Anemic goat/rant/long

[LittleRedHen]

I know I haven't posted much in awhile but I am super busy with farming/gardening/life! Anyways, I am a relatively new goat farmer (within the last 2 years full time though i had a few off and on here and there in total ignorance) I currently have 7 goats. I have a Nubian Buck, Nigerian dwarf wether (friend to the buck) two little doelings (2 months old) and three Nubian girls. 2 of them freshened this year. One in Feb and one in April. The one in April I bought in .. hmm end of February. Bought her from an ignorant woman and she was an older doe (6 or 7 yrs) She threw me healthy triplets. Her milk right off the bat wasn't impressionable ( posted about it) and since then it greatly shrank. She gives a quart a DAY! sometimes less. Well I was putting the dwarf wether and a doeling up for sale so i could focus on Nubians so I tossed her up for sale too but not as a milker. She was sweet and I didn't want to just cull her nor did I want to take her to an auction and dump her. But with such low milk (whicH I thought was age) I figured she was dragging too much on the feed bill. My husband was laid off again so I am having to reduce critters.

But anyways, so these people come out and look at her. I knew from emails in advance that these people had lost their 8 goats because of a hookworm infestation (had one autopsied because they died rapidly of one another) So I knew they'd be looking hard to make sure my herd was clean. I wasn't here so Dh and the kids talked to them

Well, come to find out, they believe this Doe is Anemic. Okay, I guess I could see how they came to that conclusion. FOr one.. the milk production sucks (though it is in line with what the previous owner told me after i bought her that it was what she was milking at the previous farm) but she has sunken in sides and in gums and eyes have the anemic look. They did check my other goats and said none of the other goats are anemic. For the most part, they have all ran together for months so I don't exactly understand why ONE goat is anemic but not others?? I dewormed this goat just prior to kidding with pellets and a week after kidding with paste.

I had one buck die (only goat i have ever lost) in February. I believe it was weather/storm related though I cannot dismiss the notion maybe worms due to stress of storms BUT, he had been dewormed recently and again, he wasn't the only one in that pen but the others were great.

SO..anyways, back to this Nubian doe. These people told my husband the goat is anemic and were a bit overboard but given the fact they lost 8 goats I could understand. I understand them not wanting to buy it when she appears anemic and they dont want a goat with worms. They suggested a dewormer and so forth.

Well, today I got a long email from her which went on and on about the threat/risks/concerns of hookworm. Because these people lost their goats to hookworm she seems to think that because this goat is anemic that it has to be hookworm and nothing else. She went on and on about it being contagious and that I need to spray my van tires and all of my kids and my/husbands shoes with dilluted bleach water every time we leave our premises. She said to do the same when we get home if we go anywhere near where people would have animals. She said to deworm the goats three times a week for the next few weeks and then once a month and that I need to seperate each goat into its own area. Also that I need to spray dilluted bleach water anywhere the goats have walked. She also seemed to take huge concern that my children walk around barefooted. I guess I get the impression she thinks my yard is a huge biohazard! This county seems to be having issues with hookworms being resistant to paste dewormers from what she said. So again, she has this huge fear about hookworms and I somewhat can see /understand why.

Well anyways... I secluded the anemic goat. I have more shelters now than I did in the winter so she has a nice place to go. I have the buck/wether in their own pen seperated and they were given Safeguard dewormer for stomachworms (its the best TSC seemed to have) Everyone got dewormed with it. The two little ones have been in their own pen for awhile with a week old Jersey calf.

I plan on taking the last two girls and buying a few more cattle panels and giving them a clean area but there is just no way I can put each goat in a seperate pen with a seperate shelter. I cannot afford that! 7 shelters and 7 pens, no way! i don't have a barn.

Anyways, she also told me my calf looks like it has hookworms and its going to die. This is a 10 day old Jersey bull calf. It looks normal! lol... But she says it looks anemic in shape/form. I emailed her back and assured her that he is supposed to look that way. I told her I would take precautions and do my best to get worm loads under control and I do plan on doing that best I can.


