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just bought "rescued" skinny goat- advice

1K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  mekasmom 
#1 ·
Hi all! I adopted a very tiny, boney doe today. The situation was pretty bad and my heart is too big sometimes. The owner guessed her age at 4 months, and said she just weaned her off goat formula. Her horns seem quite long, but she's very tiny and very skinny. I'm a sheep farmer and need some advice.

So my plan:
-Deworm her in the morning (ivermectin, orally)
-Buy some packaged goat feed. I'm assuming its grain based and could help bulk her up. Thoughts? I do not feed my sheep grain so this is new for me.
-Buy some black oil sunflower seeds. I read about these somewhere, so I'm going to try them. Is this the same as black sunflower seeds sold for birds??

Any other suggestions? I'm going to the feed store in the morning. Should I put her back on milk? The owner guessed she's 4 months, but I have 6 week old lambs much larger than her. She's supposed to be an Oberhasli.

Thank you for any help.
 
#3 ·
Pictures could help us determine the actual condition of this animal. Oberhaslis are a dairy breed. What you think is "skinny" might be perfectly normal for a just weaned Oberhasli. You can do far more harm to a goat by overfeeding, than underfeeding. Abrupt changes in diet, and too much nutrient dense food can set the stage for them to go from healthy but a little skinny, to writhing on the ground with agony and dead within a few hours. (enterotoxemia) I have seen more than a few goats "killed with love" by newbies, and run into a lot of well meaning people that had no idea what a healthy dairy goat was supposed to look like.
 
#4 ·
Milk is not necessary at this point. A small pen with high quality hay hung up where it won't get fouled with muddy feet and poop is essential. Grain should be present in small amounts. Often they go through a stubborn period, hoping that someone will put a teat in their mouth, and they will starve themselves instead of eating solid food. If large quantities of sweet grain are present, it may suddenly gorge if it decides to eat. Lots of fun watching them scream on the ground, kicking their sides with their eyes rolled back in their heads, rolling around and suffering for a couple hours before they finally die. Of course there are shots that will help prevent that, but most rescuers don't bother with that level of self education, preparedness, or capital outlay. Path of least resistance is to just go ahead and kill them with ignorance and kindness, and then blame the mean old breeder that you got a healthy, but (perceived to be)skinny, goat kid from.

Sorry, but posts like this trigger me. These are the reasons that we don't sell any goats that aren't top notch milkers marketed to serious buyers, and keep all our bucks and culls to send to a terminal goat market. Much better to have their heads whacked off by whatever middle easterner that bids the highest than killed by some well meaning ignoramus that is going to launch a twitter campaign against our farm.
 
#6 ·
It feels really good to vent frustrations and anger at a stranger, but even though its a stranger, I'm always left with a pit of stress waiting for the person to respond back. Not worth ruining the peace of the day. I totally get and appreciate your passion barnbilder... I'm sure in real life we could be friends :)

How do you feel about worming her? I worm cautiously and worry about resistance but I think in this case, it might be a good start? What would you do?

I don't know the status on a cd&t vaccine. Even with the cd&t, there are other strains that could cause enterotoxemia. I plan to vaccinate her when I give my lambs their 2nd dose. Thank you for the reminder to start slow on feeding :)

The seller was not the breeder. She had 20+ babies from various breeds that she got from auction and it all got too overwhelming. I ultimately want a dairy goat, and I also needed a companion for one of my weaned lambs. I thought it was a good opportunity to have both, help out a goat, and take some stress off the goat lady who needed to unload a few. I do know that dairy goats can be boney looking. This girl has no fat whatsoever and its just skin over ribs.
 
#9 ·
An ober should be 'dairy' but not 'bony'.

I'd start with a quality HAY first. Put her in a situation where she is in no or low competition. Since she is new to your farm, I always STRONGLY reccomend biosecurity isolation as bringing in new animals is a great way to spread a whole range of diseases into your established herd - from the annoying lice, to significant game-changers like Johnes or CL.

Work SLOWLY up to about a pound or more of coccidistat medicated feed, a calf starter or lamb starter would be just fine. At least 2 feedings per day to prevent slug feeding problems.

I would do a direct treatment for coccidia after collecting a fecal and running one at home. If you don't have the capability of doing that, then either use your vet or 'blind' deworm. Being judicious about deworming is great. I'd use multiple products to cut resistance problems, but deworming one animal should not contribute much to whole-herd parasite resistance problems in that the refugia is well maintained in the un-dewormed animals.

Here, she'd also be given copper bolus, CDT, and BoSe and probably deloused as well. Copper bolusing at time of deworming can really help cut parasite problems as a supplement to deworming.

What are your goals for her? If she's that tiny at 4 months, her prognosis for a working life are slim, to be honest. If it's as a pet, she will do great once she's out of the woods. :)
 
#10 ·
Collection of goats from various sale barns screams of a good way to end up with CL, Johnes,and who knows what else on your farm. From a purely statistical standpoint, coccidiosis is probably a bigger issue than worms at this point, and she might be suffering from coccidia damage to her intestines even though she has been treated and cleared. Donna gave good advice as always. Do fecals or get a vet to, or else do a shotgun approach. Hay, good quality hay. An animal can't starve to death if it is eating good quality hay, might not have as high a rate of gain, but it won't starve. A belly full of hay can nurse along a lot of other issues until you get them straightened out, much better than a belly full of grain. "Well, she's eating hay" is a phrase often uttered here. Usually means "she" is going to make it. Kind of a sigh of relief.
 
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