Yikes.

[jodief100]

I suspect the problem is while the 20 goats have acess to 15 wonderful acres of weedy pasture, they like to graze the same 1/4 acre in front of the barn first, then they go down into creek bed and then out to the pasture.

Creatures of habit... GRRRRRRRRR.

I was just thinking since the stalls have the highest concentarion of poop, even though they aren't grazing in there it would keep them from spreading outward. The stalls are 3 sided and completly open on the lee side, just a short worm crawl to the pasture.

 

[cmjust0]

They're lucky to make it the few inches up a wet blade of grass... They're so tiny that a single droplet of water can contain dozens of them...with room to move around. Practically microscopic.

As such, my understanding is that they don't really do lateral...only vertical.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

FAMACHA was more or less designed around meat goats. Meat goats will always have a tendency to carry more condition than dairy goats, and condition allows them to carry more fluid. More fluid means more ample hydration. My thinking is that the more amply hydrated the goat, the better its FAMACHA scores are going to be. So, unless your dairy goat is just obese...I'm thinking that FAMACHA might be a bit misleading.

That's just me thinking, though.. I'm also wondering whether FAMACHA scores would be affected by the time of day they're taken, the forage the animal's been on, quality of the animals' water source (self-rationing on nasty water), etc.

Actually, FAMACHA was originally done with sheep in South Africa. Then they did more testing on sheep and goats and found it to be 92% effective. The pictures on the chart are sheep pics.

 

[glenolam]

What the heck is going on here!?!?!

One or two mentions of worms and BAM! My healthy goats get shot to sh*t!

OK, so maybe not THAT severe, but I did a more thorough look over of all my goats Friday night and I was concerned about my littlest doeling, Tinkerbell, who weighs all of 10-15# at 4 mos old. Her twin sister is at least 25# and just tanks her.

Everyone's eyelids were nice and salmon, save for Tinkerbell and Fairy Mary, the doeling pygmys.

Fairy Mary was OK but I hit her up with Ivomec anyway.

Tinkerbell - holy cow. I never really had a problem so I never knew what going bad might look like. I would have given her at best a 3, borderline 4.

She does have mites, too, so poor little gal is just hit from head to toe.

Luckily enough, though, everyone else looks free and clear of mites!

The only reason I never suspected anything was wrong was because since I brought them home 3 weeks ago she's been right on bouncing, jumping, eating, pooping - everything a "regular" kid should be doing. They got their wormer as soon as I brought them home because I had no idea about their history, but sheesh!

Guess these threads are all coming up at a good time.....or are they??

 

[cmjust0]

Actually, FAMACHA was originally done with sheep in South Africa. Then they did more testing on sheep and goats and found it to be 92% effective. The pictures on the chart are sheep pics.

I was speaking to the way FAMACHA has been applied to goats in the US... Probably shouldn't have said "designed"...implemented, perhaps? Suggested? Imported?

I dunno..

Point being, here, it's was primarily meant to be a meat goat thang.

 

[cmjust0]

What the heck is going on here!?!?!

One or two mentions of worms and BAM! My healthy goats get shot to sh*t!

Worms are on the radar right now for the same reason why your healthy goats just suddently seem to have come down with worms....because it's July.

Barberpoles are on schedules, too.. There's a season for them, and we're right in the thick of it. It's gonna get worse before it gets better.

 

[Roll farms]

I went down w/ a bottle of Valbazen today (everyone's open) and checked alllll the eyelids. One doe was WHITE, which doesn't surprise me b/c she's always 'the one' who seems to need dewormed.

One kid was pale, but not scarily so, and 2 adults.

I dosed all the kids (to be safe) and the 3 adults. I will be checking weekly now until frost.

18 girls, 3 boys, and 2 visitors, I think is about where we are, numbers-wise.
Also confirmed that both visitors are now bred and can go home.
I can collect my pimpin' fee and Chaos can go back to his bach quarters w/ Rider and Buddy.

To top it off, DNR dumped a fawn off on me and he's a bit pale too....he'll be getting the DiMethox regiment next time the kids are due, as well.

Summer means "never ending parasite patrol" here in IN....

 

[cmjust0]

My little dude's back up to about a FAMACHA 3 as of last night.. Pretty good improvement since, what...this past Thursday, was it? Cydectin Inj., Safe-Guard (x3, x3), Ivomec drench, Bo-Se, and day after day of Red Cell..

All the kids hate me right now, btw.. Two nights ago, I counted 17 drenches across like 8 kids, and last night was about 12 or 14 on six.. Dimethox, Safe Guard, Red Cell.. They run when they see me coming.

I don't particularly enjoy it either, frankly...throwing hay after getting your hands all sticky with meds isn't much fun.



Oh, and I learned something else...ya know how they cough and spit and hack and act like they're DYING when you give them a sulfa by mouth? Well...I made the mistake of putting the plunger end of a syringe between my teeth to hold it AFTER having given several DiMethox drenches.....and there was apparently some DiMethox on the plunger.

It actually is that gross. Not an over-reaction at all.

 

[cmjust0]

To top it off, DNR dumped a fawn off on me and he's a bit pale too....he'll be getting the DiMethox regiment next time the kids are due, as well.

Summer means "never ending parasite patrol" here in IN....

Last year, I saw MANY green puddles in the woods from the local whitetail population.. Now, I dunno if it was bugs or what, but if you looked closely at them (which I did... ) you could see tiny holes in the poo..

Could have been something burrowing in, but for some reason, it looked more like something burrowing OUT.

Gross...and disturbing.

Kinda cool that they entrust you with orphaned fawns, though.. I've thought before that I might like to try my hand at raising a whitetail someday.

How much different is it than raising a goat? Probably not much, I'd guess..

 

[Roll farms]

This fawn is the meanest by far that we've had....I'm looking forward to 'setting him free'...he comes at me on his back legs, hitting w/ his front legs, at bottle times. I tried to get him to nurse from a bucket but he beat the tar out of me trying to get the bucket hung / was too interested in chewing me up to take the nipple....he knows milk flows out of me somehow, he wanted no part of the bucket.

I've raised 8, 2 didn't make it of the 8.

One died from 'an internal anomoly' according to the post (figure that's why mama abandoned her, she knew something was wrong) and one of this year's died the day after they brought her to me...some nimwhit had raised her on human formula for 3 days, and she was near death when she got here. I tried but couldn't turn her around.

I raise them JUST LIKE goats (feed and deworming / dimethox-wise) only I wean them at 10 weeks, then toss them out in the gen pop pasture for a month to get the hang of grazing in a somewhat 'safe' environment.....worm them one last time then set them loose at 14 weeks.

I don't vaccinate them....not part of the 'allowed' list of things. Since they live with goats and are susceptable to the same parasites, they let me treat them for that.
(If I was licensed to raise / sell them, I'd be allowed to vaccinate...if I remember correctly from my research when I first got into it.)

I'll tell you one thing...even when raised w/ goats, the goats KNOW the fawns aren't goats....their 'littermates' will pick on them w/ no mercy, the adults butt the heck out of them....

What I really wish is that humans would LEAVE THEM ALONE when they 'find' them....usually mama's close by, if they'd walk on by they'd be fine...but no, they gotta drag them 15 miles away to some DNR station and 'turn them in' as 'abandoned'....grrrr.

But yeah...they do great on goat milk...that much I can tell you.

And yes, DiMethox is gross....I use the powder and when I mix it, the powder settles on everything and I've licked my lips and gotten a taste of it.....That's why I don't blame them one bit for not liking it.