BUT, (i didn't say this to her) I don't/can't/won't treat my farm as this bio-hazard! If things were as bad as she was acting, all my goats would be anemic. My mini Nubian gives me 1 1/2 gallons a day- her milk is fine! no one else has any problems. My dog is healthy, barn cats are fine.. etc etc. Just this one doe is Anemic. I don't know why she is anemic but I will call a Vet tomorrow and find out how to get them to check her fecal for worm and find out which worm it is and make sure its treated.

But i am worried/concerned now. I am worried that this woman might check up on me and if i am not taking enough precautions that shes going to cause trouble for me. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe she was just trying to be real careful and wanted to educate me well. But, the fact she thinks my Jersey calf is ill and going to die and that this Anemic goat is destined to die, well, what stops her from calling animal control on me? I don't want trouble. AC wouldn't find anything wrong here but I am a homeschooling mom of 6 barefooted children :P (yes they own shoes but they dont wear them in the yard lol) I guess I don't want CPS called in because this woman is panicked over hookworm while my kids have no shoes on. I don't wear shoes either :P The goats only come out to be milked and put back. My chickens are penned... im not worried about them being barefoot but maybe i am ignorant? I just don'twant trouble here and I have this bad gut feeling that maybe I will have it. I wrote her back and was sweet and kind. ANyways.

Thats my rant and also brings about my question. What do I need to do to this doe? should I just cull her?shes sweet but shes anemic?? is something wrong with her if shes anemic and no one else is? She kidded at the same time as another goat and that goat is fine. Everyone else is fine... What can I do to get her in full health? I am going to dry her up and focus on getting her healthy if its worth doing. Any advice? thanks for reading this far... head hurts from all this thinking

[mawalla]

Humans can become infected with hookworms through ingestion of infective larvae or through direct penetration of the skin. All you should have to do to find out what type of worms your goats have is to take a fresh sample of dung to your vet. You don't need a lot, several berries will do.

[Minelson]

I think that it's a good idea to get a fecal test done and see if she has worms and what kind. Then the vet can tell you what to worm with...what works in your area. Her immunity might be lower than the other goats. She might get stressed more easily and that would make worms more of an issue for her. The poor lady lost her goats and is ultra sensitive about worms because of it. She has probably done a ton of research and wants to tell the world what they should be doing to prevent it from happening to them. BTDT. LOL! Her research may be overboard like a lot of things on the internet. If you have a bad feeling about her getting you in trouble then, if it were me, I would avoid her. There are many dangers of going barefoot...there are many dangers of driving a car too! I learned the hard way to wear shoes after getting shish-ka-bobbed by a 6 inch piece of wood that took a year and many painful trips to the doc to get all the wood out.

[Wonderland]

I'm sorry for your bad experience...I hope that you can find out what's causing the anemia (I second a fecal exam) and fix it for your girl =)

I also hope that the other person is just trying to be extra helpful and doesn't realize she's pushing her boundaries, and that she doesn't cause any serious trouble for you.

Good luck!

[chamoisee]

My impression is that hookworm is very dangerous to children. Where the lady is going off her rocker is in assuming that your goats have it. For your peace of mind, run a fecal. If the lady harasses you again, you can tell her the fecal came up clean, or whatever. She is so freaked out over the loss of her animals that she is seeing the same dosease everywhere she looks. Which isn't to say yours don't have it. But worming 3x a week??? That doesn't sound right. Were her dead goats autopsied by a vet to prove that hookworm is what they died from? It's all kind of kooky.

