She's 4 months old and still nursing her mama. She weighs 45 pounds! Should I take away all grain from her? She only gets a little morning and night when the mama's are on the milk stand and the kids get a small bowl. I don't think she ever eats more than 1/2 cup if that. I won't breed her for 2 and a half more months when she'll be 7 months, but worried she'll stay fat until then. She practically has an udder but I'm sure it's just because she's fat. This is my same doeling that had a heat cycle at 5 weeks old (!). And no she can't be pregnant unless her brother who was only 5 weeks old impregnated her (highly unlikely).
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Thanks for the information. A lot of that book is over my head. I don't feel anything swollen in her neck. I measured her height and she's right at 18" and so is her brother. Is there any other way to tell if she has a problem or should I just wait it out and see if she stretches out as she gets older and loses some of her baby fat? She definitely has low energy compared to the other kids I have and have had. Sometimes she literally lays down to eat :/ But if the others run, she runs too and I try to make that happen as often as possible (lol).
As an aside: This morning we had a bear again, not 20' from their fence walking down my driveway. They get pretty freaked out but so far the bears come through and ignore the fenced-in area (electric). Plus my dog runs them off fiercely barking so they don't stick around.
Yeah, she looks overweight. I've never had that problem with a kid. Usually if they have a mama that produces a lot of milk, they just grow super fast. She is clearly growing also, but she is getting a lot more padding than she needs.
I checked the section on thyroids in Goat Medicine, and hypothyroidism is possible in goats, and it can lead to weight gain and/or rapid growth in kids. They say that Boers (also from Africa) and Angoras are especially susceptible, but no mention is made of NDs specifically. It is possible that they have just not been studied. When goats are iodine deficient, they usually have a goiter, which is enlargement of the thyroid gland. In goats, the thyroid is on both sides of the larynx, which it appears is in the upper part of the throat. They also mention swelling that is not a goiter that is found in that area with fast-growing kids, and it usually just goes away around 4 months of age. There is over four pages of material here. I was able to get most of it by searching for "goat medicine" + thyroid. Hope this link works for you:
http://books.google.com/books?id=lY-ONN2-SM8C&pg=PA73&lpg=P...
I know, right? She's in height about the same as her brother who is normal sized buckling (about 30-35 lbs) but she has a lot of padding on her bones and her breast bone is shaped like a camel toe with fat. Feeling along her spine you can hardly feel bones. Her tail is still triangular but quite fat at the base. I can't figure out why she would be so fat with so little grain. She barely nibbles at the bowl of grain I give her in the morning and never comes close to finishing it, but then she also jumps up on the stand to finish anything left behind by the does so I guess I need to cut that out. Her mama is giving about 2+ cups in the morning and I don't do a good job of milking her out because I know miss piggy will finish it for me. I hope she doesn't have some kind of thyroid issues... is that a possibility in a goat?
WOW!!! I thought I had a few chunky monkeys! :-) I get excited when a goat weighs that much by 7-8 months, which means I can breed her to kid as a yearling. If she has just grown really big, you don't have anything to worry about, but if she is the size of a typical 4-month-old and just has a lot of fat on her, then yes, you might have problems with breeding her. I would absolutely eliminate all grain. Do her bones feel like she has a lot of padding on them? Does her tail look like a kielbasa (fat from base to tip) or is it a triangle (thick at the base and pointed at the tip)?