Mystery-Virus/Rickettsial Infection/Deficiencies?

[Nanno]

Anaplasmosis is tick-borne isn't it? It couldn't spread from one goat to another could it? It would seem surprising to me if four goats got a tick disease at once, although if they were all laying in a nest I suppose it could happen. Have you seen ticks on any of them?

Take Pluto running around your yard a few times a week and even set up some obstacles and jumps. It may help him stay in shape and it will definitely engage his brain. It may also give you a nice mental break to just play around with Pluto doing fun stuff that you both enjoy.

[GoldenTreePackGoats]

Yes it is usually transmitted by ticks, there are some studies showing it being transmitted by lice and I had a huge lice issue this year. The other thing is that anaplamosis can lay dormant in a host essentially until the goat becomes stressed, or becomes immune compromised. It's a far reach but there were a few horses in my area last year who became infected with anaplamosis, no tick was ever found.

That's a good idea, I'll have to come up with something to use his brain and body.

[GoldenTreePackGoats]

The fecal results are in:

[img]IMG_20170717_154240 by Kataya Uren, on Flickr[/img]

This is the first time I've had barber pole worms in my herd. Things still don't add up, Huck being anemic with 1 epg, Yukon being on the same deworming protocol but having an epg of 2300. Regardless of the information presented, its nice to have a test come back with something other than negative. 

I've found that since Yukon passed all the goats have been much more loving towards me, and as they feel better and sort out their pecking order they are playing much more. I'm excited for the day I post pictures on here of a hike with goats.

[Nanno]

Yes it is usually transmitted by ticks, there are some studies showing it being transmitted by lice and I had a huge lice issue this year. The other thing is that anaplamosis can lay dormant in a host essentially until the goat becomes stressed, or becomes immune compromised. It's a far reach but there were a few horses in my area last year who became infected with anaplamosis, no tick was ever found.

That's interesting to know. Now it makes more sense.

[GoldenTreePackGoats]

Anaplasmosis was negative, as well as all the other tests.

I hope that no one else ever has to experience anything like this, but as painful as it has been I've learned a lot. I got really good at drawing blood and giving IV injections, and I met a lot of really nice vets (6 total) that were as helpful as they could be, just some of the good things that happened. I'm trying to look at positives. Watching the herd go through a "quiet" period to returning to their crazy flipping, running, hopping selves has helped me to move forward with them after Yukon's passing. Seeing them happy and living moment to moment brings an unconscious smile to my face, theres not much quite like it.

Somethings have become more blurry but others have become more clear. I've always pondered with breeding for milk/cheese making and planned to last year but just didn't, this year I'm searching for a registered buck so that I can try out that part of goating. After getting full, clear exams just to be sure I'll breed 2-3 of my does. One of which being Yukon's sibling, she is petite compared to everyone else but if she gave me a buckling I might keep him. Yukon, Huck, and Denali my triplets have the best of the best personalities. I've also managed to find my little 5 month old 35lb Mancha Buckling a future "retirement" home, along with anyone else who doesn't make the cut for my string. With everything that has happened I feel grateful that it wasn't worst. I could have lost all 4 or all 8 for that matter, and though Huck, and Kivu are still mending, they look and act well.

I feel like a disclaimer might be necessary. I'm following multiple vets suggestions on when goats can leave, and when new goats can come in. They described what testing I should do for Denali's potentially enlarged kidney before breeding, as well as the basic testing of the other does.

I hope there will soon be pictures of Pluto and Huck in the wilderness to share with you all. All the support I received here on PGC has made a huge impact, I thank you all greatly. Cheers to all the adventures a head!

[Nanno]

I'm sorry you didn't get the answers you were hoping for. It's not only disappointing but also disconcerting. It took me a long time to get over my paranoia after Sputnik had that bout with silent pneumonia (I'm still guessing that's what I was dealing with but never got official confirmation). Your goats' initial symptoms sound very similar to Sputnik's except that Sputnik had a quick recovery once we started treatment. We never did any blood work.

One thing is for sure: You're entitled to a long run of GOOD luck at this point. You poured so much into your little guys and I'm sure the financial cost was tremendous in addition to the emotional toll. To get no answers on top of it all is immensely frustrating to say the least. I hope you never again face such a crisis. I'm glad you've found an adoptive home for Rafiki. I hope he thrives. I can't believe he's only 35 lbs. at five months. Most of mine hit 35 lbs. at around five weeks! He's fortunate to have survived his aspiration problems, poor fellow. I hope he can leave his eating and drinking troubles behind and be a fun little pet.

