Just got my 1st ever kids home and want to start them on Molly's herbal wormer program.I read on her site of her program of doing kids with formula 1 -- 3 days in a row then formula 2 once a week for 3 wks then back to formula 1,etc.Doing this till week 29 then go to the adult sched. These kids are around week 8.So I believe I will follow this sched , my main question is dosage size for nigerians and for kids.Thanks for advice.
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Patty - I think what you're saying is correct. I don't personally know anyone who had a worm problem that was solved by Molly's. Most of the people I know who've used it are new to goats and are putting the goats on clean pasture, so it is their management that is keeping their kids in good condition. When I first got goats, I didn't use a dewormer for almost two years and was completely convinced that dewormers were just plain unnecessary because I didn't have a problem. Then I had a dead goat, and a necropsy that said parasites killed him, and three months later, I had two more dead goats. Unless you have separate groups of goats on the same property that are getting different treatment, you cannot say what you are doing that is keeping your goats healthy. It could be any number of things. If you have good management -- rotating pastures, not overstocking pastures -- worms are not a problem. My sheep and cows don't need any type of dewormer. Goats are more challenging though because they have lower natural resistance because they are browsers and have not spent thousands of years eating off the ground and ingesting parasite eggs.
I have split my goats into various treatment groups, and the biggest thing I discovered is that with proper management, about the only time does will get a flare-up of worms is after kidding and kids will have problems when weaned. This is why I kid in the middle of winter here. Those does consistently do fine regardless of which treatment group they were in, which has led me to believe that it is the time period for kidding that has helped. I also mentioned this to a field researcher who studies parasites in ruminants, and he agreed. This is also why I never wean doe kids that I am keeping. If they don't have to go through that stress, they don't seem to have any trouble with parasites. Or the older they are when weaned, the less trouble they have. When people want to pick up kids at two months, I give them dewormer. Management of your goats is something that is constantly evolving though, as evidenced by this thread that started two years ago.
I've been using Molly's for a few months now, but unfortunately I don't feel it's been long enough to know if it does any good. For one thing, my little homestead is new to goats. I got my first ones in May 2011. They had fecals done in May and only one egg was found. I did fecals again shortly after beginning Molly's, and didn't find anything, but it could be only that I have been careful in other ways too. I only put them on pasture when the weather is dry and the dew is off, and use rotational grazing when they're on pasture. Their pasture has a lot of birdfoot trefoil in it, which is high in tannins too. That's supposed to help get rid of worms. I use DE on the barn floor when I clean it and also feed it to them, 1 tsp. / week with the Molly's wormer.
I haven't done fecals for two months because they're pregnant and I wouldn't treat them now unless they had real symptoms of a worm load. If I was going to have a flare up, I think it would be after they kid at end of April/beginning of May. I plan to do fecals and then use the Molly's worm wood wormer and DE as soon as the kids are born. If I see worms in the sample, I'll check it again after worming. By then maybe I'll know if it works for us or not.
Really, I feel like such a newbie. So someone correct me if I'm way off base, please! ;)
Hmmmm. I found this thread researching Molly's Herbal supplements. I had decided to use these but now, I just do not know. I rarely use chemicals anywhere on my "nano-farm". Any further experience?
I could not find any lice on my doelings last night. I don't know if they moved to a new part of the body (although I looked several places) or the DE worked or the wormer or a combination... but they seem to be gone. These are not bottle babies, they are dam raised. Different situation than my other post. I am using Formula 2 which does not have the Wormwood. That is what her schedule says to start them on at 2 weeks.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Wow! This is an old thread. I had to go back and re-read what I wrote. I started adding the dewormer at a month because kids don't eat much at all prior to that -- at least at one setting. They nibble here and there, but even at a month, some may not get that much. Now that I have another year of experience, I've completely quit using Molly's because I don't think it does anything -- so, no, I don't think it would hurt kids if you could get them to eat it at two weeks. The amount of wormwood in there isn't enough to hurt anything -- even worms.
Molly says she does her own fecals, yet she doesn't post anything about how her herbal formula reduces fecal egg counts. I was using Molly's when I had a buck die from worms. He was loaded, and the Molly's did nothing to reduce the count. But as she says on her site, if she has a goat with a heavy worm load, she uses ivermectin.
If you have two week old bottle kids with lice, you can just bathe them. I don't bathe dam raised kids because it would change their smell, and mom might reject them. I don't think Molly even claims that her product will get rid of lice.
Kare at Chaverah Farm said:
Deborah,
I'm curious as to why you started at a month. Her suggestion is to start at 2 weeks old. Do you think that is too early? Could it hurt them? Mine are two weeks old and I gave them each 1/2 teaspoon this morning. They have lice, so I was hoping this would help scare them away. They do seem to be going away.
Wow! This is an old thread. I had to go back and re-read what I wrote. I started adding the dewormer at a month because kids don't eat much at all prior to that -- at least at one setting. They nibble here and there, but even at a month, some may not get that much. Now that I have another year of experience, I've completely quit using Molly's because I don't think it does anything -- so, no, I don't think it would hurt kids if you could get them to eat it at two weeks. The amount of wormwood in there isn't enough to hurt anything -- even worms.
Molly says she does her own fecals, yet she doesn't post anything about how her herbal formula reduces fecal egg counts. I was using Molly's when I had a buck die from worms. He was loaded, and the Molly's did nothing to reduce the count. But as she says on her site, if she has a goat with a heavy worm load, she uses ivermectin.
If you have two week old bottle kids with lice, you can just bathe them. I don't bathe dam raised kids because it would change their smell, and mom might reject them. I don't think Molly even claims that her product will get rid of lice.
