Hello Everyone ! :)
I did read on Fias Co Farms's site about some side effects: "but the continuous, long term use of small doses of wormwood, (every week- exactly how other wormers and worm compounds prescribe it) can be harmful to an animal's kidneys, liver and nervous system."
This concerns me a little bit. I have one friend who swears by it and has been using it for 3 yrs. or so on her Alpines.
Any experience with herbal wormers is greatly appreciated !
Thank you,
Lisa
Replies
After looking a pics of how to check eyelids, I'm going out now to check all my goats. I tried earlier but the buckling wouldn't let me pull down his lower eyelid. I guess you have to pull away the upper and lower eyelids to see.
They say you can check the gums too ?
I'm going out to try and check them.
My new little buckling now jumps up in the "feeding chair" when I have his bottle of milk. He also tried to mate with my passive doeling when we were walking the other 2 more dominant doelings. Poor thing. She could only run and cry. The other doelings must protect her.
It may be time to move him out soon with the other buckling if he keeps bothering them.
~Lisa
If they were dewormed when you picked them up, they're probably not going to drop too many eggs on the pasture, so they should be okay until you can get more fencing up in January.
By now, you've probably found the eyelid pictures on the FAMACHA pages on wormcontrol.org. As far as worms, if you see worms in their poop, that would just be tape worms. You don't see haemonchus contortus, which is the one that's so bad in your area (and up here), with the naked eye. You have to do a fecal flotation with a microscope or have a vet do one. That's why the FAMACHA and body condition scores are helpful. Looking at the big picture is better than just doing fecals on a regular basis, which we did for a while. But it's really about the individual animals, and you can do a fecal on every animal every month. So, you feel their spine and tail and look at their eyelids, and as long as they look good and feel good, they're probably fine inside. HC kills goats by causing anemia, which is why you check the eyelids. I almost lost a dry yearling a couple months ago, because I hadn't checked her eyelid for months, because her body condition didn't look bad. One day she was just laying in the barn and wouldn't eat, and when I checked her eyelid, I nearly fainted, because it was pure white. I really didn't think she was going to make it for a couple days, but she pulled through and is in great condition now. It was a reminder that I need to check eyelids every month!
Lisa Martin said:
Thanks, I'll research the worm control site.
I have another pasture area, 30'x47' right next to the doeling's primary pasture area. We just need to cut out a fence panel between the posts and add a gate.
It's funny you mentioned that the grass is supposed to be that tall (over 6"). My husband was all concerned that the lawn guy couldn't get through such a skinny gate with his mower.
We we planning on adding more pasture areas in Jan. or Feb. (after we get some more $, yearly bonus time for him at work). Do you think they will be OK until then ? I do walk them at least 1-2 times a day to go under the oak trees to eat dead oak leaves and acorns (the buckling) and other weeds outside their pen (they love the clover shaped weeds).
I'm supposed to give my youngest (but biggest) doeling her CD/T shot this Saturday. She developed one of those "lumps" from it. They said it was because she was scratching at it with her hoof. It is right under where the collar lies. I looked at it the other day. It's healing up. I'm scared to give her another one if she reacted that way to it.
Should I not give her the CD/T shot ? The breeder sent home a syringe with the vaccination in it.
I remember we had this talk about not vaccinating, as long as they are not near any rusty stuff. The one breeder said it also prevents against overeating disease.
Right now I just give them very little feed: the buckling gets one handful in the morning (and I have small hands b/c I'm 5' and about 88 lbs.) and one in the evening. The doelings get 2 handfuls, in the morning and in the evening (the Noble medicated goat feed with 16% protein).
I'm pretty sure I'm not overfeeding, if anything, maybe underfeeding. They get hay all times of the day and pasture to graze on.
One more quick question: what are the physical signs of anemia (weak goat ?) or a worm problem ? (worms in their droppings ?)
Thanks,
Lisa
going to research that site now
Cydectin is the "big guns" of the dewormer world. You're not supposed to use it unless everything else has failed, because Cydectin is the strongest dewormer out there. If these other breeders are using it, then either they've got resistant parasites on their property, or they just don't know any better, which is possible. There are still vets out there telling people to deworm on a schedule and to rotate dewormers, which are two practices that lead to resistance. You are in the worst possible part of the country for worm problems, because you never get a hard freeze to kill parasites on the pasture, and it's wet, which is the environment in which internal parasites thrive when on pasture, waiting for a new host to eat them.
About your pasture -- from your pictures it looks like you mowed. Parasites live in the lower six inches of grass, so hopefully the grass will grow before the kids put too many eggs on the pasture. If the grass isn't at least six inches high, it's being overgrazed, and the animals should be moved to fresh pasture. If the grass is less than six inches, then they'll be ingesting parasites non-stop.
