Do you keep livestock? Having any problems? Want to talk about it, whether it be sheep, goats, chickens, pigs, bees or llamas, here is your place to discuss.
hi all,
i am going to purchasing four goats 2 kids 1 nanny 1 billy. i have never kept them before but looking forward
to it. i was told i will need to worm them regularly is this true if so what wormer do i use and what goat food is the best for them,
best regards,
crump
Here in Tennessee we have to de-worm monthly in worm weather, I mean warm weather. So monthly for about 8 months of the year, if you use chemical de-wormers. We can go from the first hard freeze to the last without de-worming except for does that have just kidded. You should always de-worm when they kid, I can't stress that enough. You are in a cooler climate, so you shouldn't have to de-worm as often, but still do it after kidding.
An alternative to chemical de-wormers that I (and a few friends brave enough to try it) have had great results with is diotomaceous earth (you may want to check the spelling, I'm a statistician not an author) mixed with loose forage mineral. The DE must be food grade not swimming pool grade which is heat treated and brittle. Mix by volume 2 parts DE with 1 part forage mineral (sometimes called range mineral). If you are keeping sheep in the same area you will have to get a low copper mineral, in which case the goats will need periodic copper injections. Just leave the mixture on a dry place where thye can get as much as they like and you can cut your de-worming back to about every other month, or 3 times a year. The DE literally slices the worms to bits in their intestines so the worms do not develope a resistance to it.
For the few times you will need or want a chemical de-wormer Ivomec, Dectomax, and Cydectin are all very effective. If you have any reason to suspect lungworm do not hesitate to use Dectomax. All three are given orally at double the dose for cattle or as labelled for sheep. We can't get them labeled for sheep here. Ivomec is what they treat humans with so that is what I treat my dairy goats with. It isn't supposed to go through the milk but just in case. Never, never, never let your dogs have Ivomec. It is poisonous to them. I would assume Cydectin is as well.
You also need to see if selenium defeciency is a problem in your area, if so periodic injections of BO-SE will take care of the problem. Goats need more selenium than cattle so be sure about your levels. Kids will not be vigorous and can even abort due to slight selenium defeciencies.
Goats get acidosis surprisingly easy, especially if they are on a good grass pasture or even in the spring when things just get nice and green. They are browsers and I think the woody forage helps keep it in check. The simple solution is to leave a tub of baking soda in an accessible place for them to nibble. I keep it just beside the DE/mineral mix.
I have also recently learned that goats are more sensitive to nitrate poisoning than any other domesticated animal except the alpaca. Early spring grasses and after a long dry spell are times to worry about the grass building nitrates. You can read the 'goats keep dying' thread for more info if you want it. I am still kicking myself. But this year's babies look great and the first set are 4 months old weaned and fine.
"You are a strange little mouse."
"Thank you." -Tale of Despereaux
Good advice above but some of that may not apply to your region/area. You may have very different vitamin and mineral needs.
Find out if anyone else keeps goats on your area, go and speak to them. And find a local vet who deals with farm animals they will be able to advise.
Ensure you have:
Good fencing, GOAT means Get Out And Through :D lol
7 or 9 wire and batten fence is ideal with a hot wire at nose level where they could push under the fence and a top wire for steeplechasing goats.
Good pasture,:they are browsers and are quite selective, goats just don't eat anything. Good pasture should be a mix of ryegrass, clovers, plaintains and herbs just as chicory etc, Again talk to farmstores that sell grass mixes. Get a good rotation going sot hey don't spend too long grazing in one area. They like to take the top off the grass, allowing them to graze it too low can cause worm burdens
Drenching: I have a drench policy to only drench when needed. Here in NZ the overuse of drenches have allowed worms to become resistant to treatment either through overuse or under drenching. You can faecal egg samples tested for worms and then you can drench accordingly, this will be done through the vet.
Shelter: Goats need shelter, they are not like sheep and can't keep warm like they do.
