Hydrogen Peroxide: This is great for flushing wounds. Application is easy if you store this in a spray bottle or use a syringe without the needle to squirt it on an open wound. Some people say they’ve heard that hydrogen peroxide is not good for wounds, but I’ve searched the medical literature on this, and while some studies may show slightly faster healing when cleaning wounds with a saline solution, other studies show no difference in healing time when using hydrogen peroxide rather than saline.
Syringes and Needles: The 3 cc syringes will work for most goat injections. You will occasionally need a 6 cc syringe or larger. The 20-gauge needles are the most commonly used, one inch for intramuscular (IM) injections, half-inch for subcutaneous (sub-q). It’s a good idea to use one-inch needles when drawing blood from the jugular vein in the neck because the vein is sometimes too deep for a half-inch needle to work. When looking at needle size, larger numbers mean smaller needles, so an 18-gauge is thicker than a 20-gauge. You may want to get thinner needles, assuming they will hurt less, but thicker medications are challenging to administer with thin needles. Essentially this means you need to have a variety of syringes and needles available.
Thermometer: Of course, you’ll want to have a separate thermometer dedicated to use with your goats. Goat temperature is taken rectally. You really should have one available the day you bring home your first goats. Knowing a goat’s temperature can help you narrow down the list of possibilities when a goat is down or off-feed or otherwise not acting like a healthy goat.
Medicating the Sick Goat
If you have determined a goat needs some type of medication, there are a number of ways to administer it. Each has its advantages and drawbacks. It’s also important to be aware that drugs are labeled with the recommended method of administration, and that withdrawal times for milk and meat may be different if the recommended method is not used or if a different method is used, even if it considered acceptable. For example, if ivermectin (a dewormer) is used as a pour-on, the milk withdrawal is seven days. When used orally, the milk withdrawal is six to nine days, depending upon the dose, and when it is injected sub-q, or subcutaneously (meaning under the skin), the milk withdrawal is 40 days.4
Bolus: This is the fancy word for giving a capsule or pill to livestock. In spite of their reputation for eating “everything,” goats are unlikely to gobble up medication. You can try sticking it down the throat the way some people do with dogs or cats, but your fingers may not come out of the ordeal unscathed. Cattle bolus guns are too large, and dog pill guns made of hard plastic tend to be too brittle and usually break with one chomp between a goat’s molars. A dog pill gun made of soft plastic that is somewhat flexible may work. Suppository applicators made for humans also work. Be sure to place the pill at the back of the goat’s tongue and hold its mouth closed until it swallows.
Drench: When a liquid medication is to be given orally, instructions will often say to drench. You can use a syringe with the needle removed, or you can buy a drenching syringe (sometimes called a drench gun) that can be used many times and can be taken apart for washing. Medication should be placed at the back of the tongue when drenching so that the goat is less likely to spit it out. Keeping the head horizontal, rather than lifting the nose, is supposed to make aspiration into the lungs less likely.
Feed Additives: Medications for coccidiosis prevention and some dewormers are available as feed additives. Be sure to read the label because some are fed straight out of the bag while others are mixed with feed. The disadvantage to using feed additives is that you may not know how much of the medication has been consumed if fed to a group, and some goats, especially kids, get so upset about being separated from other goats that they won’t eat by themselves. I avoid most feed additives for these reasons and because there are alternatives available as drenches. My only exception is copper oxide wire particles (COWP), which I top-dress on a very small amount of grain for an individual adult. For kids, I bolus COWP.
Injections: Most antibiotics are injected because they tend to disturb the normal flora in the rumen when given orally. Almost all goat injections are given sub-q rather than IM. Because goats are more likely than some animals to have painful reactions to IM injections, some veterinary professionals say that all injections should be given sub-q. And sub-q injections are considered less dangerous because IM injections in the rear legs can cause lameness if the sciatic nerve is hit when giving the injection. The risk of hitting the sciatic nerve in kids is especially high because the muscle in the leg is so small. Sub-q injections are not without disadvantages, though. There is the possibility of an abscess forming at the site of an injection, which is harmless but may be mistaken for caseous lymphadenitis, often called CL. For that reason, it is a good idea to avoid sub-q injections in the neck, which is the most common site of a CL abscess.
