Raising Goats Naturally

by Deborah Niemann

  To protect yourself, assume infection is the cause of a stillbirth during the last two weeks of pregnancy. Wear gloves when handling the fetus and placenta because many of the causes of goat abortions are zoonotic, meaning that humans can become infected. You may want to send the fetus and placenta to a lab for analysis to determine the cause of the stillbirth. It is advisable to keep the doe separated from other does in case she has an infection that could cause other does to abort, resulting in an “abortion storm.”

  Toxoplasmosis is the most common infectious cause of abortions and stillbirths in goats. It is transmitted by cats, which may appear completely healthy. Toxoplasmosis is contagious to humans and can cause miscarriage in pregnant women. Just as pregnant women are advised not to clean cat litter boxes for fear of infection from the feces, a pregnant woman should not be exposed to an infected goat or to infected barn cats. There is no treatment for toxoplasmosis, which is why some people with goats do not want barn cats in spite of their mousing abilities. Young cats are the most likely to be infected with toxoplasmosis, however. Once infected, a cat develops lifelong immunity, so older cats are usually not as much of a risk to have in the barn.

  Chlamydia may also cause spontaneous abortions in goats. It can be treated with tetracycline and other antibiotics. There is also a vaccine available, but because there are many reasons why a goat might abort, a vaccine should be used only after getting a definitive diagnosis on the cause.

  Other infectious causes of abortions in goats include brucellosis (also known as Bang’s disease or Malta fever), campylobacter, listeriosis, leptospirosis, Q fever, salmonellosis, and tick-borne fever. This is why you should definitely have a necropsy done after the second goat in a kidding season aborts. You can’t get a definitive diagnosis without lab work.

  Some drugs and toxic plants can cause abortions or birth defects. The dewormer albendazole should not be used during the first three months of pregnancy, and there is anecdotal evidence that levamisole is not safe to use toward the end of pregnancy.20 Although some stillbirths have been reported after administering levamisole toward the end of pregnancy, researchers have not found a link in controlled studies. Until there is definitive evidence, however, owners may want to use other dewormers during pregnancy.

  The issue of toxic plants is a frustrating one for goat owners as lists of toxic plants abound, but there are many anecdotal reports of goats eating many of the plants listed without ill effects. You can’t assume that just because a plant, such as oak, is toxic to another species, it will be toxic to goats. I’ve seen walnut on a few lists, yet our goats often go through a rotation in our walnut grove. Pine trees are also sometimes mentioned as a plant that can cause abortion in goats, yet I know people whose goat pastures are covered with pine trees. If you have someone in your area who has goats, ask if they’re aware of any native plants that cause a problem for their goats. Cases of goat poisoning from plants are actually quite rare.

  Stress or trauma can also cause a doe to give birth early. For this reason, it is not a great idea to sell a doe during the last six weeks of pregnancy. In addition to the usual stress of moving, there is also the question of how well a goat will fit into a new herd. Of course, you could also have a goat born on your farm that finds itself at the bottom of the pecking order. A yearling born on our farm was picked on mercilessly by the other goats. At the moment we realized she was in labor — two weeks early — another doe was slamming into her belly, which was, unfortunately, not the first time we’d seen another goat do that to her.

  Abscesses

  Caseous lymphadenitis, usually called CL, is the most common cause of skin abscesses. CL is highly contagious because it can infect goats through unbroken skin. CL is unique in that it most commonly affects lymph nodes in the neck. The only way to know if a goat has CL is to have a vet aspirate the contents of the swollen area and culture it to see if it is positive for CL. It is a good idea to isolate a goat with an abscess. If the abscess bursts, the pus that drains from the wound will be highly contagious if it is CL. Once a goat is diagnosed with CL, it is positive forever, and it could have internal abscesses. A blood test for CL is also available.

