Lessons in Coccidiosis

My sick doe has recovered and been sick again.  We have decided that she has had two bouts with Coccidia.  Coccidia are a protozoa that can live in the soil and inside your goat's digestive tract.  They are most commonly a problem in baby goats but my farm had no coccidia on it, so my adult goats had never been exposed -- kind of like an adult who gets chicken pox because they never had it as a kid.  The stress of kidding and the increase in feed brought on the first episode and when I moved her to her summer quarters it brought on her second episode.

How did we get it into our herd?  I sent a doe off to be bred and she came back with it.  How do I know this?  Because my doe kidded on the day the bred doe came home and it takes about ten days for the disease to develop.  The bad news is that, now that we have coccidia on our property it will always be here.  The good news is that my doe has made a complete recovery.  Sometimes they don't and can never put on weight or produce well.  She is currently increasing in production and putting on weight!

The treatment I used: sulmet, two tsp in water as a drench for each goat with signs of scours.  Then I used 5 tablespoons to 10 gallons of Sulmet in their drinking water for five days.  My vet says it's important to do the drench right off in case they are so sick that they don't drink the water and to do the five days to catch the protazoa in it's active state...in it's cyst state it is impervious to treatment. Sulmet is very inexpensive and works wonders so I'm keeping it on hand from now on.

Given the prevalence of coccidia...it is everywhere...I am probably lucky to have it on my property because my babies will be exposed to it and won't get sick when they go to their new home...which is likely to have coccidia in the soil.  Who carries the organism?  Dogs, cats, chicken, sheep and even people.  Luckily it only makes animals sick when they are stressed so you know when to look for it.  And have no fear, you can't catch it from your goat because it is species specific which means the kind of coccidia you can get will only be carried by other people.