Aboutgoatlady Expertise Specializing in New Goat Owner understanding of goat physiology, goat anatomy, goat care and herd management. *I am not a veterinarian, any advice and information should be verified by your veterinarian before administering to your goats.
Note: Keep in mind, the goat expert is volunteering her time to help other goat owners, she also runs her farm with her own herd of 100 goats and may not be at her computer at all hours. Questions are answered as soon as she can possibly read and answer them, usually within 24 hours.
(! During times of severe summer weather in the Midwest, I may experience a delay in internet service due to the interference of the satellite reception - but will answer your questions as soon as service is restored. !)
Experience 17 years experience of raising goats and herd management. Active hands on experience with goat herd and research with various Caprine University Research and Extension Centers nationwide. 15 years dedicated to helping other goat breeders/owners with goat anatomy, goat disease and goat health care issues via phone, published goat care articles and internet interaction.
Organizations 5 year active member of International Veterinary Information Service
Publications United Caprine News, Homesteaders Magazine, Columnist for Goat Magazine, Owner and Author of GoatPedia™
Education/Credentials Graduate Programs in Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University
Expert: goatlady Date: 7/10/2008 Subject: Pygmy Goat new mom wormy
Question My Pygmy goat gave birth on Monday and I'm concerned because I see that her stool is very clumpy, not at all little pellets and now I see small white worms in it. Can I worm her even though she is feeding her baby. Also I noticed today that although her milk bag is very full the baby seems kind of skinny.
One more thing mom's eyes have some yellow gunk in them, and one of my roosters that lives in the same fenced area had an eye sealed shut with gunk today too, and I lost a baby English Lop on Saturday who seemed to not be growing much and had been suffering with eye gunk for a few days before it died with blue lips. Do you think these maybe tied? How should I treat the Goat momma?
If I worm the mom will it worm the baby or hurt him? What do I use to worm her with? Should I also worm my other 3 goats?
1. I haven't taken her temp. She is kind of wild
2. Yes she is ruminating
3. I am in Northwest Arkansas
4. No, her BM is not pellety but chuncky
5. She is eating and drinking
6. She is up and walking
7. I haven't given her anything (I've had her about 3 months)
8. She is quite old I think, no top teeth
9. I noticed her bm's were clumpy but was afraid to worm her because of being pregnant but now I'm seeing the worms in it.
10, female, pymy
11. I feed her Dumor goat food but she may have gotten some rabbit food by accident.
Answer Hi KD,
You are going to have to get her at some point so you can medicate her- and I can tell you are new to this so you probably have not yet learned to give injections and right now is probably not the time - call around your local feed stores for a dewormer called Valbazen. It is a liquid white oral dewormer. A very good one. It kills all the gastrointestinal worms PLUS liver fluke PLUS tapeworms which is probably what you are seeing as most worms are not visible to the naked eye. Giving her the dewormer will not hurt the baby at all- The eye gunk- is it windy there?
This could be pink eye, and for this you will need an antibiotic- I use Tylan200 but you can use LA200 both should be available also at the feed store- get the Tylan200 if you can because it is better. You will need a syringe and needle to draw some up into the syringe and then take the needle off of the syringe and drip the tylan 200 into her eyes like you wold eye drops- it stings but works very well and without treating pink eye she could go blind- pink eye in contagious so wash your hands after touching her eye area. Flies carry pink eye form animal to animal- so yes this could be all related.
You mentioned the dumor feed- is she eating hay as well? she needs to have hay- mold Free and fresh- free choice - the goat feed should be a very small amount of her diet- like less than a cup a day and the rest of her diet should be hay- she will eat 3-4 lbs of hay a day.
You also need to check her udder to make sure she is actually giving milk and she does not have mastitis- the baby cold starve to death if she is not getting enough to eat and if mom has mastitis she cannot feed the baby properly OR another thing to consider is the teats have a waxy plug in them before giving birth and sometimes the baby sucking on them is not enough to get the plug out, so she may not be getting enough milk.
No top teeth- (I thought this was pretty cute ;)- goats do not have top front teeth- they have what is called a dental pad (gums) on the top front- they have eight lower front teeth and top and bottom molars in the back.
You need to go to my website and read through some of the articles there - I have it written for new goat owners to help them learn about goats and I have a lot of diagrams and photos to help new goat owners see what I am talking about in the articles.