Feet: They need trimming regularly unless you have rocky terrain. The hooves can get too long, and curl under the foot when muck gets in and starts causing problems such as foot rot. Scald is a fungal infetion that gets between the hooves caused by damp and wet conditons.
Vaccinations: Goats should be vaccinated annually with 5-in-1, it protects against some common nasties. Intially they are vaccinated then a booster again in 4 weeks. expectant mothers shoudl be vaccinated 4 -6 weeks before kidding, then kids at 6 - 8 weeks then again 4 weeks later or at weaning
The buck: What are you going to do with him when he's not working? Are you going to be abale to keep him away from your does? And importantly away from any of his female offspring?
Feed/Nutrition: Good quality pasture, supplemented with grain or kibbled maize or similar, hay given ad lib, and regular vitamins and minerals
Goats have very specific needs, but so long as they are well cared for they are great animals to have around. I love my boers, we've struggled with some health issues in the last couple of years as our new property didn't meet the above requirements, but with regular reseeding of paddocks and fertilising we're are finally coming right.
The Mothers of teens now know why some animals eat their young!
Great point about the pasture, the more weeds the better, but look out first for poisonous weeds, check with a local information source-other farmer or a vet.
The reason I switched to the DE/mineral was because of the point made about over/under drenching. Using the mix allows you to de-worm only when needed. We do have a heavier worm load here though. You might be able to just do the DE mix.
But NEVER use valspasin on a pregnant goat. Some say you can after the first 2 months of pregnancy, I can not say with certainty, but I have yet to speak with anyone who has actually done it and not had an aborted kid.
When I mentioned the selenium, that was just the most common defeciency. Bonniegirl is right about others. Copper is actually a problem in some areas.
I wish I had thought about the vet advice for you. A good vet with knowledge of goats is invaluable.
For shelter, I assume you know they need easy access in wet weather. But they are not cave dwellers and some goats would rather stand out in the rain than go into a dark, windowless barn.
You also have to help them keep warm in winter, they have no wool. We start with a 'clean' floor in the early fall and add six inches of straw. Every three or four days throw a pile of straw on visibly soiled areas. That will allow them to have a clean-ish place to sleep at night and composting to heat the bed for them. If you keep enough straw down there will not be odor problems. You should never smell ammonia. Ammonia means you have not enough straw, not enough shelter (too many goats), or not enough ventillation. This not only keeps them warm in winter, but it allows the scent of the herd to build and mothers feel safer when kidding, so they have much less stress and the babies are allowed to stay put for a day or two before she brings them out. This rest period produces much healthier babies. It also keeps them all in clean straw and keeps their feet healthy.
If you don't have rocky terrain for them to self-style their nails (hooves are made of the same type thing our fingernails are) stack some concrete blocks where they can climb and play on them. You will still have to check feet, when you drench, but not as much. Get someone knowledgable to show you how. Over trimming is worse than undertrimming. Either can make them lame. The straw system we use wll also help prevent footrot. But if you have a case of footrot, all of the straw must come out and be disposed of away from the goats.
As for the buck. I keep my bucks with their herds. In a large enough enclosure it does not flavor the milk, but you will have to figure out if you have the enclosure large enough for yourself. Our dairy herd only has an acre, one buck, and no problems.
Some people worry about the bucks being too rough, but the roughest our's ever got was when strangers entered the pasture with new kids. The kids were not his target! Bucks have a natural role as protector of the herd and as a result are generally very patient with the kids. A buck not allowed to run with a herd his entire life is likely to have behavior problems, he isn't properly socialized, but if your buck has been with a herd he should be fine.
You will have to ensure that he doesn't mate with his own offspring if you are planning to sale, but a single line breeding shouldn't result in any seven legged animals inappropriate for the freezer.
Bucks can get mean to people, again it is a socializing thing, they should be handled just as much as a diary doe. They are not big dogs you can wrestle with. Try it and you will get a head in your back. Fighting is about dominance and they all always want to be number one. Treat a buck with respect but show no tolerance to a challenge of your authority. Like it or not their heads are made for hitting and smacking his head is play. If you need to subdue him grab an ear and twist, think angry nun at catholic school. Watch closely, mother goats often bite ears.
