Nice doe I've had for just a couple of months or so usually -inhales-feed, always lets me know she would have liked twice as much. Today she wouldn't touch it. She doesn't appear in any other way to be sick, although her milk production has slacked off the last week or so. Do goats sometimes get morning sickness?(She's maybe one month bred). If I give her Probios, is there a milk withdrawal period? Thanks for comments.

-- mary (marygarcia@aol.com), September 17, 2001

Answers

Worms any possibility? Baking soda available to all? Good grass hay will help. You might just need to take her off grain for a few days and leave her on grass hay only.

Pro Bios has no withdrawal and will be good at helping the proper rumen bactweria as well.

-- D (animalwaitress@yahoo.com), September 17, 2001.

Thanks. She is getting a half grass-half alfalfa hay, and graze. I'm pretty sure previous owners had wormed her recently, but maybe I'll go ahead and give her a shot of wormer. How do you feed them baking soda, and what is that for?

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), September 17, 2001.

The baking soda helps get the ph right in their rumen. The alfalfa might be too rich for her right now. Just like when you have a stomach upset, dry toast, crackers, that sort of thing is good, plain and basic.

I don't know if they get morning sickness or not, but I honestly can't imagine why they wouldn't...they just can't complain about it!

As for worming, if she came to your place a few months ago and you haven't wormed her yet, I would go ahead and worm her. Vicki turned me onto Valbazen as it is a good all around wormer, but it is least expensive thru Jeffer's. The feed stores here don't stock it.

If she isn't chewing her cud much, you might want to mix some baking soda with water in a syringe and get that in her. It'll help the rumen work more quickly. As I understand it grass hay has natural bicarbonate which is one reason to keep that on hand for these stomach upsets.

Hope she gets better quickly!!!!

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), September 17, 2001.

Goats don't get "morning sickness." She may not appear to be sick, but a goat off her feed is most definitely sick and will get sicker rapidly. Go to www.goatworld.com/911 for local help. Don't wait to see if she gets better or you could end up with a dead goat. There are a number of ailments that can take them down quickly and you need to treat for everything and do it now. Enterotoxemia is an imbalance of bacteria in the digestive tract which poisons the goat from within and can kill in less than 24 hours. The only treatment is C&D ANTITOXIN. (Not the C&D TOXOID, which is the vaccine.) The antitoxin can bring them back from death's door and will do no harm if they don't actually have enterotoxemia. Do this: Check the color of her gums, take her temperature (anally), check the consistency of her stools, and then go to goatworld.com You have to have her vitals before anyone can help you with a diagnosis.

Here's a partial list of some things you should always have on hand for goats: pro-bios paste, vitamin B complex injectible, baking soda, mineral oil, milk of magnesia, tums, C&D antitoxin, banamine (for pain - the stress alone from severe pain can kill a goat).

-- Skip in WA (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), September 17, 2001.

Thanks, Doreen and Skip, for your words of advice and concern. "Ruthie" is better today. In retrospect, I think I brought on that stomach upset by giving the goats some "treats" Saturday--a few corn stalks and husks and the peel of a banana squash(I had noticed the local deer like such things;) Since Ruthie normally doesn't balk at anything to eat, she probably had more than her share, esp. of the banana squash peel...I did give her some baking soda, which she actually seemed to appreciate(yecch!!). I also went ahead and gave her some ProBios for good measure, and a shot of Tramisol(since that's the wormer I had on hand.)...She seems her normal self today; thanks, again for the advice.

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), September 18, 2001.

I've cared for a goat the sort of got morning sickness. She would always get a minor bout of slight diarhea (actually, just sticky nanny drops)for a few days during the first month of gestation. I cared for that doe through 4 pregnancies, and it happened every time like clockwork. I believe there are a lot of things that go on with gestating and lactating animals that are similar to what goes on with women in the same situation. The women are simply better able to vocalize their issues! This is one reason why I advocate journaling your animal care. If you have an individual record concerning each animal, you can track that individual's personal foibles. At the petting farm I used to work on, we had one fallow deer doe that gave birth the same week every year. She was pen bred, but would give birth the first week of June without fail. She did that for 8 years, then had a tough year and gave birth in September instead. She then gave birth the same week in September every year until she died. No one at that farm knew this until I went back through their birthing records and made up individual breeding and care records. That was the most striking example of cycles that I found in those records.

-- Sheryl in Me (radams@sacoriver.net), September 19, 2001.

I think you are right, Sheryl! One of my girls seems like she gets cramps in her first heat, she gets loosish stools, lethargic, and just looks like she doesn't feel good. I really can't see why animals wouldn't get the same things as humans.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), September 20, 2001.

Sheryl, thanks for sharing your experience with the goats. Very interesting to read about. Well, I guess it's a girl thing, but I also think they gotta feel it, too! ;)

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), September 20, 2001.