Top causes of abortions in goats

Abortions commonly happen during the final two months of pregnancy. Goats are normally very fertile animals but may have a higher incidence of abortion, compared to other farm animals. Abortion rates of 5% are common and rates below that are considered good.

Many infectious agents, events causing stress, drugs, nutritional deficiencies and toxic plants may be the cause of an ewe aborting. Infectious causes may be the common reason for an ewe abortion and should be considered the most likely cause if a herd has an abortion outbreak. In an infectious abortion, it is most often a placental disease.

Chlamydia

Chlamydial abortion is one of the most common causes of infectious abortion in goats. Pigeons and sparrows may be the carrier of the organism that causes Chlamydia and ticks or insects may play a role in the transmission.

Non-pregnant ewes may become infected but the organism can stay dormant, creating little or no immune response. The organism may stay dormant until the ewe becomes pregnant, resulting in an abortion and the immune response.

Inflammations of the placenta, caused by the infection, prevent the normal transfer of nutrients across the placenta, resulting in fetal death and abortion. After a Doe aborts, she will normally develop a good immune response that eliminates the Chlamydia from her uterus, normally within 3 months of the abortion.

The infectious organism does not proliferate and attack the placenta until around 90 days after breeding. Chlamydia has been found in a ram’s semen 29 days after being experimentally infected; however, the primary modes of transmission are from vaginal or uterine secretions of aborting ewes and ewes shedding the organism the following year.

During future breeding seasons, the ewes normally show no signs of infertility and the natural immunity, following an abortion, lasts around 3 years. In newly infected herds, 25% to 60% of the ewes may abort. In herds that have been exposed to the infection, abortion rates drop to between 1% to 15% and the new abortions are generally in new animals to the herd.

The abortions generally occur in the last month of the pregnancy but may happen as early as day 100 of pregnancy. Ewes may show loss of appetite, run a fever and a bloody vaginal discharge 2-3 days before aborting.

Toxoplasmosis

This is one of the most common parasitic infections in goats, associated with a coccidium of cats. Cats become infected by consuming uncooked meat scraps, placentas and small rodents. Goats become infected by eating grass, hay or grain contaminated by cat faeces.

It can result in abortion, stillbirths and weak kids. However, reducing exposure to cats may help but it may lead to an increase in rats that carry other diseases. Animals remain infected for life and may abort in future pregnancies, so you may want to cull infected ewes. Feeding decoquinate or monensin throughout pregnancy may reduce the incidence of abortion. These are often used in goat-medicated feed.

Q Fever

A bacterial disease, capable of being transmitted from animals to people, caused by Coxiella burnetii, a rickettsial organism. C. burnetii may be found in sheep, cattle, goats, cats, dogs, some wild animals (including many wild rodents), birds and ticks.

Animals shed the organism in their urine, faeces, milk – and especially in their birth products. Abortion or stillbirths occur in late pregnancy but only when the placenta has been severely damaged.