Boer do not do well here, it is too wet. Our native Tennessee Fainting goats don't even have to be de-wormed. The boer get footrot horribly and they have not been here long enough to breed parasite resistance, so they require monthly de-worming or you get a very sick animal very quickly. A good friend had some illness in the family, missed one de-worming and 122 goats died over a three day spread a month later, all from the intestinal and lung worm load, probably drug resistance too. Their fainting goats were still thriving. I tell you this to emphasize that you should ask around and ensure that your breed is well suited to your area or what specific problems they have in that area so that you can take proper precautions. Remember, goats from cool, wet places do best in cool, wet places and goats from hot, dry places do best in hot dry places. Common sense really.
Bonniegirl is right about the fences. We have a saying, "Hog tight and goat high." I suggest a woven wire, we had 7 strands of electrified barbed wire and they still got out. Dairy breeds tend to be better jumpers than meat breeds but they are all more likely to slither, yes slither, through or under a fence than jump it. It is amazing how flexible a goat is. Horse fencing works best. It is a welded wire about 54 inches high with rectangles 2 inches wide by 4 inches high. An electrified strand of barbed wire a couple feet up, nose level,will stop them from rubbing and distorting the fence or trying to jump it. Smooth electric fencing doesn't shock enough to deter them, the barbs will comb through their hair and touch the skin. The bottom of the fence should be staked to the ground so they can't go under. We simply allow our fall leaves to accumulate at the base of the fence. A goat will not go through what it can't see through.
This may or may not be of any need to you, but it is MUCH easier to lead a goat up a hill than down. So if you need to traverse down a hill try a zigzag path rather than a straight path. You will save yourself untold frustration and a few curse words.
Disbudding is an issue you will have to face. We leave all of our goats with horns so they can defend themselves better from dogs and coyotes. But all of our goats are well socialized with people, small children included. You will have to decide what is best for your situation, but there is no need to fear a goat with horns any more than a dog with teeth. It is all determined by how much time you spend with them and whether or not they will need the advantage of horns should they have to defend themselves, horns do make a difference.
Of course if you have small children, horns are at eye level.
Last of all, goats make great pets. They get attached to their people and can be as sweet as kittens, even fully mature sexually active bucks.
"You are a strange little mouse."
"Thank you." -Tale of Despereaux
We too can have low copper levels here, one year we had some sick goats with low copper levels, we now give, one a month, megimmune Cu red which is a vitamin and mineral oral drench with higher copper content (not suitable for sheep) You do have to be mindful of giving too much, it can cause liver failure.
One thing I would suggest is get a soil test done, that way you will know what your soil is lacking, so you can treat accordingly. You only get out of pasture what you put into it. Good quality healthy pasture will give you healthy goats.
So first thing I would do is find out what your land needs, deal to that, then sort fencing and housing.
This is an excellent site : http://fiascofarm.com/ it has a very comprehensive list of good and bad plants for goats. So check that you have nothing that could kill your animals.
If you have trees in your paddocks, for gawds sake protect them somehow, they won't last 5 minutes with goats.
The Mothers of teens now know why some animals eat their young!
But, crump do you already have your goats? Do they have shelter? If not any three sided shelter tall enough for them will do in a pinch while you get something up. Just be sure the opening is away from the prevailing wind and rains. We had nothing more then a tarp tied to tree branches as a quickly accessible shelter for pop up storms, they actually preferred it to the barn in the summer.
The Fiasco website is great for information, and their de-wormer works very well too, I use it on goats, dogs, a cow, chickens, and cats. I don't do the weekly treatment, I just de-worm them because they need it in addition to the DE mix I use. The fecal samples afterward are good. I have noticed with the chemical de-wormers that they sometimes go off their food for a day and seem uncomfortable, especially kids. I haven't been using it long so I am very interested to see if it will continue to work.
