Hello everyone. I'm new to goats, and I have three Nigerians two does and one wether all 10 months old. My wethers coat is getting rough and losing its color, he was dark brown when we got him in February, and now he has a lot of white on his hind legs and it is spreading throughout the rest of his coat. His tail also looks pretty thin too I think I feed them free choice loose mana pro minerals, and free choice Timothy/Alfalfa mix hay, and also Timothy pellets occasionally. I gave them all a copper bolus two months ago, and they were wormed around the same time. I'm not sure if this is normal, or what is going on. Could he really be copper deficient two months after a bolus (at the time he weighed 20 pounds and I gave him 1g and he now weighs 32 ponds) or is it something else? We do have well water but we have a softener and I fill their water bucket from inside. The first of the attached pictures was taken the day we got them, the wether is the dark brown one in the middle. The other was taken yesterday.
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Giving another dose of copper after only two months this time might be okay since it was their first dose, but I wouldn't make it a routine.
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Yes those are recent pictures of the tails. For some reason my better pictures keep coming up undefined. That was my first dose of copper shortly after we got them (we got them early in February). They were losing weight, and I thought their eye membranes looked too light, though I might have not done the famacha technique right. After that I took the famacha class and am working on getting my card. I'll be sure to use chemical dewormer as a last resort and dose only the goat in need now.
Is that a recent picture for both? The tails do look a little thin, but the brown one really blends in with the log behind it, so it's challenging to get a good idea of how thin it is (or is not). Had you ever given them copper prior to the dose two months ago? If they were quite low, it might take a second dose to get them up to where they need to be.
I just re-read your original post and realized you gave everyone a dewormer a couple of months ago, which is really not a good idea. Here is more info on that: https://thriftyhomesteader.com/dewormer-resistance-in-goats/
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The difference in Pegasus' coat is anazing! I see that he has a beautiful full tail in the first picture. Are the tails of my wether (first picture) and doe (second picture) healthy? They seem a little sparse, but I have no past experience to compare them to. Just a newbie hoping to do the best I can for my animals. Also I have to mention that I love your blog and your books! Thank you so much for all your hard work to help out people like me!
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
That's not copper deficiency. It looks like he just turned chocolate. You can see in the first picture, he is already starting to turn. He is not as black as the other two. Some goats are born black and turn chocolate over the course of a few months. Even weirder is that a very small number of them will get a white undercoat around 6 months or so, but then it disappears, and they are chocolate forever.
Check out this post, and you'll see the rusty red color that happens when a black goat gets copper deficient:
https://thriftyhomesteader.com/7-tips-for-keeping-bucks-healthy/
Same black goat in both pictures, but in one, he is copper deficient.