  Although a vaccine is available for CL, it is only used in herds that already have an outbreak of the disease, and it is only given to goats that are not already infected. Once a goat is vaccinated, it will test positive, which means that testing becomes a worthless tool in determining which goats are actually infected.

  It is very common for goats to develop an abscess at the site of an injection, whether for medication or vaccination, so it is helpful to make a note of the location of the injection. More than a few goat owners have panicked when finding one of those abscesses, worried that the goat has CL. Injection-site abscesses should not be disturbed, and they will go away within a couple of weeks on their own. They can look really dreadful, however, so some breeders who show their goats will give vaccines and other injections under the armpit of a goat that they know will be shown in the near future so that there won’t be a big bump over the goat’s ribs where everyone can see it.

  A salivary cyst is one of the abscesses most commonly confused with CL because it occurs on the head in the same general area as the lymph nodes. Not every swollen spot on a goat is an abscess. It could be something as simple as a bee sting or ant bites. Swelling around the lips and cheeks may be due to the goat eating thorny bushes or other plants that caused a minor injury to the skin. The loss of a tooth may cause swelling around the mouth. Goats can also get goiters on the thyroid just like humans who are deficient in iodine, and this will cause swelling in the neck. Bottle jaw, caused by parasites, is another cause of swelling under the jaw.

  Acidosis

  The pH in the rumen can become imbalanced when a goat eats too much grain, especially when not accustomed to it. A novice owner might unknowingly overfeed grain, or a goat might break into the chicken house and help itself to the chicken feed. As noted earlier, grain is not the ideal feed for ruminants, which is why many goat owners keep baking soda available free-choice to serve as a rumen buffer. Throughout the day, goats should have access to roughage, such as hay or pasture, which helps to keep the rumen functioning normally. Rather than feeding the goats’ full ration of hay first thing in the morning, the hay should be split into several smaller feedings to be given through the day to keep the rumen working continuously. This also helps to reduce hay waste, as goats are more likely to finish each smaller serving. Acidosis can lead to bloat.

  Bloat

  Many people think a goat is bloated when it simply has a large belly. I have seen many people post online, “My goat has been bloated for several days,” which is impossible. A goat with bloat will die within hours if not treated. If a goat’s belly has looked unusually large for several days, it is probably a hay belly, which is most likely caused by parasites. A goat with a heavy load of parasites may be “starving” because the parasites are either causing anemia or consuming the nutrients in the goat’s digestive system. This causes the goat to eat constantly, which causes their belly to be quite large.

  The belly is not usually the first thing you will notice when a goat has a real case of bloat. It will probably be lying down in a corner somewhere hiding. It will have zero interest in food, may be grinding its teeth (a sign of pain), and it will not want to get up and move. However, once you get it to its feet, you will probably notice that its abdomen looks bigger than usual. You can tell the difference between a hay belly and bloat because if you press on the left abdomen (over the rumen) of a goat with a hay belly, you can mash it in as if you were mashing in cookie dough. And it stays mashed in when you lift your fingers. You’ve just moved around chewed up hay and forage in the rumen. A goat with bloat, however, has an abdomen that feels tight like a drum, which is why the technical term is ruminal tympany. If you are able to press it in at all, it will spring right back out because the rumen is filled with gas.

  Goats on pasture rarely get bloat, provided
that dietary changes occur gradually. If you keep your goats in the barn or on a dry lot all winter, you should expose them to pasture slowly in the spring. Start with only a few hours of pasture a day after giving them hay in the barn before letting them out so that they don’t gorge themselves on the pasture. Suddenly grazing lush fields of legumes, such as alfalfa or clover, and sometimes even wet spring grass can cause frothy bloat, which is when a buildup of gas cannot be released from the goat’s rumen, putting pressure on the heart and lungs and ultimately causing death. If you are not seeing fast improvement in treating a goat with bloat, you should call the vet.

