goat shedding

Hey all,

I am incredibly thankful for this website/ forum since yall have nigerian dwarf goats as well. I have had my goats coming up on three years and am by no mean a professional goat person. For some reason one of them is shedding like crazy. She was extremely fluffy during the winter and living in the Midwest I am hoping she is just shedding. Anyways I give her normal feed from fleet farm that is for horses and goats so it has copper in it. I also mix in goat wormer feed, as well as they do get their wormer shots every month. 

The rough hairs are still present, it is just the really fluffy soft hairs that are falling out. Another goat is starting to shed as well, but the runt of them is not. She has always been the odd one out. 

Any help is greatly appreciated!!!

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Replies

  • I just realized I didn't explain the injectable thoroughly. It stays in their system for months at a very low level. So, it's not enough to kill worms. The worms are being exposed to a very small amount of the dewormer, which allows them to develop a resistance to it. It's like you're giving the worms a vaccine to become immune to the dewormer when you use injectable.

  • That sounds perfectly normal. In fact, if your goats was NOT losing her winter coat, that is a sign of copper deficiency. If you have not seen this in the past, perhaps your goats were a little low in copper?

    What are you mixing into their feed? What is "goat wormer feed?" Is that a coccidiostat? What does the label say? You should definitely not be doing this, whether it's a dewormer or a coccidiostat. Goats should not be given any drugs on a monthly basis. This was a common practice in the 1990s, but they discovered that it caused dewormer resistance, and if you are giving them a coccidiostat regularly, that can lead to vitamin E deficiency.

    Also, goats should not be given injectable dewormers -- ever. The most recent research shows that it leads to dewormer resistance faster because it stays in their system for months. So, hopefully these are just pets and not milk goats. If they are milk goats, you've been consuming goat dewormer in their milk -- and a lot of it, since you're giving it monthly, and it stays in their milk for four months.

    Here is a post on avoiding dewormer resistance:

    https://thriftyhomesteader.com/dewormer-resistance-in-goats/

    It also explains why you should never deworm on a schedule.

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