I need to worm my milk goat, and don't want to have to throw away the milk for commercial wormers. What is a safe wormer to use so I can continue to drink the milk? Or is there any?

-- Bear (BarelyKnow@aol.com), September 02, 2001

Answers

Bear. You can use a product available from Hoegger Supply Company out of Fayetteville,GA. phone#770-461-6926 to place an order you can call 1-800-221-GOAT (4628). They can help you or at least send you a catalog. The product is a Herbal Wormer and says that there is no dumped milk. Contains no artificial chemicals and is non-toxic and non-sickening. Linda at Peaceful Valley

-- Linda at peacefulvalley (peacefulvalley3@yahoo.com), September 02, 2001.

You can also feed them Diamotacious Earth. Hoggers also has it.

-- Dee in NJ (gdgtur@goes.com), September 02, 2001.

Safeguard has no milk withdrawel time.

-- Wendy (weiskids@yahoo.com), September 02, 2001.

Thanks everyone! Just one question.. and as I Barely know... what is Safeguard?

-- Bear (Barelyknow@aol.com), September 02, 2001.

Bear, where are you located? How about simply taking in some goat berries for a fecal sample and seeing if you even need to worm? Take the Hoegger information with a huge grain of salt, the only test on this wormer was done by a 4H gal, it was done against Ivermectin, which was injected and also done at dosages for cattle. Then was compared against the herbal wormer for tapes! Ivermectin isn't even a class of wormer used for tapes.

Tests done on goats by Texas A&M has shown that DE simply doesn't work as a stomach wormer, and anybody that knows about DE will tell you it doesn't work wet, and nothing is wetter than the gut! It could possibly work when it dries in the berries to control fly larve, but once goat berries hit the ground the larve quickly leave the poop, that is why you need fresh berries to have a fecal ran by your vet.

Then when you know which worms you have, you can intelligently go about worming. You can't afford to dump milk because of chemical wormings, but you also can't afford to have a depleation of milk from does with anemia from worms. We choose to use Valbazen Cattle Drench at 8cc per 100 pounds on our milkers, it is the broadest spectrum of all wormers, and is cleared in the system of good milkers at 36 hours. Does in late lactation or does with poor milk production will hold it in the system longer. Perhaps you can do like we did and worm small groups of does every 4 days, this way not all the milkers are being dumped at the same time. Good luck with this. You may want to visit Nubian Talk on groups.yahoo.com, several commercial dairy folks on there, also saanendoah.com also emailing Joyce on that site privately for more information, she also commercially milked. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), September 03, 2001.

Thanks Vicki, I will most certianly look into it and see what I can get locally. I like to buy local if at all possible, helps the Mom and Pops. I use Ivomex for out dogs, and have used it on the small goats. This particular milk goat is very depleted, she eats like a horse, and her milk is dropping off. I know it is the time of year for her to decline some, but it is getting worse, and she is getting thinner by the day. Thanks to all who responded. I learn something every day, and I Barely Know what I am doing.

-- Bear (BarelyKnow@aol.com), September 03, 2001.

I have used Hoegger's Herbal Wormer very successfully on about 20 milking does. All kept well and never showed any signs of anemia. We were also in an area with high parasite counts, my meat goats were getting chemical wormers three times per year. Highly recomend the herbal wormer.

-- Steven Stark (mrroo@jobe.net), December 04, 2001.

Steve what worms are you dealing with? What is the difference between the fecal numbers on the chemical wormer and now with the herbal wormer? Are you in the north where you get deep freezes that kill overwintering worms? Have you used it through a kidding season? Any difference in the number of kids born to your dams? Your kids don't need to be wormed before they start eating grain with the herbal mixture on it, and have no growth problems from it?

Across the board the folks who have had excellent results with this type of wormer also probably don't need to be deworming anyway. With very low levels of worms, yes I do think a herbal wormer could help things along. In Wyoming a very well known Nubian herd rarely worms, she also never has problems with cocci. Here in the south without worming the goats die or look like hell! I am glad your herbal wormer is working for you, just make sure it is, with some facal samples every couple of months. By the time you see symptoms of worms, anemia, bottle jaw, unthriftyness or diarrhea, it becomes more expensive to treat the animals than the worming would have been. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), December 04, 2001.

Although Ivomec is a spectrum wormer meaning it is broad based and get manykinds, it doesn't work successfully on lung worms. We use Ivomec for worming and then switch to Valbazen for liver flukes and the safeguard when pregnant, beofre breeding.

With having a dairy now and shipping milk we can't sfford to worm all the goats at once, would be out of business in a heartbeat! So we now scatter worming, we worm a few one week, a few the next and so forth. Maybe rotation might work better.

As for her getting skinner she may be from worms, or be for any number of reason. When did they kid? if they are heavy milkers this accounts for the slenderness since everything they eat rurns into milk. But from what you mentioned I doubt it. How is her appetitie? You may want to try giving her some goat energy drench such as Goat Aid or molasses in warm water. The Try giving her some b vitamin shot or b12 to help her appetitie. How old is she too? Anoterh concern may be CL, have your goats had CL or have you tested yet ot see? Sometimes weight loss is attributed to this. its the result of CL internally.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), December 04, 2001.