  The goal of treating frothy bloat is to break down the foam, which is usually done by drenching with 100–200 cc of cooking oil.21 There are also commercial anti-bloating medications available. Although some people recommend putting a stomach tube into a goat to administer the oil, there is no benefit to doing this, and it is in fact much more dangerous than simply drenching a goat because of the risk that an inexperienced person could put the tube into the goat’s lung and kill it. If a goat can swallow, it can be given liquids orally with a drenching syringe. After drenching, the goat should be encouraged to walk around, or the rumen can be massaged to help the goat release the gas.

  If a goat with bloat cannot swallow, it could be because something is stuck in the goat’s throat, which means the goat has choke bloat. For this reason, you should administer the oil very slowly until you are sure the goat can swallow, so that you don’t accidentally force oil into the goat’s lungs. If there is something stuck in the goat’s throat, a small amount of oil may help lubricate it, so the goat can swallow it. In this case, it may be helpful to put a tube into the goat’s throat to help push the object down.

  Goats can also get bloat by gorging themselves on grain.22 When goats chew, they produce bicarbonate. Eating hay or browse requires lots of chewing. Eating pelletized feed or grain, especially grain that is finely ground, requires very little chewing, which means the goat will produce very little bicarbonate. This is why it’s a good idea to have baking soda available free-choice in a separate dish at all times if you feed grain. You never know when a goat’s rumen could be a little off. You may also have a goat or two that chews very little when on the milk stand because it is essentially a grain hog that will try to consume as much as possible. If you are new to goats, you also have no idea how easily goats might be able to escape their area and find chicken or pig grain upon which to gorge themselves. Studies have shown that baking soda is an effective treatment for grain bloat.23 In one study where they overfed crushed rice to goats, 100 percent died in the group that did not receive baking soda, whereas only 20 percent died in the group that did receive baking soda. If baking soda is available free-choice, goats will usually self-medicate when needed.

  If a vet is called, he or she may use a trochar to release the gas. It’s basically a metal tube that punctures the rumen to allow gas to escape through the tube. If you can’t reach a vet quickly, a less risky option to release the gas is to insert a 14-gauge or 16-gauge needle into the rumen.

  Because nothing on the internet ever dies, there has been a resurgence of an old home remedy for bloat, which is to give liquid laundry detergent (specifically Tide) to a goat with bloat. This was common advice back in the 1970s. Back then liquid laundry detergent was little more than surfactants, which is what is in modern bloat medicines.

  Today’s Tide, however, contains 27 ingredients, including optical brighteners, water-softening chemicals, enzymes, polymers, colors, and fragrance, in addition to five different surfactants. Many of these ingredients are carcinogenic and endocrine disruptors, which is why some consumers today have chosen more natural laundry detergents — and that’s just because we don’t want them on our skin. None of the ingredients in modern laundry detergent are meant to be consumed orally; they are poisons. In fact, thousands of children wind up in hospital emergency rooms every year after consuming laundry detergent, with a few in a coma, and one or two dying. Laundry detergent damages the esophagus and can cause breathing difficulties so severe that some children are put on a respirator.

  Brucellosis

  The most common symptom is abortion or stillbirth. Luckily, it is rare in goats in North America, but there is a blood test available if you want to be sure your goats don’t have it. Consuming raw milk from a goat with brucellosis can cause Malta fever in humans.

  Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis

  Usually referred to as CAE, caprine arthritis encephalitis is caused by a retrovirus, and there is no cure. It is transmitted through milk, colostrum, and other bodily fluids. Although it used to be extremely common in goats 20 to 30 years ago, it is less common today as a result of breeders testing their herds annually, culling positive animals, and feeding heat-treated colostrum or colostrum substitutes and pasteurized milk to kids of positive does. CAE is debilitating to goats and may eventually cause arthritis, mastitis, pneumonia, and weight loss. In kids under six months of age, CAE can cause a form of encephalitis, which is essentially the same disease as ovine progressive pneumonia (OPP) in sheep. For this reason, sheep should also be tested, and some would say that they should always be isolated from your goats. CAE is not believed to be contagious to humans.

