# sick kid, enlarged gall bladder



## villager (Sep 8, 2010)

Can anyone give me an idea of why my goat kid was sick. The kid has now been slaughtered, and perhaps the main clues are that the gall bladder was much bigger than normal, and its daytime temperature was low.

The kid was female, 12 weeks old, Boer x local, and unweaned. Over the last week she had had diarrhoea, and was not as chirpy as her sister. 

Here is some history:

06-Apr, given ivermectin, s/c, along with the rest of the herd (done routinely, every 3 months)

~24-Apr, faeces starting to "clump", changing to diarrhoea, dark green in colour

01-May, given albendazole orally, wondering if the problem was tape worms (which ivermectin does not kill).

02-May, no tape worms seen, so in desperation started daily coccidiosis treatment. Oddly enough, diarrhoea stops.

02-May to 05-May, given a heat lamp, but deteriorating daily; rectal temperatures low during the day (38.0 C/ 100.4 ºF), but normal at midnight (39.2 C/102.6 ºF); eating little, and stopped taking milk from its mother; given water from a syringe, and seen to be urinating. Never seen to defecate, but it was outside with others during the day.

05-May, still walking about, but often standing hunched and shivering. Decided to slaughter.

At no time were we able to consult a vet.The kid was slaughtered and butchered by some other villagers. We found:

- the gall bladder was enlarged, lets say 1½ times longer than normal, and diameter 3 to 4 times normal. (Hopefully a picture appears with this post.)
- the liver, kidneys, heart, lungs all appeared normal,
- the rumen contained very little, not surprising since it was hardly eating,
- there was faeces was in pellet-form towards the output end of its plumbing.

I realise that it is impossible to give a definitive diagnosis based on the information which I am supplying. However, it would be useful to hear from others not only what the illness might be, but also what it was definitely not. For example, I suspect that the illness was NOT coccidiosis.

Ta


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## KW Farms (Jun 21, 2008)

I have no idea what caused it. Wish I could help.


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## freedomstarfarm (Mar 25, 2011)

I don't know. Wish I did. I just lost a 10wk kid with the same lack of symptoms. 
One possibility for the gallbladder is that the goat was constipated. That is most likely not the cause of death since the whole process was long and a goat that can't poop would last long; but it could be a reason for the large gall.
Is there a chance the goat was eating plants that were toxic? Sometimes low temp can be something toxic. 
Low temp can also be the system shutting down but if temp was normal at night maybe?


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## citylights (Jul 3, 2009)

There are a couple of things according to my goat medecine book -- the most common is anaplasmosis which is carried by ticks. In the US, this is most commonly found in the south and west where it's hot. I sold some goats and the buyer wanted me to test for this. It is treatable with an oxytetracycline drug. There are a couple of others - most of them in Africa and also carried by ticks and treatable by oxytet -- hope that helps.


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## freedomstarfarm (Mar 25, 2011)

Hey Denise, what goat medicine book do you have??


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

Wow...that is bizarre....for a kid...wish I knew ..but I don't either..I am sorry  :hug:


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## villager (Sep 8, 2010)

Thanks for those replies.

*freedomstarfarm*: That was interesting about constipation leading to the enlargement of the gall bladder. I will try to look into that further. It is indeed possible that the kid ate something toxic, because the herd wanders about outside for 4 hours each day. Some of her friends have the same clumped faeces which she had, but I am not worried about them because they seem OK otherwise.

*citylights*: We do have ticks here, so I will run the anaplasmosis thing past some vet types when I am next in Town.


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