Gee, I couldn't find my old post. So I started a new one here in answer to all the questions you goat folks have asked me to respond to. I honestly don't know what I used to worm my goats last time. I guess I just trusted the vet. I did not use all the wormer but cannot find that blasted tube. The goat people around here complain about the lack of good goat vets. Maybe I need to question what the vet gives and not assume it works. I have been using Hoeggars herbal wormer and tonic regularily. Anyone have any experience with this? Heoggars told me it beat Invermec in independant studies - but I haven't seen those studies. I have this thing about chemicals. I have been using them because I don't know any other way. I am trying the herbal wormer and would appreciate advice on this. Anyone have success using herbs with goats? I have a herbal farm handbook, but I like to use only those things others have used and proven safe and effective. No use staying away from chemicals if all my animals end up dead.

I have been feeding my goats 50/50 goat mix. It is a combination of cracked corn,oats, alfalfa pellets, with (oops) molasses. I really didn't know that molasses was bad for goats. However I had a bad feeling about it. It is sugar and since when is sugar healthy for you? All the goat people around here use this mix. I did try one mixture from an organic farmer that was corn, oats, with a little kelp added for mineral. I couldn't get those picky girls to eat the stuff. I want to feed them the most natural diet I can but they are soooooooo picky. Last time I had the mill mix up feed the chickens got it all. I admit Montana (my skinny goat) is the pickiest one of them all. She does like the 50/50 though - for now anyway. She often changes her tastes on me and then will refuse to eat it anymore and then she'll eat only oats and corn, then I can get her to eat only barley. Last summer, she refused to eat anything but weeds for 2 weeks. She has been with the 50/50 for about 4 months now.

Our hay this year was not as green as I like it. The baler broke and it sat in the feild awhile until another was located. My other goats are very healthy looking though and Lila is fat.My hay is mostly red clover with various other hay grasses - probably about 70%clover (I am guessing). I hope this hay is OK this was our first year at growing our own. We also give them some of the nieghbors alfalfa. It is about 40% alfalfa (guessing agian).

I haven't been feeding any loose minerals but I plan to start. Up till now I have used the big packed mineral block and a mineral salt lick.

By the way, what is a broker doe?

I sure do appreciate you folks sharing your knowledge. I have learned so much from this forum. I really love those silly little girls in my barn - I hope I don't kill any of them through my own ignorance.

-- Tiffani Cappello (cappello@alltel.net), January 14, 2001

Answers

Tiffani, I used Hoegger's wormer and tonic for years and really appreciated the aspect of not giving the animals something that's obviously toxic. The only time I used a traditional wormer was when bringing in a new animal that I felt was loaded with parasites. I saw a marked imrovement with the tonic, too. Sleek, shiny coats on animals that had been dull and dry looking. My feed is heavy on corn and molasses. In fact, I have fed various types of sweet feed (usually formulated for horses and mules) for years and never had a problem. I guess I missed the negative words about molasses. What's up? Of course, I never heard about feeding sodium bicarb until recently, either. It's amazing how long we all managed to raise healthy, productive animals without having a clue what we were doing!

-- melina b. (goatgalmjb1@hotmail.com), January 15, 2001.

I had never heard of the molasses being bad for the rumen either. In fact the custom mix I used was formulated by one of the top goat vets in Michigan, who also was on test with her goats and had a great show line. I do feed sodium bicarb free choice, that was suggested at the same time as my feed mixture, as was kelp. I feed loose minerals and salt free choice. I have personally found that any good quality hay as in not moldy, will be relished by my goats. I just get much better milk production when I feed alfalfa hay. I would think if you were getting good results in your other goats with the wormer you are using that there would be no point in switching. I think you "picky" goat probably needs to be fed separately for a while and see if perhaps that is the main problem. imho

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), January 15, 2001.

Well here goes my 2 cents again.Molasses isn't bad for goats in the amount they get in regular feed.Those tubs of molasses that cattle farmers use would be terrible. I have never disagreed with anything Vicki posted about goats but this time I do.Ms Skinny goat needs the high protien.You are trying to build muscle here,not fat.Sorry Vicki and I still think you give lousy marital advice.(big grin). I use the herbal wormer from Hoegger's.Problem is I'm chicken and use the chemicals every other worming.I have a tiny pasture (1 acre) so have an ongoing parasite problem.The girls do pretty well on their occasional fecal test so one or both of the wormers must be working.

-- JT (gone2seed@hotmail.com), January 15, 2001.

Tiffani, a broker doe is a doe that is brought in from usually a show herd or dairy going out of business, they are resold, usually exported.

Most horse and mule type sweet feeds, including wet COB (corn oats and barley) contain so much molassas that it upsets the rumen. In fact if you have even a basic type of sweet feed, it usually contains way over 10% molassas, where a goat mix should be under 6%. If you cut out your molassas or cut it way down, your does will consume much less bicarbonate, since they are eating it to buffer their rumens. Molassas makes acid in the rumen, the acid kills the beneficial bacteria. None of this is going to kill your goat, but to get the most kids, most milk, size, robustness and good immunity you have to stop feeding the goat as a horse, and start thinking about feeding the rumen. Call your mills and ask them what the percentage of molassas is in these mixes.