  Goats with CAE do not always show symptoms, which is why testing is important. Some goats can be positive for many years without ever appearing sick. Unfortunately, they are contagious and will give the disease to their kids, as well as other goats in the herd that may come in contact with their milk, colostrum, blood, nasal secretions, or vaginal discharge. For example, if a CAE-positive doe gives birth in the pasture, another doe that cleans off the kid could become infected with the CAE virus. A buck with CAE can also transmit the virus to a doe during breeding.24

  CAE doesn’t kill goats directly. However, they can wind up dying from chronic mastitis or pneumonia, and some owners euthanize CAE-positive goats when arthritis makes it difficult for them to walk, as the joints in their legs become swollen badly. Weight loss usually occurs because the goat doesn’t want to get up and graze or walk to the hayrack or feed pan, but goats may also lose weight even without the development of arthritis.

  Although the AGID (agar gel immunodiffusion) test was used for many years to detect CAE, the ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) test is now preferred because it is more sensitive in detecting CAE antibodies. The PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test is another option but is much more expensive than the ELISA or AGID tests. PCR tests for the specific virus rather than antibodies, so it may detect the disease in some goats that would test negative with an antibody test. Because most people use ELISA or AGID tests for antibodies and some goats can have the disease for several months before seroconverting — having enough antibodies in their blood to test positive — many breeders with CAE-positive goats in their herd will bottle-feed all kids with pasteurized milk. CAE-positive adults can infect other adults, so goats that are CAE positive and those that are CAE negative should be kept separated. This also means you must be present for every birth so that you can remove kids before they have the opportunity to nurse from a CAE-positive dam.

  Constipation

  This topic was not covered in the first edition of this book because I had never heard of a goat with constipation. However, in the last couple of years, it has become a hot topic in some social media groups. In other groups, it is never mentioned. When I was a member of Yahoo groups five to sixteen years ago, it was not a problem. I have spent a lot of time searching groups and veterinary texts, and constipation as we know it in humans is not a problem in goats. If a goat is truly not pooping, it’s because of something very serious, such as pregnancy toxemia, coccidiosis, poisoning, liver damage, dehydration, or lack of fiber in the diet. In other words, it is usually caused by a serious medical problem that needs attention — or by a diet that needs to be corrected.25

  The biggest problem with people assuming goats get constipated is that they are misdiagnosing a serious problem
. One woman in an online group assumed her buck was constipated when he actually had urinary calculi, and he died because she didn’t call the vet soon enough. Another woman assumed her newborn was constipated when it was actually starving because it was one of quads and was not getting enough colostrum. Unfortunately, she believed something she read online that said if a kid is hunched up and refuses a bottle, it’s constipated, which is simply not true. No dam-raised kid takes a bottle willingly, and hunched up is the classic pose of a kid that simply does not feel well or is cold. Rather than tube feeding the kid to get colostrum into it, she gave it repeated enemas, and it died.

  It’s not unusual for a doe in heat to walk around with an arched back.

  In many cases, there is nothing wrong with the goat at all. One woman described a doe that was basically acting like a buck, arching her back and making weird noises, which can be common when they’re in heat. Another person had a buck that started thrusting when she was taking his temperature, which is also normal, yet the first person to comment suggested that the goat was constipated. Another had a young buck that was arching his back in a manner that is perfectly normal for a buck that’s trying to figure out how to start acting like a buck. “Arching the back” is sometimes the only “symptom” mentioned by people who think they have a constipated goat. Yet, goats don’t arch their back when they poop.

  Constipation should never be the first diagnosis when a goat is acting off in any way. It is incredibly uncommon and is not even in the index of one veterinary text on my shelf. When constipation is mentioned in other texts, it is a symptom of one of the serious conditions mentioned above. It is not a condition in itself that needs to be treated with laxatives or an enema.