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

I am so sorry I am reading this for the first time. I looked at the post when it was posted for the pictures then revisited. I read through a few of the posts but Id like to get updated symptoms again and current conditions of the goats. A few things. There are viral forms of pneumonia that can get passed around the herd. Temps that high are the result of an infection from say pneumonia, infestation from a parasite (maybe gotten from the river/creek water?). Draxxin is the newest and most power respiratory anti biotic on the market. Highly suggest having your vet use that. Its spendy cause its still within the 5 years and no generic can be made yet. Baytril is the best gut infection antibiotic. For worms I would use Cydectin oral sheep drench dosed at 1cc per 6 lbs of the animal. Nearly twice the listed sheep dose. Banamine helps to bind toxins in the blood but can only be used for pain so much. Goats are also acceptable to listeria / polio. High fever, lost of motor skills, odd head turning. Just some idea I had from reading the first couple of your posts. With an update to the current situation, might be able to help. Also, if you are not on it, there is a great goat forum (the goat spot). If you posted on there with the symptoms, you will get a lot of replies from lots of long time goat owners.

[GoldenTreePackGoats]

Update: 

I've continued to do testing on 2 of the 3 infected goats, due to over exerted resources I can't do all of them. 
Huck the most severe besides Yukon is showing normal kidney values 4 weeks after this disease process started, and his wbc are normalizing as well as an increase in total protein and rbc, liver values are also down and normalizing. He is bright, alert, interacting normally with both me and the herd.

Kivuli has also normalized in the kidney, and total protein values but her CBC's are showing an interesting trend, the cells themselves are "different/abnormal" and suggest viral, bacterial, or blood borne parasite. However she was one of the 2 we sampled for a viral panel at UC Davis which came back all negative, negative for lepto, negative for lyme (free add on test), neg anaplasmosis, nothing abnormal on nasal swab as far as bacteria. 

My understanding is that silent pneumonia can present itself without respiratory symptom and kills quickly I would think it would have shown up on the viral/bacterial panels between the 2 sick goats tested. 2 antibiotics were used (I don't know the first one, the second was nuflor), neither made a difference, a 3rd was added into the treatment plan at 19 days in for Huck and Kivu because of suspected anaplasmosis and they were declining to quickly to wait for results, oddly enough after I treated them with oxy-tet for anaplas. they started getting better, yet the test came back negative. 

In the past I've used doramectin with great success. At the end of May, 1/2 my herd tested great in their fecals, so for Yukon to have such a high epg of 2300 it has been assumed he was immune compromised for a while. I've been told to do a course of Ivermectin every 10 days for 4 doses at 1ml/40# incase there is a foreign parasite that invaded my herd, in which case they say it could be harboring itself anywhere and not show up in fecals. (remember the odd CBC pathology report suggesting blood borne parasite potentially). If it is a parasite or bacteria from the trail, it most likely came from the trail in the beginning of this thread, that would have given it enough time for to get my home dwelling does. There was tons of deer/elk tracks, feces, and fur on that trail but no known outbreaks of anything in the wild population that is known at this time.  

I was concerned that the banamine caused some of the problems until the one doe that wasn't treated with more than a single dose of banamine showed renal disease too. Idea's that were suggested about Yukon's staggering were that he had a fever  of 107 for 8 hours and than for the next 6 days after continued to spike (long nights of cold hosing goats, and sleeping in shifts), a fever too high for too long can cause brain damage, also his kidney values were elevated to 5 times higher than they should be, meaning all the toxins his body creates whether it was drugs I gave or his bodily functions wasn't being filtered and built in his system, I would stagger too. 

I will remember baytril and draxxin, after looking at the price I may not be able to convince my friend at the vet hospital to order me some but it never hurts to ask! I did post it on thegoatspot.net "hard hitting virus" if your interested in what others had to say. We treated with thiamine from the moment they became ill as a preventative for polio and appetite stimulant.

Many little things put together don't make sense, 6 yearlings living together 100% of the time, 2 didn't get ill (tested them too to make sure) one of them is a packer that has been on all the same trails, the other is direct sibling of Huck and Yukon. Then 2 bucklings 5 & 7 months housed in next door pen, no illness, even the little guy that survived aspiration pneumonia. Odd abnormalities in their blood work that doesn't fit any known diagnosis in 6 large animal vets knowledge or books on hand. One goat with high parasite load (no he didn't spit out the dewormer) but almost absent eosinophil count. 

