My doe, Juniper, was bred on January 16, giving her a due date in about 5 weeks. She seemed to be changing and acting pregnant the first couple of months with changes in her behavior and food intake. However, now she doesn't seem pregnant at all. Her teats are getting larger, but there's no accompanying "pooch" to suggest she's forming an udder. She's not getting noticeably bigger in her abdominal area, it's been about the same for over a month. The only real sign that she might be pregnant is the absence of heat.
Should I still give her things like Bo-Se, COWP, and other supplements in the next few weeks, or just treat her like a dry doe? I don't want to give too much of anything that might be harmful for her. Her current food regiment is hay, browse, minerals and a bit (1/4 to 1/3 cup) of alfalfa pellets to augment the non-legume hay.
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Great idea about rain water. We have stock tanks under the downspouts on our barn. That's probably why we didn't have any trouble with copper deficiency when we first got started, but as our herd grew, we had to start using well water. The only time we have issues with debris such as leaves is in the fall. We usually keep a couple of goldfish in there to eat the algae. We've never fed them, and they live for years.
If a doe loses a pregnancy early on, she does pass it, but it's so minimal that you wouldn't notice it unless you really had perfect timing. We saw it once years ago when we had does losing pregnancies left and right due to the copper deficiency problem. It was just a little blood on the vulva, which probably got washed off the next time she peed.
Ditto on everything Rachel said. This would be true of any goat. There is not much of a difference between breeds when it comes to mineral needs. Actually our lamanchas were far less hardy than the NDs, which is one reason I no longer have them. They had a LOT more parasite problems.
You don't have to bring in special water for the goats. Just give them COWP more often. I sprinkle it on their grain on the milk stand once every 3-4 months. It takes an extra 15 seconds for each goat because they can eat it while you're milking.
And this goat is not due for 5 more weeks, so she could still get an udder. I don't start to worry until we're about 2 weeks from the due date with zero udder on first fresheners or 3-4 weeks on senior does.
I think easy is a relative term. Iron in your water would impact absorption of any breed goat. Keep in mind, that sites like this are a place for everyone to come trouble shoot, so what you see here can seem like a lot of issues. In reality, you don't usually see the easy, good stuff, because that's not what people need help with. :) It's like the news. Lots of good things happen in the world every day, but if you only look at the news, it doesn't look that way, because that's not what gets reported. Regular COWP should help keep your goat's mineral levels good.
Yes, we have well water that apparently has iron in it. I assume that deletes copper from their system.
Well shoot, I thought it was ok because they have free choice minerals, I've bolused with COWP, and she shows no signs of coat problems or fishtail. There's no missing hair from her nose or anywhere.
I'm not sure I want to go to the bother of bringing in special water just for the goats. I'm getting rather discouraged. I got Nigerians because the research I did said they were easy keepers - hardy and reproduced easily. But from what I've read here and other places, that doesn't seem to be the case these days.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Yes. Copper is really important to fertility. Do you have sulfur or iron in your water? (Sulfur makes it stink, and iron makes things turn orange like a white sink.)
Julieanne Cook said:
So would mineral deficiency also explain why she hasn't come into heat in the past 4 months?
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
If she lost her pregnancy, it could be because she's deficient in copper and/or selenium. About a month before kidding is when you should see an udder start to develop, so it could still happen.