1| INTRODUCTION
Alternative rearing systems are a high priority for dairy goat farmers. Suckling kid goats can be reared using milk replacers, and weaned at an early age, six weeks or less, if adequately mature. The advantages of milk replacers include reduced production costs, increased production, and breakage of disease cycles caused by small ruminant lentiviruses (Konishi et al., 2011). However, some farmers believe that kids reared with milk replacers provide tougher meat and are opposed to this practice. This belief could be explained by the fact that most of the kid meat with high pH comes from kids raised on milk replacers, which might induce tough meat (Ripoll et al., 2019). The success of rearing kids using milk replacers requires strict adherence to correct management practices, particularly in ensuring good hygiene in rearing facilities, and cleanliness of feed and feeding equipment (Mowlem, 1984).
Products and technologies including novel milk replacers, automated goat feeding systems, and the acidification of the milk, have all been introduced to assist dairy farmers who wish to feed for improving pre-weaning growth. Some of these improvements of feeding have the potential to alter abomasal emptying, which refers to the time the chymus remains in the abomasum before passing into the intestinal tract (Burgstaller et al., 2017). When the management feeding practice is not correct, it can significantly prolong abomasal emptying and increase rates of gastrointestinal diseases in young ruminants, such as abomasal bloat (DeBey et al., 1996; Songer and Miskimins, 2005; Van Kruiningen et al., 2009; Leite Filho et al., 2016). Abomasal bloat associated with Clostridium ventriculi is a rare disease occasionally reported in young ruminants (Edwards et al., 2008). This syndrome may be due to excess carbohydrate fermentation in the abomasum by gas-producing bacteria in the abomasum (such as theLactobacillus or Clostridium genus) (Panciera et al., 2007).
Clostridium ventriculi and Clostridium perfringens Type Ahave been associated with many gastric disorders, such as in cases of delayed gastric emptying and gastric outlet obstruction.Clostridium ventriculi has been observed in lambs with acute dilatation of the abomasum (Vatn et al., 2000; Edwards et al., 2008) and has been reported in association with abomasal bloat in calves and kids (DeBey et al., 1996).
These bacteria are distinguished by exhibiting cubical arrangement groups, often in tetrads, and occasionally in cubes formed by eight cells (Canale-Parola, 1970). They are ubiquitous, coccoid, Gram positive obligate anaerobes, and were first documented in the human gastrointestinal tract (Goodsir and Wilson, 1842). Several types ofC. perfringens have been categorized on the basis of toxin production. Clostridium perfringens type A, producing α toxin, is a common isolate from cases of caprine enterotoxemia (Miyashiro et al., 2007), even though its pathologic role is equivocal as it is a normal commensal of the gastrointestinal tract (Uzal et al., 2010). In this context, this study aimed to describe an outbreak of abomasal bloat in kid goats and its clinical, pathological, microbiological, molecular, and epidemiological characteristics.