Persistent coughing in late summer and autumn is the usual presentation of lungworms secondary bacterial pneumonia with fever is a common sequela. Haemonchus contortus infection has emerged as a major constraint in the expanding meat goat industry in the southeastern USA. Poor growth, weight loss, diarrhea, a scruffy hair coat, signs of anemia, and intermandibular edema (bottle jaw) may be seen with GI parasitism or liver fluke disease. Although most common in yearlings during their first season on pasture, clinical parasitism may be seen in adults as well. ![]() Age-related resistance to parasitism in goats is weak relative to that in other ruminants. GI nematodiasis, liver fluke infestation, and lungworm infections all may be seen. In pastured and free-ranging goats, helminthiasis can assume great clinical significance. In Angora goats kept extensively, the problem is seen at weaning, when the kids are kept in smaller lots and fed supplement on the ground. Chronic coccidiosis is one of the main causes of poor growth in kids and is responsible for the uneconomical practice of delaying breeding for a year until the goat has reached adequate size (70 lb. Coccidiostats added to the water or feed are adjuncts to a management control program and not substitutes. Eradication is not feasible, but infection can be controlled through good management practices. To help prevent coccidiosis in artificially reared dairy goats, the kids should be put in small, age-matched groups in outside, portable pens that are moved to clean ground periodically. Rotating all the kids through one or two pens is dangerous. ![]() In peracute cases, kids may die without clinical signs. Signs include diarrhea or pasty feces, loss of condition, general frailness, and failure to grow. As infection pressure builds up in the pens, morbidity in kids born later increases. Adult goats shed coccidia in feces, contaminate the environment, and infect the newborn. Goats harbor several species of coccidia but not all exhibit clinical coccidiosis (see Coccidiosis).
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