Vet on Call: Tiny blood thieves that kill your animals slowly

It is interesting how farmers live with problems whose cause is hidden in plain sight. Many a time I visit a farm and the farmer complains of loss of animals or having to call in the doctor frequently without the problem getting solved.

I always have one policy regarding frequent disease occurrence: either I am blind to environmental indicators of the disease cause or the farmer is not giving me all the information.

This is because even in the most difficult of disease situations, detailed history from the farmer and my thorough observation of the farm environment; coupled with exhaustive clinical and laboratory investigations should give an answer to the cause of the problem.

This brings me to a case I attended to in Kitengela, Kajiado County, last week. Muema called and reported his goat kids were dying without showing any signs of obvious illness.

They would just get lazy, feed half-heartedly and then die mainly at night. So far he had lost five kids and a few more were following the same trend.

“Could my kids be dying of heatstroke?” He opined that the goats may be getting too hot during the day and dying in the night due to temperature drop. Incidentally, Kitengela can be cold at night due to the wind chill factor. The strong winds at night cause the temperatures to drop.

I told Muema his guess was unlikely to be the case because that kind of weather had existed even before he started rearing goats about two years ago and he had not experienced such a case with the kids.

When I arrived on his farm, I immediately noticed that about 80 per cent of the goats had lost weight since I was there three weeks earlier.

Mutuku, the farm manager, even the adult goats were getting thinner.

The vegetation on the farm had dried but there was still plenty of dry grass.

The lactating does (mother goats) were most affected. Muema had had a good breeding season in December and January and most of the mature does had kidded; as we call delivery of kids.

Unfortunately, this was a mis-timed kidding season because the area experiences a severe dry spell between December and March.

GETTING SLUGGISH

I had mentioned to Muema in the last visit that it would have been better to have the does kidding in April and May, being the rainy season with plenty of quality feeds.

All the does and bucks (he-goats) had normal health parameters and their faeces were well-formed in the usual pellets. I concluded the goats were suffering from starvation.

You see, goats are very poor in digesting and utilising the low quality dry grass that formed the major diet on the farm.

The stomach of a goat, unlike a cow, is not able to handle the tough dry grass well. In addition, food stays in the large stomach, called the rumen, for a short time in the goat thereby denying the body sufficient time to digest the tough grass properly.

It is not by chance that goats are browsers, preferring to nibble on soft leaves and plant shoots. These are the highly nutritious and readily digestible parts of the plant.

I advised Muema to source lucerne hay and supplement with maize germ, dairy meal and mineral salts to improve their diet.

When I examined the kids, it was obvious they were somehow losing a lot of blood. No wonder they were progressively getting sluggish and finally dying.

The weakest two kids had almost totally white mucous membranes of the eyes and gums. They could barely stand.

The temperature of the two kids was on the decline at 36.8 degrees centigrade. The heart beat was loud and fast but had normal faeces.

“These kids have severe anaemia. Something is draining their blood,” I told Mutuku as I turned one of the kids on its back for me to examine the underside. “My! My!” I exclaimed as I saw hundreds of fleas scampering into the thick fur on the kid’s flanks.

“These are the tiny blood thieves that are robbing you of your kids,” I told Muema as he came over to see the reason for my concern.

NATURALLY RESISTANT

The fur on the kid’s underside was littered with many blackish specks and powder. I explained to Muema and his workers that it was flea droppings which comprised both digested and undigested dry blood.

This justified the severe anaemia I had seen. The tiny robbers were sucking the kids dry.

Mutuku said he did not understand why the fleas were not dying yet they washed all the goats once a week with an Amitraz acaricide – the chemical for killing ticks and fleas.

Muema was very annoyed because he had bought a lot of the chemical and he had been assured the goats were regularly washed.

I explained to him that Amitraz was the wrong chemical to kill fleas because they are naturally resistant to it. He noted they had been advised five weeks ago by another farmer to change from Chlorphenvinphos.

I advised Muema to revert to Chlorphenvinphos and always seek advice from a vet before using any medicine.

It is not all the information regarding the use of every product that is included on the product label. I provided the medicine and further treated the sickly kids with antibiotics, multivitamin and iron. The kids have recovered

Fleas are tiny creatures but in thousands of numbers. They can suck out all the blood from goat kids, lambs, calves, puppies and kittens. They can also cause allergic reactions on the skin and infect animals with tape worms.

The fleas found on domestic animals are mainly called the cat flea and are capable of transmitting the dreaded plague bacterium Yersinia pestis.

The cat flea has good appetite for blood from a variety of mammals including humans. It is important to effectively keep the flea under control to also safeguard humans from plague outbreaks.

There are many chemicals available for flea control but farmers should always seek advice from veterinary doctors on the suitability of chemicals and the usage procedures.

It is difficult to eradicate the fleas from your stock but weekly spraying keeps the animals free of the menace.