BLOAT?? & LUMPY JAW?? Lost a 3 week old fawn this morning! HELP!

2 of our buck fawns(over a month old) have contracted "lumpy jaw" or so we have been told. These fawns have been treated with Penicillin in the mouth, on site, between shoulders & in muscle. Not a noticable difference in thier appearance yet, as its not even been a week since we treated those 2 buck fawns initially.



The fawn that passed away(3 weeks old) was the only doe fawn we didnt pull to bottle feed thus for she was left in the same pen with the other buck fawns & does. Possibly exposing her to the same "illness" or "viral" issue as the buck fawns?



The fawn we lost last night was born with a twin sister that died from unknown causes @ 3 days old (no bloating, no signs at all). This fawn

has been active daily since birth. Extremely healthy from what we could tell.

Since the buck fawns were our first warning sign of something going wrong, we have paid alot more attention than we already thought we were by walking the pens out more a day, walking up to each fawn as close as permitted to evaluate by sight or binoculars and then counting down to check numbers. This fawn was NOT at all showing any signs of distress in any form or fashion. She was alert and eating. NO SIGNS of knots on her face or Jaw. Yesterday morning David walked the pen with no problems, later that afternoon we went out together, again NO problems...



Around 7 pm our neighors children called wanting to see the deer. I offered to walk them through the pens. I immediately noticed a fawn laying in an odd position so I walked up to find She had 2 lumps on each side of her face(not under her chin) that almost made her look alien like as she looked at me head on. Her eyes, to me, looked protruded slightly. I did not notice at the time if she was bloated but I did notice she was slow to her feet as I was almost within grabbing distance before she got up. Immediately, I contacted David and he was home within 20 mins. we walked the pen but were not able to locate her due to low light so we decided to come back at dark and find her.



She put forth no fight when catching her.

*Noticed SEVERE BLOAT which I assumed was full from eating.

*Laying flat on her side but never getting up on her feet.

*Tried stimulation with no success at all!

*2 lumps on each side of her jaw associated with a stench upon opening her mouth to evaluate.

I noticed she was shaking on and off, eyes dry and sunk in & Dehydrated severly.



We administered infant gas drops, pedialyte for electrolytes, treated her with 2 cc Penicillin in each knot, 2 cc in muscle, 2 cc between & 1 cc in mouth & gave her probiotic paste. She fought hard to stay alive but unfortunately passed away 2 hours later.



I hope I have covered the basics so that someone with experience can at least give us some insight to the problem here!



Thank you for listening!

Shanna W.

That makes sense on the lumpy jaw but how do you KNOW for sure its the real Lumpy Jaw and not something else resembling the disease.?



Then, how do we explain the "Bloat" I mean she literally developed both of these issues in a matter of hours and was dead by morning!

The other 2 fawns we treated for lumpy jaw seem to be improving (knock on wood) and no other issues thus far with any of our other fawns but watching them like a hawk!

Like I said in the original post. The fawn we lost this morning was a twin. Her twin died @ around 72 hours after birth(5/30/11) with no visibal signs of trama,no bite marks, no cuts, no abscess or visibal infection,no open wounds,no fever,no bloat, no swollen lymph nodes, was eating throughout the day on mother, was not constipated to the naked eye, etc..

We administered probiotic fawn paste at 24 hours, weighed her (8.9 lbs) alert, best looking set of doe fawns on the farm in my opinion. We checked the fawns at 2:30 that day, left for about an hour & returned home to hear her "crying" from the pen. She was way past saving & died about 10 minutes after finding her. We heard it could have been a possible tear in the fawns intestinal tract when coming through the birth canal so it was probably not going to make it no matter what we would have done.



With that said; and now that is other womb doe fawn has expired , my concerns branch out. Could this possibly be something Genetic? Something within the womb that was contracted through vegetation thus causing intestinal problems? Or just unlucky set of doe fawns that were just "born looking for a place to die"?