Little!!??

[Bubbas Boys]

We had our first goat kids born on our farm last year. We raise Nubians. Out of the ones we had, we have 1 doeling and a little buck. Doe was born April 17, she is about 25-30 lbs, the little buck was born May 25th and he is maybe 40 lbs. We kept thinking they were small but were going to grow. They are not! We were with them a lot and never saw any signs of loose stools and they were and are healthy acting and active. What are opinion on what this could be. We don't want to continue down this line. Thanks!

[marusempai]

Have you treated for coccidia? The big sign of that in goats is not scours, but stunting. What are you feeding them?

[mygoat]

Coccidia/parasites and/or nutrition. Parasites don't necessarily present with diarrhea to be extremely damaging and stunting. Coccidia control, worm control, and adequate feeding are VITAL to getting kids to make it to breeding age their first fall. Proper gains are 10lbs per month on top of birth weight. An kid born at 8 lbs should be 18lbs at 1 mon, 28lbs at 2 mon. Those are MINIMUM weights, many people can get them bigger faster. That means by 7-8 months of age, they are around 80lbs and ready to breed their first fall. Bucks intended for breeding need to be managed as well as doelings - don't skimp on their care as a growthy buckling is one that is vigorous and likely able to perform his first fall as well. We free feed grain until around 4 ish months of age to young kids, and then we ration to about a lb per day or more of a 2:1 Ca: P lamb grower feed with Lasacosid (coccidia prevention in ADDITION to young kids receiving other forms of prevention earlier in life!), Alfalfa pellets, baking soda, minerals, extended milk feedings etc. Replacing nutrition after weaning is important for continued good growth, which is why we choose to use grain especially in years where hay quality is middling-average. I also wanted to try medicated feed again and rely on it more heavily in the older kids to see how well it works - seems to be doing good as we do minimal prevention treatments past 50-60lbs weight or so. We do regular monitoring fecals at the place that does 5.00 FAST fecals : http://midamericaagresearch.net/

[Clovers_Clan]

Do you know the G6S status of both the dam and sire? Its a long shot but should be ruled out if cocci prevention, parasite control and healthy diet were adequate.

[mygoat]

G6S status is interesting idea. It would be unlucky if both of your only two kids were both affected but not impossible! I feel like G6S often kills before 9 months of age - granted I'm not a Nubian breeder - but I do know it usually kills before they reach breeding age, a handful of months old. Were these kids related?

[Bubbas Boys]

Well, we had a wether, the buck and the doe. The wether was healthy and active as well and he dropped dead this fall with no signs or reasons! We did not treat for cocci at all. They were the only 3 kids born here last year.

[nehimama]

My very first thought was "Coccidiosis."

[Bubbas Boys]

The 3 goats we are speaking of including the one who died for no reason that we know of have the same Sire. All 3 different Dams. We did just find out that the Sire died this past summer at about 16 months for no reason the breeder said. We have been getting kicked in the teeth from most of the goats we have. All of them came from same breeder. Guess we should have been more careful. I have got tons of good advise on here yet we kept buying from same guy cause he was close and handy, not cheap though! Thanks!!

[Bubbas Boys]

Guess we will put upcoming kids on prevention plan like we should have last year and hope for the best. Can anyone give me exactly what we should give them and when for new kids? Thanks

[mygoat]

http://www.dairygoatinfo.com/f28/coc...s-doses-21499/

That is a good resource with products to use and dosages. Coccidia prevention includes multiple treatments through their young life. You start their first round when they are 3 weeks old and repeat every 3 weeks until 'well grown'.

Here, we use Baycox or Dimethox. We pull kids at birth, so we just squirt the drug in the milk and bottle feed it to the kids. Dimethox tastes nasty so once the kids are getting to 40-60lbs the dose is so large that they avoid drinking milk.

At 2 weeks, we begin feeding a 2:1 Ca: P balanced, ammonium chloride already added feed - 18% lamb grower or goat grower. We use medicated feed - contains lasacosid or deccox or rumensin. (avoid rumensin/monensin if you have horses on property). Free choice this until about 4 months or so, then restrict to 1-1.5lbs per day or so. We mix it 2 parts grain with 1 part alfalfa pellets and end up feeding at least around 1.5 lbs of the mix per day.

Last year I used baycox which doesn't taste bad and could continue dosing that as long as I liked, but I am still pretty sure we stopped medicating around 60lbs? Wish I could remember. This year I'll probably use dimethox because I want to use my reserves of baycox only as needed.

[Bubbas Boys]

I have heard you mention before that you pull kids and bottle feed. We have been back and forth on that and we are wanting to know what your reasons are. Thanks!

[TRAILRIDER]

That's tough luck, Bubbas Boys. You can only do your best. I had never even heard about GS6 before now. Now I've got one more thing to worry about!

[mygoat]

- We want all the milk so we can use and ration it out to kids. We do milk shares so we want to make every body happy.

- We are on DHIR and while it can be done while dam raising, I don't want the extra work of having to train the kids to take a bottle as well as dam raising so I can bottle feed them on the test day... I also don't like the idea of having to catch all the dam raised kids somewhere so they cannot bust out and suck all the test milk out of their dams.

- I *hate* untame dairy kids, and we don't have the time or desire to spend hours with kids to tame them down. I used to have success with it when I had just a couple kids born at a time and had a lot more time to spend in the barn, but it takes conscious effort and between my business and my father just wouldn't consider it a daily chore - they would not be tame. I am not there but even if I was, I often become too busy and don't take the time to interact daily. If we dam raise, they will not be tame. If we don't have time to tame them in the beginning, we REALLY don't have time to tame them as FF'ers on the milkstand so a doeling would be ruined for life - we wouldn't keep her, she wouldn't sell for much, and she'd go to be a brood/meat doe most likely. We don't find our bottle kids are obnoxious either.

- As part of parasite prevention, I do like raising my kids apart from the adults. I like moving their smaller pens to reduce diseases from parasites as well as bacterial scours.

- I like being able to sell the kids ASAP that I'm not planning on keeping - I don't want to have to pay for vaccinations, coccidia prevention, deworming or trim hooves on animals I'm not keeping. I do tattoo and disbud however. Bucklings usually sell cheap and fast. Doelings can go to new homes at just a few days as well, but due to higher prices may not sell as fast, but at least I don't mind putting in resources for them like I do bucklings I'm not keeping.

- Much, much easier to do coccidia prevention IMO. I hate giving large volumes of disgusting tasting oral fluids (prevention) for 5 days in a row to untame dam raised kids. If they were scared before they try even harder when you come at them every 3 weeks with syringes full of the nasty stuff - and they spit alot right out into the dirt and waste it. I'm also not home for 5 days in a row and I wouldn't ask my father to do it either. :P

- I find bottle raising extremely easy and fast. Many people start out (myself included) making it much harder than it is. The process streamlines when you know what works and what doesn't. The longest part by far is walking to the barn and then holding the bucket while they suck down their milk. Clean up of the bucket takes just a couple minutes with the hose sprayer on the sink, and set up is mostly microwave time for the milk. (we put it in a plastic bucket that fits in the microwave, which we then set inside of the lambar instead of putting the milk directly in the lambar). After the sale kids are gone for the year, we stop pasteurizing and feed our keeper kids raw (we are a tested herd). We pasteurize to drink anyways as we think the flavor is much better and it lasts longer pasteurized. We use a double broiler and the sink to chill.

[Bubbas Boys]

Wow, tons of great info. Thanks!