Concerned about the wild fluctuations in weather here

[CraterCove]

These past couple of years the cycles of winter seem to be a bit off-- I blame the earth quake in Chile that really big one. I heard one report that said the quake altered the tilt of the axis by 3 inches. Anyway...

So I am concerned about keeping my goat's condition up when one day it's near 80 and the next the wind is like razor blades and the rain is freezing on the way down. They have shelter and each other... and since goats are severely messy eaters they have a plentiful deep bed of spent hay.

I was wondering if any of you use show food, high protein fat ratio but has special ingredients that prevent stones in the urinary tract for boys. Would you get that for a working buck? I have high protein feed and mineral supplement for my girl but what can I give him as well but not have to worry about killing him. (I have to admit I have fallen more in love with my buck that my doe! He's so friendly and sweet... and I love the rut smell. :-P call me a freak but it is really strong and smells good in the same way really good cooking down compost smells, Thick and healthy)

Anyway, also, where online do you buy your copper boluses from. What do you guys think about the vitamin squirts for after birth for the doe? What about the calorie rich liquid they sell for the kids to give them right after they are born? Is the colostrum not enough? What about products like Red Cell for blood rebuilding? Would that be something to consider giving a doe after birth?

I had concerns that my doe wasn't pregnant any longer after being transported from Florida to Texas *sigh* Long story there... but she I am confident she is, still going to do a blood draw and send it in though, just to be sure. But my buck is no longer peeing all over himself and they seem to have both 'settled'. Anyway... kind of having a small bustle of 'what do I do and what have I forgotten' now that we are more or less moved in.

[CaliannG]

Adult, healthy goats need someplace to go that is DRY for when it is cold, and SHADED for when it is hot. Of course, it is the joy of our climate that these two extremes can happen on the same day. Such is Texas!

A doe that is giving birth needs someplace that is DRY and WARM if it is cold outside, and SHADED and VENTILATED if it is hot outside.

As long as they have these things, they will be fine.

Now, all that being said, I admit that if I know that it is going to be exceptionally cold, I add a little extra to the feed. Yes, even for the boys. Getting some high fat/ high protein stuff when blizzards come through is NOT going to kill your buck...as long as he isn't getting it *every day* for weeks on end.

Today, my one doe left that is in milk (she seems insistent about STAYING in milk, too...I haven't seemed to have been able to slow her down and dry her up....and here it is mid-winter, and her production has gone UP... she is doing this to make me crazy) got her regular feed on the stand, which nowadays is 18% lactation pellet with some alfalfa mixed in.

However, due to it being cold, EVERY BODY, milking, dry, pregnant, boy, whatever, got a mixture of 2 parts 18% lactation pellet mixed with 6 parts alfalfa pellets and dressed with 1 part soybean meal and 1 part rice bran, fed LIBERALLY inside the barn.

This will not work for everyone's goats. My goats, when they get full, will leave their food dishes with them half full, go lay down, and chew cud, or whatever. Some people's goats, no matter how full they are, will eat until there is not one grain left in the food dish, and then bloat and die. I am just lucky to have goats that will not eat themselves to death, no matter how much grain or pellets are available to them.

At any rate, this keeps the goats wanting to stay inside the barn where it is warm, rather than out and about browsing. NOT that they have not gone out today to browse anyway, even though they have all the hay they might need, along with pellets, etc., right there in the nice, warm, dry, draft-free barn. I do NOT understand.

They do that to make me crazy.

Now, as for the rest of your questions:

1. Copper Boluses can be gotten from Valley Vet, Jefferson's, or often, your local feed supply. However, they will be for *cattle*, and you will have to break them open and measure out doses small enough for GOATS.

2. I don't believe in vitamin squirts; I do believe in giving SHOTS of B-12 after birth. Not to mention other things. Check out Fiasco Farms kidding guide.

3. I don't do much of anything to kids unless they are looking unhealthy or have some sort of problems, besides the regular "being born procedure". If they are unhealthy in some way, into the house they go, with TONS of squirts, calories, warming lamps, yadda, yadda, yadda. The biggest, most helpful thing to do for a kid after it is born is get it warm and dry, and KEEP it warm and dry.

4. Red Cell is GREAT if you have a goat that has suffered from a heavy parasite load, or has otherwise lost a lot of blood. Otherwise, I don't consider it a panacea for all problems.

As for what you do and what you have forgotten, don't worry too much about it. *smiles* I promise that once you realize your doe is, indeed, in labor, everything you have been very careful to write down to make sure you won't forget it will be a moot point for two reasons:

A. You forgot where you put it in all the excitement.

B. You never did notice she was in labor because she decided to have them in the middle of the night, while you were asleep, quietly, and you went out to the barn for the morning feeding and was greeted by having more goats than you had the night before.

At any rate, good luck!