But a note on Fiasco. They are here in Tennessee, they will have poisonous plants listed that you do not have and likewise there are poisonous plants you may have that are not listed. So they are difinitely a great starting point but still check with goat keepers nearby.
Hurry save the trees! Bonniegirl could not have said it better. I have read that black walnut, everything except the nut meat, is poisonous to goats. Well, someone forgot to tell my goats because they ate the poor thing. They took every leaf they could reach then gnawed the bark off! The grass around was 3 feet high, but they wanted that tree. The only trees they left alone were the 100+ year old oaks, maples, and tulip populars. Well, after they ate all the leaves they could get at.
They are browsers, this you know, but as a consequence they NEED woody forage for optimal health. If you don't have browse for them, you can suppliement their grass with untreated straw and they will be much better nourished. They have very efficient digestive systems, but they need the woody fibers to slow down grass and grain. They will love you for giving them straw if they have no browse.
Bonniegirl, what are your average temps and rain fall? It seems the boer do much better in New Zealand than they do locally. I'm just trying to figue out what the comfort zone for them is.
"You are a strange little mouse."
"Thank you." -Tale of Despereaux
na havent had them yet waiting on the allotment to come through. i was told that i need the goats chipped and i need to report that i have 4 goats to defra. if i dont i will receive a £1000 fine is this true,
regards,
crump
Hi Crump, you need to get a Holding Number, basically you need to register that you are keeping goats. It's a relatively painless procedure. It's been a while since i did this, but i think you just need to phone the Rural payments agency and register with them 0845 603 7777 . They will give you a holding number but you will need to give then the grid ref of where they are being kept if it's not attached to your house.
If you don't have a number then you and the person selling them to you could be in big doo doo , as defra need to be able to trace all livestock, and will almost certainly fine you. It doesn't cost you to register it just means paperwork whenever you move animals or treat them.
I really wouldn't buy livestock from anyone who doesn't ask for your number when transporting them.
Good heavens. I thought an allotment was only about 3000 square feet.
I assume your defra is the same as our NAIS. Am I correct? They keep track of your animals to prevent disease and food contamination, I presume? But do your large operations, the ones most likely to be a public hazard because of large numbers in crowded conditions, have to participate? Our CAFO and battery operations aren't even asked to participate in NAIS, and they are where every outbreak has come from for the past ten years! Runoff is even responsibe for the spinach contamination that killed people.
We small holders aren't forced to participate in NAIS (yet), I would love to see them try to get some of these incredibly independent mountain people to do that.
"You are a strange little mouse."
"Thank you." -Tale of Despereaux
Hi sortanormalish, sounds like the same as Defra, but we don't have the freedom you do.
Every sheep, goat, cow, pig and llama has to be completely traceable. It has to be tagged at birth and then every time it is moved anywhere that is off your holding you have to fill in forms stating where it is going, how long it was there and why it went.
It's all done for the same reason, so that if there is an outbreak of anything nasty, then they can quickly find out any animals that have been in contact with the infected animals.
As of this year, you also have to show records of any veterinary treatment an animal has had during it's life, before it can go for slaughter. Called FCI (Food Chain Information.)
I suppose it's all for the best, but on a large scale the paperwork must be a nightmare.
I think most people here would be willing IF, big if, the commercial operations had to do it too. They are where the problems are coming from, but they would be excempt. Further, for us it wasn't going to be free. And it wasn't planned to be cheap either. It was a piece of legislation very heavily backed by the commercial meat lobbyists and would have made keeping even a couple laying hens prohibitively expensive. It figured out to about $50 per bird up to 20, then fell to incredibly low $49 up to 100. At 100 you were a small commercial operation, so you got to opt out. The bigger the animal the higher the cost.
I guess you can see why the government spokes people were threatened with violence.
"You are a strange little mouse."
"Thank you." -Tale of Despereaux