Kare at Chaverah Farm said:
Deborah,
I'm curious as to why you started at a month. Her suggestion is to start at 2 weeks old. Do you think that is too early? Could it hurt them? Mine are two weeks old and I gave them each 1/2 teaspoon this morning. They have lice, so I was hoping this would help scare them away. They do seem to be going away.
I'm curious as to why you started at a month. Her suggestion is to start at 2 weeks old. Do you think that is too early? Could it hurt them? Mine are two weeks old and I gave them each 1/2 teaspoon this morning. They have lice, so I was hoping this would help scare them away. They do seem to be going away.
I was able to get a complete PDF on another site but couldn't link to the PDF, so I linked to the abstract. If you google the title, you should be able to find the complete study. They used the two different formulations of Molly's exactly as she says to do it. I've been doing my own little study since kidding started here in February, and so far I've only been able to get control with most goats by using everything in the natural arsenal -- Molly's, DE, and COWP.
salviadorrii said:
oops sorry,I just went back to the link you posted and realized I was only reading the abstract.And can't get the whole article without joining.thanks for the info
oops sorry,I just went back to the link you posted and realized I was only reading the abstract.And can't get the whole article without joining.thanks for the info
I am curious how you know that Molly's formulas were used in the study?In reading through Molly's literature she comments that she did not have good results with other commercially available herbal wormers and so she formulated as she did.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Just found this study that was done by a very reputable scientist who's done a lot of good research on goats and worms: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TD7-... Her results showed no difference between the group that received Molly's and the group that did not.
Replies
Thanks, Deborah, for the great info. I love learning more about these little goats. :)
Patty - I think what you're saying is correct. I don't personally know anyone who had a worm problem that was solved by Molly's. Most of the people I know who've used it are new to goats and are putting the goats on clean pasture, so it is their management that is keeping their kids in good condition. When I first got goats, I didn't use a dewormer for almost two years and was completely convinced that dewormers were just plain unnecessary because I didn't have a problem. Then I had a dead goat, and a necropsy that said parasites killed him, and three months later, I had two more dead goats. Unless you have separate groups of goats on the same property that are getting different treatment, you cannot say what you are doing that is keeping your goats healthy. It could be any number of things. If you have good management -- rotating pastures, not overstocking pastures -- worms are not a problem. My sheep and cows don't need any type of dewormer. Goats are more challenging though because they have lower natural resistance because they are browsers and have not spent thousands of years eating off the ground and ingesting parasite eggs.
I have split my goats into various treatment groups, and the biggest thing I discovered is that with proper management, about the only time does will get a flare-up of worms is after kidding and kids will have problems when weaned. This is why I kid in the middle of winter here. Those does consistently do fine regardless of which treatment group they were in, which has led me to believe that it is the time period for kidding that has helped. I also mentioned this to a field researcher who studies parasites in ruminants, and he agreed. This is also why I never wean doe kids that I am keeping. If they don't have to go through that stress, they don't seem to have any trouble with parasites. Or the older they are when weaned, the less trouble they have. When people want to pick up kids at two months, I give them dewormer. Management of your goats is something that is constantly evolving though, as evidenced by this thread that started two years ago.
I've been using Molly's for a few months now, but unfortunately I don't feel it's been long enough to know if it does any good. For one thing, my little homestead is new to goats. I got my first ones in May 2011. They had fecals done in May and only one egg was found. I did fecals again shortly after beginning Molly's, and didn't find anything, but it could be only that I have been careful in other ways too. I only put them on pasture when the weather is dry and the dew is off, and use rotational grazing when they're on pasture. Their pasture has a lot of birdfoot trefoil in it, which is high in tannins too. That's supposed to help get rid of worms. I use DE on the barn floor when I clean it and also feed it to them, 1 tsp. / week with the Molly's wormer.
I haven't done fecals for two months because they're pregnant and I wouldn't treat them now unless they had real symptoms of a worm load. If I was going to have a flare up, I think it would be after they kid at end of April/beginning of May. I plan to do fecals and then use the Molly's worm wood wormer and DE as soon as the kids are born. If I see worms in the sample, I'll check it again after worming. By then maybe I'll know if it works for us or not.
Really, I feel like such a newbie. So someone correct me if I'm way off base, please! ;)
I could not find any lice on my doelings last night. I don't know if they moved to a new part of the body (although I looked several places) or the DE worked or the wormer or a combination... but they seem to be gone. These are not bottle babies, they are dam raised. Different situation than my other post. I am using Formula 2 which does not have the Wormwood. That is what her schedule says to start them on at 2 weeks.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Wow! This is an old thread. I had to go back and re-read what I wrote. I started adding the dewormer at a month because kids don't eat much at all prior to that -- at least at one setting. They nibble here and there, but even at a month, some may not get that much. Now that I have another year of experience, I've completely quit using Molly's because I don't think it does anything -- so, no, I don't think it would hurt kids if you could get them to eat it at two weeks. The amount of wormwood in there isn't enough to hurt anything -- even worms.
Molly says she does her own fecals, yet she doesn't post anything about how her herbal formula reduces fecal egg counts. I was using Molly's when I had a buck die from worms. He was loaded, and the Molly's did nothing to reduce the count. But as she says on her site, if she has a goat with a heavy worm load, she uses ivermectin.
If you have two week old bottle kids with lice, you can just bathe them. I don't bathe dam raised kids because it would change their smell, and mom might reject them. I don't think Molly even claims that her product will get rid of lice.
Kare at Chaverah Farm said:
Deborah,
I'm curious as to why you started at a month. Her suggestion is to start at 2 weeks old. Do you think that is too early? Could it hurt them? Mine are two weeks old and I gave them each 1/2 teaspoon this morning. They have lice, so I was hoping this would help scare them away. They do seem to be going away.
salviadorrii said:
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
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