[Laverne]

I have light weight coats and heavier quilted coats for my two milkers and put on either depending on temperatures. They don't shiver and don't drop in milk production so it's beneficial for them and me.

[CraterCove]

Thanks so much... I think really most of what I am feeling is first kidding nerves. I like getting confirmation about things from people who have more experience than I do, even when I am pretty sure I know the score. Never hurts to have someone recount with you.

Sunny is an experienced mother and has produced twins every time but her first. I am sure she will have things well in hand.

Thanks for the advice about the feed. I want to make sure no one suffers any loss of condition. I am very concerned with keeping them in good shape. I have already had to recondition my doe, when I got her the old man had let her feet go to hell and I had to get weight on her... I don't want her to backslide at all because I moved them and the weather.

[Backfourty,MI.]

There is a pelleted food that has ammonium chloride in it to help bucks & wethers from getting stones. The only thing with a medicated feed they need the right amount for their body weight to make sure they get the proper amount of medication for their weight. Even feeding the food with AC in it some folks still mix extra AC in their boys mineral dish with their mineral or will top dress their feed.

I don't think anything should go in a newborn baby goats tummy except momma's colustrum & then her milk unless something is wrong with it. I do poke a hole in a Vitamin E capsule & squirt that in the newborn's mouth the day they are born but nothing else.


Cannon Farms here on HT makes up copper boluses for the size of your goat & sell's them if you don't want to buy a big tub of them & then re-make the bolus to the right size. Send her a PM. She had a thread up a week or so ago about having the boluses all ready for this year for anyone that needed any.

[CaliannG]

CraterCove, are you (and respectively, your goats) currently in Texas or in Georgia? If you are in Texas, and semi-sorta-close to me (by Texas standards. Realize that I drive over an hour and a half just to visit friends for the day who are members of the bamboo society. I consider them to be semi, sorta close to me.), it is possible that I, or someone I know local, would be able to help you out.

[julieq]

It gets severely cold here (usually with high winds) at the drop of a hat. Our ND's are all in the barn, but temps still get below freezing at nights quite often. We don't do anything different at all as far as feeding free choice alfalfa hay, their normal grain and supplement rations and just run heated buckets all winter long.

We put aluminum chloride in our bucks' Golden Blend mineral salt free choice and haven't ever had a problem with UTC.

[CraterCove]

I am currently in Texas, West of Austin in the hills where Nameless used to be. I am not liking this Texas weather. In both GA and at our property in Fl we had barns on the property already and all was good... here we are renting and I had to build a fence and a shelter.

I think that the ground is far to cold to just let the ground be bare in a small shelter. I am going to build a raised floor to insert into the shelter and I am thinking about hanging an old curtain across the front as well.

I would love a mentor I could actually see and speak to in person... I learn best in the fire, so to speak, hands on.

I had been feeding a peanut/ timothy mix in Florida and Georgia. I wish I could find that somewhere out here.

[CaliannG]

Out here, you have coastal and tiftin for your grasses, and VERY EXPENSIVE alfalfa if you want legumes. Most of us feed pellets and supplement it with grass hay.

This is NOT normal weather for the area...trust me. Even for the Hill Country. We might see a winter where it dips in the teens in Central Texas perhaps once a decade...and sometimes not even then.

For warmth here, you might want to build directly on the ground. The ground is WARM here, and radiates warmth. To give you a hint:

For tonight, I let all of the chickens out of their separate coops and cages so that they keep warm together. I also left all of those cages, hutches, and coops open so that the chickens could PICK the warmest spots to huddle together....and to heck with breeding, I simply won't incubate anything for the next two weeks.

The chickens are NOT choosing to get into the soft, comfy coop that my Soochies ran around in, with the deep straw, but elevated. They are not choosing the elevated hutches with the shavings or other bedding.

They are choosing to stay on the ground...not even on roosts, but on the ground in the southwest corner. The wild birds are roosting on the ground too, the bluebirds and such, because the ground is warmer than the air.

And that is why we tend to build on the ground here. And believe you me, come summer, the critters are GRATEFUL for that nice, cool ground... and in summer, it will be cooler than the ambient air.

We have 8 months of summer, 1 1/2 months of spring, 1 1/2 months of fall.....and two weeks of winter here with about half the rainfall that you are accustom to having and NONE of the Atlantic breezes to cool things off....but nearly the same humidity. Build your barns and sheds with an eye to severe summer weather. Face them East, not South.

And as soon as I am not so busy my brain is in constant implosion, I will look up some of the folks near you. You are about 2-3 hours from me.

[CraterCove]

You have no idea how much I appreciate the tips... I have not lived in this part of the country before and had no idea what to really expect with the weather. Also, as I think everyone is experiencing, the weather is hardly typical this year.

I actually went out, bare feet (not all that unusual for me even in winter temps) and tested the ground temp myself. It is warmer than I expected.

I really would appreciate getting to know some goat people who are near enough to visit and learn from, or just speak to over the phone.