I have 3 or 4 kids I purchased that have the round bellies like a watermelon. Fecals are clean. I don't want them to be smaller than normal. What can I do to correct this?
The buckling is 6 months old and the doelings are 4-6 months. Im in Texas so its HOT here and afraid of giving too much grain to the buckling. Ive been feeding my mix, Alfalfa pellets, rolled oats, blackeye peas and BOSS. Ive started giving the buckling a bagged feed that contains ammonium chloride.
They have sudan hay available also.
Thanks!!
Replies
Congratulations! She looks great! What a beauty!
GINGER K BRAUN said:
Update on the doeling with the partial shave job. She's trimmed up and weighs 25# today. Thank you again.
Her name is Promise.
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You're welcome!
Yes, I have a separate pen for the doelings. I'll get their feed corrected and hopefully she will grow to her potential. Thank you for all your help and the podcast.
The black buck looks good from the side, and 31 pounds is not bad for six months.
A doe should NOT be bred until she is 40 pounds, so it is highly unlikely that your doe is going to be big enough to breed until she is 18 months old. If you breed her when she is too small, you could be looking at a c-section or a dead doe. I hope the buck is being kept separate so she doesn't get pregnant the first time she comes into heat.
I'm inclined to believe the fecals because their current body conditions look good. You can't make up for lost time if they had coccidiosis when they were smaller. The bellies are not actually that big.
The diets need more calcium and protein as mentioned earlier.
Ammonium chloride prevents the formation of stones, but also be sure that they have plenty of water all the time. If you are worried about stones, you don't have to feed grain to the buck. He doesn't really need it because he's already 30 pounds. Giving him a handful as a treat sometimes isn't a big deal.
It's been 100 outside here so will the bucklings be okay as long as they have mineral with ammonium chloride in it?
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
They both had coccidiosis when little. The black buckling is 31 lbs. now. Here is the side view.
Wow! The 4-month-old spotted kid is 18.5 pounds? That's tiny. I won't sell my kids until they're 20#, which usually happens around 8 to 10 weeks. I wish I could get my hands on them because I'm not seeing any bones sticking out. That doesn't look like hay bellies. However, I'd like to see more pictures of the one that's mostly black. The body condition on this one looks good in all the photos, but it's just not big enough for its age.
If the other kids are also such low weights, they need lots of protein and calcium. All of those added grains are not helping them. They need an excellent goat feed like Purina Goat Chow or Dumor Sweet Goat feed, both of which has around 40 ppm copper and 16% protein. Other goat feeds (including other Purina and Dumor goat feeds) have about half that much copper. Start with about 1/2 cup a day (1/4 cup morning and afternoon) and gradually increase to 1 cup a day, but only feed that much until they are about 30 pounds, then cut back to the smaller amount. And of course, cut back if anyone gets diarrhea.
For calcium, you can feed them alfalfa hay and/or alfalfa pellets. They can eat as much alfalfa as they want -- either hay or pellets, as long as they have access to some long-stem forage like pasture or browse. If they have no pasture or browse, then you will need to feed some actual alfalfa hay to keep their rumen functioning properly. Here's a podcast where I interviewed a ruminant nutritionist about forage, hay, hay pellets, etc.
https://thriftyhomesteader.com/forage-and-feeding-goats/
If any of these kids had a bad case of coccidiosis when they were younger, they could have damaged intestines, which would prevent them from ever absorbing nutrients properly. Hopefully that is not the case.
What do the others weigh?
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