I'm glad you put the size of the pens, because the pictures looked a lot bigger, and I would have said they were fine. When we had four bucks in a 64 feet by 64 feet pen, two of them died from anemia caused by parasites two years after we started using that pen. For now, your goats are probably fine, but as they get bigger (and poop more), you'll need additional pasture space.
There is a lot to learn about parasite management, and I can't possibly get it all into one post. I highly recommend www.wormcontrol.org, especially the info on "Smart Drenching" and "FAMACHA." There are a couple dozen professional researchers, college professors, USDA and SARE people whose research is posted. Your tax dollars are paying for this, so take advantage of it! I listened to the conventional wisdom six or seven years ago and rotated dewormers, and in five years, we had a resistance problem, so I'm a big fan of Smart Drenching, which basically says that you only deworm an animal that's anemic -- and you only deworm that one, not the whole herd, because if you do the whole herd, then you've just inoculated every single parasite on your property to that dewormer, and any that survive will be resistant to that dewormer.
Dairy goats are not given dewormers unless it is absolutely necessary anyway, because you have to toss their milk for a while after medicating. Most dewormers have never been tested in goats, so you're using them off-label anyway -- and they definitely have not been tested for milk withdrawal, so your guess is as good as the next person's. Some people say a week, but I'm milking my goats so that I don't get any drugs in my milk and dairy products, so we wait a month after dosing before we'll use the milk. I met a dairy farmer online a long time ago, and she said that although the government said they could sell their milk a week after giving penicillin to a cow, her son would get a rash if he drank that milk for three weeks, because he was allergic to penicillin, so that's why we don't use the milk for a month. This year, however, I only used a chemical dewormer with two or three of my milkers, and it was in the first couple months when they were still nursing kids, so we didn't waste any milk. This is also why I'm doing my own wormwood research. I just had a milker who had such a heavy parasite load that it was affecting her supply. She almost dried up, but after five days on wormwood, she turned around.
I would suggest that you not give your kids any additional dewormers. Learn more about pasture rotation, FAMACHA and Smart Drenching. Even if these kids came from farms with resistance issues, you can avoid it, if you manage your pasture properly. I know several people who've bought kids from me and kept in touch and have never given the goats a dewormer for a couple years after taking them home, and they're in great condition.
Lisa Martin said:
Since my goats are all babies, and all dewormed just before I got them, I'm wondering if I should just stick with the cydectin that all the other FL breeders use (4-6 weeks). I'm just concerned when it comes time to get milk from them to drink. I hear you can't drink the milk if they are on Cydectin (not good for people).
I'm supposed to deworm about Nov. 11th or so.
What would you recommend ? Pasture areas are new, doubt they are overstocked (my 4 babies in a 25' x 47' area) and my one buckling in a 30'x30' area. I'm going to move the young buckling out in a month too because he'll be 8 weeks old (to prevent any pregnancies).
Why not stick with the cydectin until they are ready to breed ? Didn't research yet if pregnant does can be on it. I think so, because I remember one breeder saying the doe she milked was on cydectin.
Then I'll need to switch if I'm going to use any milk for my own human kids. I wonder how long it takes for medication like the cydectin to clear out of the goat's system ?
Thanks for your advice. Glad I didn't go ahead and order that herbal dewormer yet !
~Lisa
p.s. recommended this site to someone today...i really enjoy it on here.
There was an actual scientific study done with Fiasco's wormer, and they compared it to a control group where they did nothing, and there was no difference between the two groups. I think I posted the link on here several months ago on another thread about herbal dewormers. It was published in a scientific journal.
My theory is that the wormwood level in the dewormers it too low. I've started doing my own experiments with wormwood, and it is not nearly as toxic as they claim it is. Perhaps they stress the toxicity, because they want to make you think it works, or perhaps they're just basing it on what they read somewhere, which may or may not be credible. Basically, I'm using the FAMACHA system to assess a goat's anemia status, and when they are anemic, I'm using pure wormwood for five days. All of those herbal sites claim goats won't eat wormwood, but I've never had a problem. Perhaps it's because I'm only giving it to animals that look like they need it? Animals are good at self regulating what they need with minerals, so why not with herbs? I've used some extremely high doses on some animals, and no one has died yet. In fact, their conditions have improved.
A lot of people who are new to goats buy those dewormers and give them all the credit when they don't have a problem with parasites. However, the fact is that if you are just getting started with goats and you put them on clean pasture after deworming (which is a common practice), you won't have a problem with parasites for a couple of years, even if you do nothing, provided you're not overloading the pasture with animals. Once your stocking ratio gets too high, then the parasite problems start, and you can't get control of the situation with any of those three dewormers that I tried. There is a lot involved in parasite management other than dewormers -- pasture management, stocking ratio, dry lot vs pasture. All of those things determine whether you have a problem with parasites, regardless of what you do for a dewormer.
The website www.wormcontrol.org has a lot of good info on internal parasites.