A 20-gauge needle works well for most goats, but you may want to use 22-gauge in especially small kids or 18-gauge with medications that are very thick. Whether giving an injection sub-q or IM, always pull back on the plunger after inserting the needle and before injecting the medication to be sure that the needle is not in a vein, which would mean you are about to inject the drug directly into the bloodstream, which could cause death with some drugs. If you get blood when you pull back the plunger, remove the needle and inject it in another spot. It is extremely important to always use a new, sterile needle for each animal to avoid the spread of diseases such as CAE and Johne’s, even when you have a herd that has tested negative. After treating with antibiotics, many breeders will give probiotic paste or yogurt with live cultures to re-establish healthy flora in the digestive system. If your goat is not willing to eat yogurt, you can use a drench gun to administer it orally.
Paste: Supplements such as selenium and probiotics come in pastes. Although there are paste dewormers available for horses, they are not approved for use in goats. Giving a paste is very similar to drenching and bolusing. Place the tip of the dispenser on the back of the goat’s tongue to reduce the chance of the animal being able to spit out the paste.
Pour-on: There are pour-on dewormers available, which are simply poured onto the goat’s spine, but none are approved for use in goats, although many people use cattle pour-on medications in goats, sometimes as directed and sometimes orally. There have been anecdotal reports of goats dying after being given a pour-on orally. There is no reason to administer a pour-on orally as all dewormers are available in a form that is intended to be given orally.
For a list of commonly used goat medications with dosages, as well as milk and meat withdrawal times, visit http://www2.luresext.edu/goats/training/Goatmeds.pdf
CHAPTER 5
FEEDING YOUR GOATS
Contrary to popular myth, which states that goats will eat anything, including tin cans, goats are actually very picky eaters, and their digestive systems can be upset easily. Goats may have earned a reputation for eating anything and everything because they will eat a lot of vegetation that other livestock won’t touch, such as young trees, rose bushes, and weeds.
Fiber-rich foods such as grass, weeds, browse, and hay should make up the majority of the goat’s diet. Because goats are technically browsers, rather than grazers, you do not need a piece of property that has pristine pastures. In fact, in recent years, many businesses have popped up across the United States providing goats to clear brushy fields that are inaccessible to heavy equipment. Airports in Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago,5 as well as the Google headquarters in California,6 are examples of businesses that have rented goats for this purpose. But goats will be happy to eat grass if small trees and bushes are not available. It is important, though, that the grass or browse your goats have access to is green. When drought has turned grasses brown, goats will need some type of additional green feed even if there is an ample quantity of dried grass in the fields. Goats fed brown grass or hay for extended periods of time may wind up with vitamin A or vitamin E deficiency. Bales of hay that are brown on the outside shoul
d be green inside when cut open.
Rotational Grazing
Even if you have a hundred acres for four or five goats, rotational grazing is beneficial. It will make your pasture last longer and reduce the incidence of internal parasites in the goats. If you fence in a large area and let your goats stay there for the entire growing season, you will find that they spend most of their time on only a small portion of the land. They will overgraze some areas, continuing to eat the young, sweet, and tender grasses while not touching others, letting much of the grasses get over-mature, tough, and go to seed. They will spend lots of time near the water trough, which is where they will deposit a large percentage of their poop. That means the grass in that area will have a high level of parasite larvae on it, which will reinfect the goats as they eat that young, sweet, tender grass.
Rather than fencing in several acres for the goats and letting them spend the whole grazing season on that space, subdivide the pasture into smaller paddocks. The goats stay on one section of pasture for a number of days before being moved to clean pasture with fresh grass, leaving behind their poop, which contains parasite eggs that will hatch and die without a host.
