My buckling looks very bony on top. He has a nice little pot belly but when I look down on him from the top his spine and hip bones seem too prominent.
The wether and doe don't look nearly so bony from the top.
Do babies look gangly and bony as they are growing or is he really underweight? His spine protrudes more than the adults for sure. He is on pasture all day with 1/4 cup of grain 2x a day and free choice hay at night in the barn.
He has just been with us here for a week, and before that was still nursing momma. So, was weaned when he came home with us. I tried bottle feeding him off my doe's milk but he didn't want any part of it. He eats solid food like a champ, so appetite is not a prob, he just didn't like the bottle for whatever reason.
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Hi Deborah,
So...am I understanding correctly that deworming would likely be effective even if they stay on their same pasture: they have about an acre for the 3 of them that has not had animals on it in years before them. It was pretty tall when they moved in a week ago and is still quite tall. Our rains are due to start any time and then the pasture will grow like crazy.
They come into two adjoining horse stalls at night and are still eating hay off the floor b/c I have not had the time to build any kind of feeder. But they are on pine shavings that I muck every other day, so, that shouldn't be a problem, right? They also have a very small dirt paddock outside their stalls with some weeds in it. But they have not hardly used it at all yet, we reserve that for use when we have to leave the farm and they may need access to shelter- if T Storms are possible and we aren't available to bring them in. Their only shelter in pasture of yet are trees, the paddock opens off their stalls so.... I have also been hesitant to leave them alone in their pasture for too long at a time the way they are pushing the fences. I keep an eye on the weak spot out the window...
When I go out later I am going to check the feed store for safeguard. I am taking the dog in to a new vet today which also does large animals. Thought I'd ask them if they would do a fecal egg count on my goats.
How long can we not drink her milk? 2 weeks?
You are correct about reinfection, and it is really a problem when the grass is grazed down to an inch or two. They say ideally the grass should be at least 5-6 inches tall. The other thing is how big the pasture is. If you only have three goats and they're on an acre or two, you don't have much to worry about, especially if the grass is on the taller side. If they're in a 60 X 60 pen with short grass, then I'd definitely worry about reinfection.
I may look like Superwoman, but my crystal ball skills have a lot to be desired. Even in my own herd with my hands on the goats, I can never be sure whether waiting is the right thing to do. I had a yearling last year that had pure white lids and was off feed, and I would have bet money that she wasn't going to make it, but she did. On the other hand, there have been goats that seemed so-so, and I decided I'd call U of I in the morning if they weren't better, and they were dead in the morning. And in the middle, I had a buck hang on for a week after he could no longer walk. Every morning I went out there thinking he would be dead. So, you just never know.
As a vet, the breeder should know if she has resistance to any dewormers, so if she said she has no resistance to any of them, I'd probably just buy a bottle of Safeguard and deworm him. It's labeled for goats and is sold in small amounts, unlike the cattle dewormers, so it won't cost you an arm and a leg. It is hard to believe that she has no resistance issues. Talking to other breeders, it sure sounds like there are issues with something or the other everywhere. If she's been following the Smart Drenching protocol since it was invented, I suppose it's possible.
Juliana Goodwin said:
Deborah,
First I have to say I don't know how in the world you do everything that you do on your farm and still make the time to give advice to people like me! You must be superwoman :) Anyway, I appreciate it.
I am emailing her to ask her when they had been wormed and with what. Though I remember her telling me her herd was not resistant to any wormers. I didn't think that was true of any herd anywhere? But she is a vet, so I would think she knows what she is talking about.
Though I also noticed that her pastures are very worn down/ heavily grazed and there was lots of poop everywhere and I thought, how could they not have worms?
It makes perfect sense to me that the stress of the move would exacerbate any condition...they were tolerating the worms but then this setback gave them the upper hand.
It may take me a couple of days to get in touch w/their breeder to ask what she did for worming, can they afford to wait? I looked at their eyelids adn they are def not in the worst category but they certainly aren't brightly pink or red either. I printed the card off the internet last night and I am going to look at them again with that in hand b/c by the time we came back up from the barn my daughter and I disagreed on what color it had been.
If I worm them but then put them back out on their same pasture, won't they just re-infest themselves? That is the only permanent pasture that I have at this time. I could cough up the money for cattle panels and start moving them around the farm...but my bank account says that would not be optimal! I wonder if they could stay on the same pasture since much of the greens out there are tall enough that they are not eating anywhere near ground level where their poop is. Thoughts? Thanks!
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
It sounds like you are feeding him enough. Weaning and moving are both stressful, and goats that appeared healthy prior to one or the other could begin to have problems with worms or coccidia or both. The pot belly and thin spine together are classic symptoms of internal parasites. You could take a stool sample to the vet.
Juliana Goodwin said:
I don't remember what she said about the wormers...I should have written it down because she was telling me so much all at once and it just went in one ear and out the other.
I will check his eyelids when I go down there tonight. Maybe I will also take some pics of him. I take it the protruding spine & hips could not be his sudden loss of mother's milk? He's a week weaned now.
Also, I don't think they particularly like the hay I got for them. They don't seem to eat much. I give them a flake at night for all 3 and although I see them eating it when I leave, it doesn't appear like they've eaten enough to bother the next morning. But I thought they are probably full of grass from being out all day. They spend maybe 12 hours a day on tall greens.
I take it from your response 1/4 cup of grain 2x a day plus hay and pasture ought to make him chubbier?
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said: