Written by Administrator-GL
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Monday, 30 March 2009 |
Title: Scours- Milk Scours
Sometimes a newborn goat kid will scour from too much milk or from milk replacer(which is the foremost cause of feed scours in neonates- Please do NOT use Replacers for your kids!).. Depending
on what the baby is eating is how I personally would look at this. If
the baby is nursing from mama, I would watch the baby for a few hours
to see if the scouring subsides. I would note to see if the sibling (if
the baby has one) is also affected. It could just mean that one baby is
a bogart for the food. Watch them nurse a few times. See if both babies
are eating the same times and same amounts. Check mama for possible
mastitis. Simple milk scours will go away within a day. If
the baby is on replacer.. Please take the baby off completely.. I am
not a big fan of kid replacers.. none of them. I feel strongly that
they cause more problems than not. (Read my Feeding Bottle Baby Goats Article) In either case you need
to take the baby off milk for at least 12 hours and give it water with
nutri-drench or electrolytes (Pediolyte in an emergency will
work) in it for vitamins and energy. The baby should adjust
itself by this amount of time.. if not wait another 12 hours before
giving it milk. (You will need to milk mama out during this time to
keep her udder from becoming mastitic. Unless there is a sibling, in
this case put the sibling on each teat for feedings to help mama keep
her udder even and prevent any problems.) Babies can and will
grow well on whole milk if you cannot get goats milk, as long as for
the first 24 hours they have received colostrum from their mom.
If you like, you can add cream to the milk for extra butterfat. (please
be careful how much you add..1 TBSP per 8 oz milk is plenty for a
dairy/pygmy kid. I would be very careful trying to add cream to an
angora baby bottle. I would also add 2 tsps of Nutri-drench to each
bottle. A baby digests as a monogastric animal.. working on a single
stomach, (Read how a Baby Goat Digests food) so there is no use or need to try to add bacteria for the
rumen by adding buttermilk. ©2006 goatlady All Rights Reserved
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Last Updated ( Monday, 30 March 2009 )
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