There are a couple of ways you can utilize rotational grazing, and the method you use will depend on the number of goats you have. Four livestock panels can be used to create a 16-foot by 16-foot pen that can be moved every day or two, depending on how fast the goats eat the grass. This works well for goat keepers who have an acre or two and only a couple of goats. For those with a larger herd and at least five acres, the grazing area is best enclosed with a permanent perimeter fence, and temporary electric fencing is used to subdivide the large fenced pasture into smaller paddocks, through which the herd is rotated.
Opinions vary widely on how often goats need to be rotated to clean pasture. It depends on weather as well as whether your main objective is pasture utilization or parasite control. For best parasite control, animals should graze an area only once per year, whereas a rotation of every 30 days works if you are only concerned about the best use of the pasture. However, any pasture rotation will help with parasite control because it gets goats away from those loafing areas that will have a high concentration of larvae.
The height of the grass also plays a role in deciding when to rotate. Someone once said that goats should never eat below their knees. Technically, they are browsers, not grazers, and they prefer to eat shrubs and young trees rather than grass. Because goats have gone through history not eating off the ground, their parasite resistance is not usually as strong as that of cows and sheep, who do eat off the ground. Goats really should not be eating grass down to the dirt. A commonly encountered recommendation is to move goats to new pasture when the grass is about six inches tall. Larvae do not have legs, but they can float up on a blade of grass when it is wet. However, without a true means of movement, parasites don’t move very far up on the grass, which is why parasite problems are reduced when goats are consuming grass that is taller. It is a balancing act, though, because when grass gets too tall, it is not as tasty.
Rotational grazing allows you to graze other livestock on a piece of land. Because cows and horses prefer grass and goats prefer bushes and small trees, and each species has different parasites, cows or horses can graze the paddock just vacated by the goats. Some heritage breeds of pigs love to eat grass, such as the American Guinea Hog, which we raise, and they also serve as a dead-end host for goat parasites, meaning that pigs will digest goat parasites. Although sheep and goats have the same parasites, sheep prefer weeds, so they can graze a pasture at the same time as goats. This means you will be able to graze more animals on a piece of land than if you only had one species.
Hay
Dry does, kids, bucks, and wethers usually do well with grass hay, whereas legume hay, such as alfalfa or peanut hay, is commonly fed to does in milk. Kids can also benefit from a legume hay, which is high in protein and calcium, especially in herds that avoid feeding grain. Because alfalfa is high in calcium, it can cause zinc deficiency when fed to bucks because they don’t need much calcium. Finding hay can be a big challenge if you’re new to livestock. Although I have heard of a few feed stores that sell hay, in most parts of the country, you need to buy it directly from a farmer, and usually you will get a better deal financially if you buy directly from the farmer.
I started feeding alfalfa pellets as I hit my 40s. I had always hauled and stacked my own hay, and sold a lot also. I was trying to pitch some heavy bales of alfalfa up to the sixth level when the whole side of the pile fell down, pinning me to the ground in the 90+°F, 90 percent humidity. Instead of picking myself up and doing it again, I sat on a bale and cried. There was no way I would be able to continue doing all this without a better plan. This was in the mid 1990s and I was on the internet, so I started searching and found a gal in the Northwest who did nothing but feed free-choice alfalfa pellets from a feeder her husband built for her. She was in a wheelchair, so no way could she lift or feed bales of hay. Her does were beautiful. I fed out the rest of my hay and started feeding alfalfa pellets instead. The girls balked, of course. They wanted the hay, but with no choice, they finally accepted defeat and started eating.
We had also been having problems in the spring with our stored hay. Our heat is oppressive and our humidity is awful, especially in the winters. The feeding quality of our beautiful alfalfa hay was depleted, leaf shattered, or moldy. The nutrition was waning. By moving to alfalfa pellets, the quality of alfalfa we were feeding was actually better and the girls healthier. The consistency that I was looking for was finally there. Another bonus for feeding alfalfa pellets is there is no huge compost pile of wasted alfalfa to clean out anymore. No more money wasted.