There is a large part of me that wishes I had sent Yukon to the university for a necropsy but being my favorite I couldn't stand the thought. He was my favorite, my best friend. Of all the creatures I've lost, none have ever hurt this deeply. 

Again the order the symptoms happened: high fever (6-7 days), lethargy, violent tremors, inappetance, dehydration, renal failure, sudden drop in rbc, rapid decline in wbc. Yukon had a few unique symptoms in comparison to the other 3 sick goats: never started to get better, diarrhea, rapid weight loss, weakness, staggering, loss of balance and coordination, odd vocalization (distant minded).
And the treatment: Antibiotic A, Banamine, cold hosing, Thiamine, Nuflor, IV fluids, B12 Inj, Oxytetracycline, Ivermectin.

I can't believe it's been 27 days since this all started. We had many plans with the goats in July and August that were all increasing in length and difficulty but now that get to have a "staycation" and walk the yard with me. We hope to bring the boys out to some easier trails once we are cleared since our weekly conditioning has ceased temporarily. I hope to soon post a happy "we made it" photo for this thread. 

Any and all thoughts and idea's are welcomed. 

I got a photo of Yukon printing on metal with rounded corners for the barn, her it is, Yukon watching over his brother Huck. 

[img]IMG_20170723_181256 by Kataya Uren, on Flickr[/img]

In memory of Yukon, and on the left Yota my african fat tailed gecko she passed a week before this all started. 
[img]IMG_20170725_160859 by Kataya Uren, on Flickr[/img]

[Nanno]

I love the portrait of Yukon on the barn wall. It's very inspiring. I'm so glad your other goats responded to the Oxy-tet and are on the mend. I hope they recover and never look back. It was a scary ordeal. Frustrating to say the least because of the lack of answers, but at least you didn't lose them all to a mystery illness. My dog had something similar happen two years ago where she had unexplained lameness that kept changing from leg to leg. We did x-rays, scans, bloodwork, etc. and nothing gave us any answers. We treated her with several different antibiotics, and for a while she got so bad she could hardly walk. She would drag her hind legs pitifully behind her, or a few days later she wouldn't put weight on a front leg. It seemed like symptoms of a tick-borne disease but we never found one. We thought we would have to put her down so we got another dog, but slowly she began to recover. Now you'd never know she was sick except for a slight stiffness of gait, and she's slower than she was before the illness. It will always be puzzling, but we're very thankful she pulled through because she's a very good and loyal livestock guardian and those can be hard to find.

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

God, I am so sorry and sadly can relate though not that badly. We had a terrible time with minerals levels one year that bleed over and cause a number of major issues with that goats. Which was why it was so hard to pin point. And it hit us outta no where. Didnt change anything cept instead of getting our alfalfa from centeral Oregon, we had to start getting it locally. When we finally started to figure out the base cause, we sent off a liver sample to WSU. Even with a few months of being on a much better and easily absorb mineral mix, multimin90 shots, fruit and vegetables with certain vitamins and minerals, even over the counter human supplements, the test came back as low end of normal for selenium and low end of low for zinc, copper and magnesium. Still have no idea why this happened. We have almost no iron in our water so that couldnt of binding the minerals. The most likely culprit we could come up with was a new cheap fertilizer that the growers in this area were using that was know to bind minerals... So I complete feel your pain and drain on the wallet.

Handsome boy.

Ivermectin doses are, injectable is 1ml per 20 lbs. and pour on given orally is 1ml per 10 lbs. Normally its two treatments at 10 days apart. Some people do 3 treatments. I dont see 4 treatments being bad for a case like this. Deer do carry a parasite called something like Meningeal Worm. Though it doesnt really sound like this would be the cause. Side note, this is one of the few parasites that a very high does of safeguard works on. Good read on this parasite here http://www.tennesseemeatgoats.com/articl...lworm.html even if its not the cause.
Ya at $300 a bottle, its best if your friend will, just buy it by the syringe. But its ultra effective for respiratory infections. Not so good for uterine infections. We have always used banamine without out issue. Lately Ive heard talk about it destroying muscle tissue. I know it does in horses but seems to be ok with goats as far as we have seen.