Goat(s) spitting up 'great green gobs'

[WashingtonBay]

Hi

New to your forum, was recommended to me by a friend from my own horse forum, as a good forum for info on goats!

I have four backyard goats as pets, they live and graze around our yard/compound during the day and in the aisle of our barn at night.

Been finding these chewed up gobs of grass in the aisle in the morning, not even sure which goat(s) is/are doing this.

I think it's undigested, meaning, I think they must be spitting this up, it's not coming out the other end, everything that's coming out the other end looks like the normal little black marbles.

No goat looks sick, all goats appear to be OK... but I'll be watching them today and trying to find out more. Just not sure how worried to be about this, and/or whether I should try to split them up tonight to figure out which one(s) might be doing it.

All the goats seem fine, seem perky, they graze around and do goat things all day, nothing seems wrong with any of them. Their weight is good.

I have pictures of the green gobs, and the goats, but as a new member, it's not letting me post them yet. Can try later if needed

 

[redtailgal]

Hi! Welcome to the group!

You are right there is a wealth of information on this site! Some of the pro's will be on here soon and they would give you better information than I do.

I am new to goats, but not so new with cattle.
What you are seeing, I think is cud.

I have seen cattle do this.

How old are your goats? Older animals have a harder time chewing and sometimes spit out and coarser cud that they dont want to have to chew.

Have you ran a fecal on them? I know with Cattle, stomach worms will occasionaly cause this.

Does your goat have any abcess's in the throat? dont forget the possibility of an internal abcess, I know of two heifers that dropped cud because of an abcess inside the throat or mouth. Feeding coarse or very harshly stemmy hay can cause a lot of internal abcesses.

Check their teeth and gums........do they have a gum infection or sore tooth?

One old cow here will drop her cuds every spring, I finally figured out it was the wild onions that she didnt like.

Go around and say "HI" to some other new people so that you can have enough posts to put up a pic.

 

[WashingtonBay]

Hi! Welcome to the group!

You are right there is a wealth of information on this site! Some of the pro's will be on here soon and they would give you better information than I do.

Thanks!

I am new to goats, but not so new with cattle.
What you are seeing, I think is cud.

I think so too... though I've never seen cud... some looks very undigested, long grass in it, some moreso, look like rather loose horse 'apples' in consistency.

How old are your goats? Older animals have a harder time chewing and sometimes spit out and coarser cud that they dont want to have to chew.

They vary... Two are young (less than two years) male Nigerian Dwarf wethers, two are older females, don't even know how old, they were given to me. One is a Pygmy, one is a Toggenberg.

I have been wondering myself if a suspect might be dental problems in one of the older girls.

Have you ran a fecal on them? I know with Cattle, stomach worms will occasionaly cause this.

No, I haven't.

Does your goat have any abcess's in the throat? dont forget the possibility of an internal abcess, I know of two heifers that dropped cud because of an abcess inside the throat or mouth. Feeding coarse or very harshly stemmy hay can cause a lot of internal abcesses.

Check their teeth and gums........do they have a gum infection or sore tooth?

Have not checked for things like this either.... Though they are pet goats, they aren't "petting zoo" tame, at least the older girls aren't. Though they will follow me in for dinner, we have to do a bit of rodeoing to catch them for things like foot trimming so I haven't done a 'hands on' for any of them yet.

Was hoping to have an idea which one to wrangle first, and what to check for.

One old cow here will drop her cuds every spring, I finally figured out it was the wild onions that she didnt like.

Wondering if they don't like the new grass hay. It's a good quality grass hay, but it's not the alfalfa they really want. They used to get a mix, but I'm not feeding alfalfa to the horses any more, and they really miss that. When I feed them the grass hay, they look at me like "OK, this is what we sleep on, where's the real FOOOD!" They're all digging for leftover alfalfa leaves in the hay room when they get a chance.

Go around and say "HI" to some other new people so that you can have enough posts to put up a pic.

How many posts does it take?

 

[Natisha]

Hi WB, I hope you get answers soon. I know how much your goaties mean to you.

 

[WashingtonBay]

Thanks,.... Thanks for recommending the site to me

 

[elevan]

When you reach around 10 posts you'll be able to post pics.

You'll find your post count
<<<-----------Here

Here are some links on posting photos when you're ready:
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=97
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=13987

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now to your questions.

RTG gave you some pretty good answers (she might be new to goats but learning fast )

It's cud. I know it's gross, but try smelling it...does it smell oniony or sour? That may explain why whoever is spitting it out is doing so.

I'd try putting out some baking soda free choice and hopefully who ever is doing it will take some...it may also be due to an upset stomach.

Definitely run a fecal. It may or may not be related but knowing your worm situation is never a bad thing...you have to know where you stand.

Check the jaw of each of your goats to make sure one of them isn't retaining cud. When they do this it kind of gets stuck around the hinge of their jaw. If one of them is, then that's probably your culprit. A vet will need to fix the problem so it doesn't keep happening.

 

[WashingtonBay]

I'll do all of those things tonight when hubby's here to help wrangle them, try to figure out which one(s) is/are doing this. I'm fairly new to goats also, had horses a long time, only had goats since we picked up the two dwarfs, as an impulse buy

I've not wormed them since the two wethers were at the vet to be neutered as babies. The two girls, the prior owner wormed regularly, she said, they were given to me this last summer.

I guess I should know more about worming them than I do... What wormers should they be given and how often? Or do you recommend occasional fecals and worming as needed from that? That is the routine I've adopted with the horses of late.

 

[elevan]

I would suggest you read the Parasite Management link in my signature for getting a basic understanding of worms in goats.

It's a "big" read, so don't read the whole thing at once...it was the culmination of my notes from 3 seminars and a field day. There's a lot of other member's input in there too.

De-Worming on a schedule is bad news imo. Always run a fecal. But know what to look for so you don't go broke running fecals to the vet.

 

[WashingtonBay]

Will read

My vet who neutered them had said to me , rightly or wrongly, that he'd wormed them then, that since they were moving to a place that had not had goats previously, they would not likely have parasite problems... at least right away. But to run fecals from time to time.

I guess now should be one of those times?

 

[WashingtonBay]

The vet above also had said not to over-use wormers.

And this is a strategy I've adopted with my horses as well. No longer giving them wormer every two months 'whether they needed it or not' the way we used to.