Pickles and Oreo have this cough like they have something in their throat. It isn't all the time but a lot. Patches doesn't have it and I was just wondering if that is normal or not.
Kathy
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Thanks deborah for the advice. About the lungworm... that I had been told by a vet and a breeder. Everyone does things so differently i dont know what to do. Haha
OMG raising goats is so complicated. They have coughed as long as I've had them, since May and they are growing and gaining weight so I guess I will leave them be for now. Thanks for the advice.
Worming is so much more complicated than most people think. The parasite section in my book is 24 pages long. You should NEVER worm on a schedule -- only when goats actually need it. The more you use a dewormer, the sooner you will get dewormer resistance, and there are only three classes of dewormers on the market in the U.S., so when they stop working, you've got nothing. And in some cases, there is only one type of dewormer that works on a particular type of worm.
Also, an ivomec dose of 1 cc per 50 pounds doesn't sound right. There are several different types of ivomec on the market at different strengths, and you need to be sure that you know what strength you are talking about. Typically, you double the cattle or sheep dosage though, and I don't recall any of them being such a small dose.
A goat coughing every now and then is probably fine. It could be dust, or it could be that something went down (or up) the wrong way when eating or bringing up cud, which means it is entirely possible and normal for a goat to be standing in the middle of the pasture and start to cough. If the goat has had this cough for two months and is not sick, it's probably nothing. Two months with lungworm would take a toll.
Like other parasites, lungworm will cause poor production and weight loss. You can also see first-stage larvae in a fecal sample. Lungworm is just about the only worm that requires a second dose of dewormer, but it is supposed to be given 35 days after the first because of the longer lifecycle of the lungworm. The 10-day advice is from the 1990s and was in reference to another dewormer and different worms.
The goats don't act sick they just cough. I think I will worm them like Kolti recommended. I haven't wormed them because the breeder said I didn't need too but it sounds like she may have been wrong. How often do you worm goats and do you use the same type of wormer all the time? Thanks for the help.
I have a doe with that has a dry cough and coughs frequently. We talked to the vet and he said to worm them with ivomec (which is what i use on all my goats) because it sounds like lung worm to him and if that doesnt work then hes got something else for us but I cant remember what it was called.
When I worm with ivomec I give them 1cc per 50lbs and then repeat 10 days later. :) hopefully that helped! :)
If it is just once in awhile, it could be because something went down the wrong way in their throat. In addition to the possibility of that happening while eating, it can also happen while hanging out and ruminating as they bring up their cud.
Are they walking around, eating, drinking, and chewing their cud? If not, do they have a temperature? Acting sick with no temp could mean lung worms. Acting sick with a temp could be an infection. If they're not acting sick, then you might want to wait a few days and see what happens.
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