My goats are on pasture but mostly on browse. We live on 13 acres in the Cleveland National Forest. Our goats also have access to several more acres in the buck pen. The girls are eating tiny yaupon leaves and bits of the tender twigs and pine needles. They will eat the pasture grass seed as it blooms out, but just the tender tops. The pasture and browse is also why I don’t have to feed very much hay, except when the girls are in the barns for extended periods of time because of rains or hurricanes. I only keep hay out 24/7 when we get our first freeze, usually right before January, until after our last frost in March or April.
The difference in moving from alfalfa hay to alfalfa pellets wasn’t dramatic. The girls have very full rumens, great depth of barrel, and milk really well on alfalfa pellets. The difference between feeding grass hay and alfalfa pellets would be much more dramatic. Alfalfa pellets are the perfect protein (our alfalfa pellets are guaranteed 17 percent minimum) and the perfect form of digestible calcium compared with grass hay.
— VICKI MCGAUGH, Lonesome Doe Nubians,
Cleveland, Texas
If you can’t find hay, there are hay pellets available, although there is some controversy about whether they’re as good for ruminants as baled hay. Animal nutritionists say that ruminants need the long fibers in real hay to keep the rumen working at its best. Pellets are very easy to digest, so if a goat eats nothing but hay pellets, their rumen doesn’t have to do much work. I’ve known several people who fed pellets rather than hay with good results if their goats also had access to pasture or browse. If I can’t get excellent quality hay for winter feeding here in Illinois, meaning that it’s not as green as I prefer, I’ll get some of it for the fiber, but I’ll supplement my does with alfalfa pellets and my bucks with timothy grass pellets to be sure they are getting enough vitamins A and E, which are probably lacking in the hay that is sun scorched and not so green.
Another alternative to traditional hay is haylage or silage, which is partially fermented hay or other plants. Silage has been associated with a number of health problems in goats, such as acidosis, listeriosis, and enterotoxemia. For this reason, it is very important that you do not try to make any type of silage yourself. Without proper knowledge or equipment for making silage, it is possible to wind up with food that could kill
goats. It is more complicated than simply raking up cut grass and putting it in a plastic bag. You could wind up growing something toxic.
Do not assume that grass will stink if something toxic is growing. My husband cuts grass with a scythe to feed our goats in the summer. Several years ago we had an intern who gathered up the grass in the morning and left it piled three feet high in our little hay wagon all day. At evening chore time, he realized that the hay was quite hot inside the middle of the pile. He asked my husband if it was okay to feed, realizing that the heat meant it had started to ferment. My husband smelled it and said yes because it smelled fine. The next day we lost a doe to enterotoxemia.
Commercial haylage is available for purchase, and it tends to have higher protein than dried hay. Although it lasts many months in a sealed bag, you need to use it within a week after opening the bag, which is not a problem if you have more than a few goats or if you are also feeding it to other livestock.
Grain
Technically, ruminants should not eat much, if any, grain because it is not the best thing for an animal with four stomachs. Bucks and wethers don’t need grain, and it can cause urinary calculi. However, it can be challenging to keep dairy goats from getting quite skinny in the early months of heavy milk production if they are not fed grain, which provides concentrated energy. In fact, you will sometimes see grain referred to as “concentrates.” Although grass-fed cow dairies are becoming more common, it is still unusual to find dairy goats raised without feeding any grain, which is the main ingredient in most goat feeds.
Jane Wagman of Wags Ranch in Lebanon, Oregon, has a herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats that she has been switching to a grass-based diet. “It does take a while for a goat to develop a rumen for grass-based dairying if they weren’t raised that way,” she explains. “If they are under a year of age, I have had 100 percent success at switching them over. Over a year old, my success has been only about 50 percent. Their bodies have stopped growing and just don’t adjust as easily. So their production just falls apart because they don’t have the ability to support it.”
Raising Goats Naturally Page 9