Your mix sounds fine, corn, oats and alfalfa pellets are the base mix for nearly all animal feeds, that have no animal protein. You could add a supplement pellet, Head Start, Calf Manna (Manna Pro), Annimax (purina) etc. for your growing kids, milking does, heavy bred does, and working bucks. You do not need to be feeding pet, non productive, non pregnant, non nursing, non milking stock high protein feeds. Protein is your most expensive feed, and excess protein is peed out on the ground, pretty expensive fertilizer! Your feed as it stands would be about 13%? This is more than adequate. Protein grows our goats, and I was under the assumption that Montana was grown but thin. So you aren't going to grow any more size on her if she is grown (protein) so to grow size, and not just fat :) you think carbohydrates. If you are feeding mostly clover and some alfalfa hay than these are both legumes and much higher in protein than your grain mix, or than grass hay. Make sure that wethers or bucks not in heavy use don't get to much of this hay, and certainly no clover hay before or during breeding season for your bucks. Wethers and non working bucks, do fine on your grain mix, loose minerals and good grass hay.

Very honestly on your herbal wormer, if you aren't fecal sampling and you are just using the herbal wormer you are taking a huge chance. At least with a good basic knowledge of wormers and the worms you have, the chemcial wormers will work. It is a real shame that you don't have a local mentor to help you with this, I couldn't imagine having to start listening to a bunch of folks on a computer. Don't you have a local goat club in which you can join, visit the farms and look at their stock, learning their management? I have been to enough goat farms to know that most of them you should run very fast, certainly not listening to advice from them!! And I have said this before, but the only win Hoegger had against Ivermectin was when they used the Ivermectin at the wrong route (injected) and also at the wrong dose. Get out their catalog, read how they raise their kids, you will see that they chemical worm their kids AT BIRTH!! If their herbal wormer is so great than why is their place so heavily paristized that they would worm at birth their infant kids? I don't have any products for sale, neither do the Universities that we get our information from, on trial done on all classes of goats, not just a few pets. And not done by a 4H kid. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), January 15, 2001.

Is it possible that we are missing the point here, aren't we as keepers of our animals suppose to keep them in as a natural state as possible. Are we trying to force feed to much added things?? what would the goats eat in the wild ?? how would they look then?? these are things that I think about all the time, with my 12 animals for the past 10 years and yes I've been guilty of feeding this and that because someone had something to sell and I was looking for that easy fix. Are animals truly wormless? are we always striving to make people and animals do more than they can , because we want more?? just a thought.

-- Diane in Idaho (oleoranch3@aol.com), January 19, 2001.

In response to Diane: "what would they eat in the wild?" It is erroneous to try to compare wild to domestic animals. Our domestic goats are not wild goats. They are the product of millenia of breeding for domestic use. Their medical and dietary needs are completely different from those of wild goats. It would be nice to be able to feed and treat ailments with completely natural products, but that is assuming that all commercial medications are not natural. In all things use balance. With the increase of resistant bacteria and incurable viruses, you have the choice of high mortality or commercial medications and treatments. Natural herbal remedies and all natural food are okay, but our goat freinds usually need more to meet their best potential.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), January 21, 2001.

Great post Skip!

Diane, if you try to keep your goats in a more natural enviornment it will help tremendously with parasites and cocci. That would mean a huge acreage of browse, no grass, goats are not grazers, and from eating grass they pick up parasites. Parasites and cocci, can not crawl or float from dew or rain, up a woody plant or small tree like they can grass. They also would not be having their babies in enclosed pens. They would have their babies in one area, and then move the kids away from the birthing area, and move every day to a new area, so the kids would not have a chance to be around parasites. Also with bredding at first heat like in the wild, and also being either bred or nursing kids continuosly, you would easily turn your big/tall herd of Nubains, Saanens, Toggs etc, into a much smaller/shorter animal. Most folks don't accept any mortality at their farms, even saving inferior or defected kids. In the wild your mortality rate, of especially kids would be tremendous! Even in west Texas where herds of Angora's are ran nearly wild, they have introduced guardian dogs and burros to help with predators. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), January 21, 2001.

With all due respect to the other goat keepers here,I do NO vaccinating, very little worming, and little or no medicating.(unless you include bag balm on cuts, scratches, and udders.) I used no antibiotics last year, and lost only 1 kid, that had been weak and puny from the start. I think my total kid mortality over the years had been between 5 and 10, if you include still births and miscarriages. Many commercial dairies have a much higher mortality rate, up to 50% in some cases.

Our goats are on a rotated pasture system, and get small amounts of grain,and trees fed to them daily.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), January 21, 2001.