[saanengirl]

I'm guessing that some ignorant person probably mistook the typical parasite eggs of goats for hookworms. The eggs look similar (although not identical). It is more likely that this lady's goats died of Haemonchus (Barber Pole Worm) infestation than hookworms. Please do not worm your goats 3x per week. Typical parasites of goats are Haemonchus, Ostertagia, and Trichostrongiles. Hookworms are not typical parasites of goats. They are typical parasites of dogs and cats. The eggs are oval shaped with a thin wall. So are the eggs of Haemonchus, Ostertagia, and Trichostrongiles. I think that someone must have looked at a chart for dog and cat parasites while reading the fecal sample she submitted for her goats.

[fishhead]

If your doe is anemic then do a fecal to find out what to treat for and treat it. Keep the results handy in case AC comes calling.

[LittleRedHen]

I plan on calling the vet monday morning to inquire on a fecal. I am going to do her for now. Hubby told me to look around for a good microscope and that I could and should start doing my own to make sure i keep on top of it. There is not a good livestock vet around here. Specially not for goats! I called around last year to try and figure out if the Vet is the one I go to for Scrapies tags or where did I get them. They had no idea what it was. It has been michigan law for over a year that all goats and sheeps have a certain tag with a premise ID and to move a goat/or sell it/ifit leaves your premises it has to be tagged with this certain tag. Well they gave me phone numbers for the state vets office etc etc and coudln't help me at all. Two other vets said they didn't treat goats whatsoever. So... I don't really know which one to turn to but I guess the one who at least claims to treat goats is where I will go to and quickly learn how to do fecals myself. It won't gross me out none.

They said that they had the goats autopsied and they were told it was hook worm. They believe that they brought it in on their shoes when they visited a farm and brought it home with them.All 8 dropped real quick... went from very healthy to dead in short order. Which I guess that is why it didn't make sense to me that my goats would have a problem with it when only one goat was anemic and no one had died from worms.

But yes, they seem to "see" hookworms everywhere! she had told me before that other goats they looked at had it took and that it is a huge problem in this county. So maybe I shouldn't worry so much because I seriously doubt she is turning in every single farm for having "wormy goats"

[LittleRedHen]

I dont know if i made sense... s o trying again...

Before she came here she was raving about hookworms in this county. n(in email) That they had gone to other farms and that it was a big problem in the Boer and Kiko herds they saw. So I guess I should have known they would "find" it here because that is what they were looking for and they are highly scared of it.

[RiverPines]

Safeguard only gets tapeworms.
If you use a good wormer that your areas worms are not resistant too even hookworm would be killed.

I would be paranoid of this persons obsession. People calling animal control seems to be popular these days. I have seen plenty on here think to do that because they suspect something. People defend that reaction by saying if your not doing anything wrong then its no big deal.
I have also seen people get harassed by animal control because how do you prove you didnt do something wrong?

Guilty first and having to prove innocent seems to be the way it goes.

If I were you I would get a fecal to a vet. Any vet can rub a worm fecal from goats. Its really no different than running a dog fecal.
That way you have 'proof' you are doing the best you can for your goats and not just guessing...just in case this person does call animal control.

[saanengirl]

The procedure for running a fecal on goats is the same as for dogs and cats, but you are looking for different parasites. Hookworms are not typical parasites of goats. Haemonchus, Ostertagia, and Trichostrongiles are, and their eggs are similar to those of hookworms.

Something that was diagnosed as a hookworm infestation by a small animal vet is probably really an infestation of one of the above mentioned species.

[Backfourty,MI.]

I don't think anyone can te4ll the type of worm load a goat has just by looking at it. Get your fecal done, just to make yourself feel more at ease if nothing else. I would take in a sample from the ?infected? goat & one from one of your other goats & have them check both & see what they come up with.

I go barefoot around my place all the time! I don't go in the goats pen's, etc. that way but still if your kids are barefoot in their yard I don't know who's business that is but yours, it is summer & your yard. I've been running around when ever possible without shoes on all my life.

The pellet type wormers don't really work in our state or that's what I believe. Safeguard will only take care of the 1 type of worms, Tapeworms? All this talk of different worms the name slips my mind.

