On Thursday, February 24th, Daphne’s demeanor started to concern me. At 136 days gestation (full term for a Nigerian Dwarf is 145 days), Daphne started to only pick at food. I could tell by how her ears drooped and how she sat in the corner only picking at feed, she didn’t feel good.
2/24/21 - Daphne just looks like she feels like crap
Days earlier, she was uncomfortable, but was eating nearly everything in sight. This late in gestation, not eating is a slippery slope. The kids place a large demand and if not enough energy is coming in, the goat will begin to burn fat. People intentionally put themselves into a ketogenic state, but for a goat, this is a bad deal. I tested her ketones, and sure enough, they were higher than I’d like to see.
0.8 is the typical threshold for treatment. In my experience, seeing ketones above 0.4 in a Nigerian Dwarf makes me nervous. Typically they have don’t have a problem in the ‘energy intake department’.
So the question was, WHY did Daphne back off feed? I believe the answer was acidosis. I feed in a manner to prevent acidosis during stressful times. This means trying to limit sugars / whole grains. I feed the recommended amount of a pellet for the vitamin/mineral pack. The pellet is a top dress on a bucket of alfahay (chopped fermented alfalfa hay) and dry beet pulp shreds. The goal is that they always have alfahay & beet pulp, in addition to free-choice alfalfa mix hay.
I’m sure there were many factors leading to acidosis, I’d guess the predominant one was the discomfort of pregnancy. But I believe it is very much a snowball effect. A little bit of stress leads to an disruption in gut pH. That slight change in pH alters the gut bacteria. The altered bacteria alter the gut pH, and off goes the acidosis snowball. Food isn’t metabolized as efficiently with the altered pH & gut bacteria, so the energy balance is thrown off. The goat just doesn’t feel good as a result, and a crummy feeling goat really doesn’t want to eat as much as they should… the snowball soon turns into an avalanche.
I had read a little a little write up from a fellow dairy goat breeder, Kelley Hines, after she lost a beloved doe to a perforated ulcer. She subsequently had another beloved doe come down with BAD ketosis. Taking what she learned from the first doe, Kelley and her vet treated the ketonic doe with pantoprazole to prevent an ulcer during the intensive ketosis treatment… And it worked! Kids and doe are doing well!
I called my lovely vet, texted her the write-up from Kelley, and asked if she thought it was worth a try on Daphne’s quickly decaying situation. We discussed how common stress related ulcers and/or acidosis are in basically EVERY species, people included! Goats have the added challenge of having multiple digestive organs, making delivering the antacid / PPI to the correct location a challenge. Pantoprazole IV, given IM, was off label but showing promise. What the heck, we figured! Let’s try it!
I couldn’t BELIEVE the difference! While it was not completely controlled, as I began giving 3x a day keto-plus gel for the ketosis, within 24 hours I had a different goat!
2/28/21 - look at the obvious change in demeanor! She’s back to eating everything, still very pregnant, and looks happy & bright!
Daphne’s ketone are now down to 0.2 on feed alone (small amount of pellet, alfahay, beet pulp, & alfalfa mix hay). She will continue to receive pantoprazole (and b-complex as PPIs can inhibit B vitamin production) until she kids and maybe shortly after depending on how that goes.
I think back to all I know about ulcers in horses. I think about how I FELT in late pregnancy. I’m not sure why I never considered ulcers in goats. How many could this treatment have saved? It sure had an immediate effect on Daphne’s desire to eat.
