Finales First Days Home
After being home
only 18 hours she made tremendous progress with free
standing for almost four
minutes, later that same day she stood for almost 10 minutes, with Sunday morning
the second day home taking three steps on her own.
Later in her pen, after leaning on the wall for short time she got brave
and stepped away from the wall to free stand in her pen (Picture
on the left).
She can also now squat to urinate, which she had not been able to since
she was admitted to Ohio State University Veterinary hospital.
After being home four days she got for the
first time on her own twice in one day, and it has progressed from there.
We have allowed her to have access to almost half our basement, which we
put old carpet down for her to have traction.
She will now stay up for hours at a time.
We had to go back to limiting her time in the basement to only a couple
hours at a time as she had a relapse we believe from trying to over do it.
Her walking got a little worse, and the head tremors came back. So with a
few days of forced confinement she can now get up all the time on her own and is
able if she falls to get herself up on the carpet.
She also was able to walk to the barn with
me, about the distance of a football field round
trip.
She had her hackles up of course at the gate. I took her in the pen with her herd mates and they all
treated her with respect and did not try to butt heads with her. All hackles were raised but no one challenged her.
Of course I was standing right there I think they knew better.
She is getting stronger everyday, her
coordination is getting better, but she does still walk in
circles, but mostly
when she is trying not to fall. She
has a curve to her spine now also, not sure if that will go away or not.
Only time will tell how how close to a complete recovery she will have.
I hope she will be back to normal, and can be shown
again someday. This year
is out and we have plans on putting her dry as soon
as we can, so she can just eat and
get better. As long as she can have
a good quality of life I will be happy. She
can go into retirement with Abby and Destiny and be the pen of crabby old ladies
as long as they want to be.
We also noticed on finale and a few others,
even though the skin lesions did not seem to itch as before, they appear to have hair falling out where there must of been larvae
under the 
skin at one time, as most of the does have lost hair in the exact same
places, including finale. As you can see by comparing the two pictures of
finale's right side. (the left picture was taken on December
5th, and the right on January 19) The dark hair by the lesion on the
picture on the right is part of the original lesion the other is where she lost
the hair afterwards. It is just bare skin. She
also lost most of the hair under her chin and down her neck, but now it is
slowly growing back. The doe pictured on the left is her daughter
fantasia, notice that she also has the skin lesion on her right side.
She is due to kid on February 26, 2003.
We have felt the kids move so we are hopeful that she kids normally and
the kids will be just fine, but imagine they will be small as in the beginning
she did not have the appetite she normally did, although now she has a ferocious
appetite.
We treated the herd with Ivomec, 1cc/70lb,
those showing signs got that for three days, then the whole herd got panacur at
twice the cow dose for 5 days. We gave B-Complex by mouth to those
affected, along with Banamine for the inflammation caused by the worm.
Within 24 -36 hours all the intense itching seemed to cease, with only an
occasional scratch needed.
The other does in the herd that were
affected are coming along nicely, all their hair is growing back over the raw
places, The two does that also had rear leg weakness are
getting stronger every day and it is barely noticeable that they have a problem.
They are enjoying their own private pen till the weather breaks and
starts to warm up. Then they will
have to be reintroduced back to the herd. We have also observed that the
does that were infected with the worm also appear to have some mental
problems. They at times act like we are strangers when once they were very
affectionate, they seem very nervous, almost hyper-active. If Finale has even
the least little bit of an upset, she starts to walk in circles because she looses her
balance. I am hoping that she overcomes that once she has kidded.
UPDATE:
Finale
Kidded on 2/25/03 with a buck and a doe. All are doing
really well. (doe kid on the left and buck kid on the right) In
fact all afternoon the day after she kidded she has been blubbering at me like a
buck and being very obnoxious. She has a lot pep to her movements, but is
still very uncoordinated. I am hopeful that the twice a day trek to the
barn will help to strengthen her hind quarters.
Not long after finale kidded, she started to
go down hill, no manner of treatment seemed to help her. I finally had to
make the heartbreaking call to my vet to have her euthenized. It was one
of the hardest things I had to do, but knew in my heart it was the best thing I
could do for her. She will be very missed here, as she was my best friend
and my favorite goat.
These are two of
the websites I found most informative, but to learn more all one has to do is go
to Goggle.com and type in meningeal worm, or Parelaphostrongylus
Tenuis
http://www.vet.ohio-state.edu/docs/ClinSci/camelid/mening.html
this is the article that I have in my article, but thought the web site
would be helpful to you to know there is no copyright notice on it
http://www.tennesseemeatgoats.com/articles/menworm.htm
I hope this helps others avoid the heart
break of loosing any of your goats. If anything you know what the symptoms
are and how to treat it and even if you do not get a definite diagnosis.
Meningeal Worm
Release form notes
Progress notes
week one
Progress Notes, week two
Progress Notes, week three
First
days home and her progress
More recent cases of Meningeal worm.