Don't worry & things will be fine. She might be anemic & just need the right wormer & in the right dose. When mine kid, I do them that day & then again 10 days later.
Some goats, just like horses I think are like hard keepers.

[moonspinner]

An experienced goat keeper told me to eliminate hookworms you need either Valbazen or a Panacur/Safeguard med. She said if using Safeguard to give 5 days in a row. Anyone hear about this?

[Cannon_Farms]

I have not had time, and dont this morning to go through every responce, but assuming you have tried wormers you may need to send off water samples and blood samples as it can also be copper toximia from too much copper. Since as far as the research I have done there isnt a known level of how much a goat needs or can tolerate, and a goat with too much copper can present animic and it can just effect that one goat as she may not can tolerate it as well as the others or was already gaven more than she could stand from the first owner and it hasnt left her system yet. Good news is that it if it is it can be treated.
There was a good artical in the dairy goat jurnal about copper and was the only reason I bought it was to study it.
I have heard several people of loosing goats to this and it being just the feed alone was making them sick

[Mrs. Jo]

Good grief, this lady is making a lot of assumptions. Man, I want her x-ray glasses. It's kind of amazing that she knew what the problem was just by looking at the goat!


Just some background info: Hookworms eggs look very similar to Huemanchus eggs. Valbazen will only kill one larvae stage of that worm. If you are treating that you will need to use cydectin for the adult worms. Dairygoatinfo.com will have more specific information about how to treat for it. They also have fecal sample pictures of the eggs over there. HC is not the usual parasite of the northern states but if there are a lot of boer and kiko herds that have come up from the southern states they could be bringing them up. I know that has happened here in MN.

But- get a fecal done. This is really the only way to know for sure what this goat has.

You might want to research the famancha guidelines. These were made for diagnosing the HC worm. You should be able to get an idea of how serious is the anemia. It's not unusual to have a run down goat, or a poor doer to be a bit anemic. They do usually have a higher worm count, may need more wormings to stay healthy and a little more care in terms of supplements like copper or BoSe. We are all not equally healthy and neither are our goats so one poor looking goat out of a herd doesn't really mean much.

It's presumptuous of her to assume anything about your herd based on her poor experience. She lost her 8 goats right? So just be careful how much you listen to her.

[mpete]

Are you sure your doe is anemic? just because her gums look a little pale? The vet can do a blood test. I would try not to get so upset, although I know its hard. I hate it when people who are just there try to judge you. Take a deep breathe...

[Cannon_Farms]

As far as TSC and wormers, you have to go outside the box or into a box rather and use horse wormers for the goats, in general its 3xs the dose, but because quest can be harsh I 2xs the does 2xs in a week. Pyrantel Potemate (sp?) aka panacure or other name brand (pyrantel is drug name) is what is used to normally get rid of hookworms with it being a fairly mellow wormer to the goat you can use it several days in a row. I
I would also inform this worman that she needs to do the research on too much copper in animals as that is another cause of this goats "symtoms" and to put that in her pipe and smoke it.
BTW, i used to raise dogs, we had a huge outbreak of hookworms and didnt even know it until i was really bad, and even though you can catch them in your feet, we fellow bearfeat and loving it people never had an issue, and I wore flip flops while cleaning out the kennel. Its normally going to be an issue only for those with weakend immune systems.

[saanengirl]

Pyrantel Palmoate is often sold under the brand name of Strongid. Panacur is a Fenbendazole. If you use Quest (Moxidectin) or Cydectin (also Moxidectin) you only have to deworm once because it will stay in the system for a while. If you use Pyrantel or a bendazole (Panacur, Safeguard, or Valbazen) you will have to worm twice about 10 days to 2 weeks apart. These are all short-lived in the body.

And, as I said before, the person was probably dealing with Haemonchus, not hookworms.

[gina kay]

I saw an ad in Hobby Farms about a goat wormer by Safeguard and saw it in my feed store. It's a small bottle and cost $24 but it lists 3 worms that it treats. I don't remember the scientific names of them though.