for that perspective, Lee!


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## dreamriver (Jun 1, 2011)

great post Lee.


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

We never get a dry season here in the Pacific NW! I think the only reason I don't have flukes here anymore is that we put up a better fence and my dogs keep the deer from coming on the property. We have SOOOO many slugs that if there are any deer carrying liver flukes, it is going to be in the goats. For the first few years, I was worming on a schedule, but now, with doing my fecals, I have been able to really decrease the amount of worming that is needed. I also quarantine new animals.

Back to the original question about the mushy poop-- we've got pellets again with decreasing the grain! So it was just those does being little piggies about the grain. 

Thanks everyone for their advice :biggrin


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