My dear hubby smokes cigars-nasty, smelly cigars but that's another story. He sets them down outside the barn when he's using the woodsplitter or working and Fiona the Naughty Nubian will wait until he's not looking and eat them. The goats "help" us work around the barn. We could easily get twice as much done without their help but they enjoy "helping" so we let them. Yes, our animals are quite spoiled.

My question is: will eating the cigars hurt her? She obviously enjoys them.

Thanks for the help.

Stacy in NY

-- Stacy Rohan (KincoraFarm@aol.com), October 07, 2001

Answers

I remember my Dad using tabacco as a DeWormer.

-- Mark in N.C. Fla. (deadgoatman@webtv.net), October 07, 2001.

I don't know for sure about goats but I know eating cigarrettes can kill children, so I would be wary of leaving tobacco around goats too.

-- Elizabeth in e tx (kimprice@peoplescom.net), October 07, 2001.

I used to have a pony who loved to eat a cigarette or two when she had the chance - she lived to be 39 years old.

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), October 07, 2001.

Probably would have lived to 60, if not for those cigarettes!

-- Joe (CactusJoe001@AOL.com), October 07, 2001.

I can remember as a child hearing people deworm horses with tobacco but I never knew if it was safe to do so. I sure wouldn't use other old time remedies, like turpentine on the naval to cure colic, or feeding turpentine as a dewormer. Some of the old remedies are bizarre.

I wouldn't think that the odd cigar would hurt Fiona but it sure is funny to see one sticking out of her mouth!

Stacy in NY

-- Stacy Rohan (KincoraFarm@aol.com), October 07, 2001.

The old timers use to deworm with tobacco (chew); some still do. But they've learned that the tobacco doesn't get all the parasites. Some of my livestock will steal cigarettes out of the case I carry on my belt. Unlike manufactured cigs, mine are all tobacco with no fillers, since I stuff my own. I doubt if a once in a while cigar will affect the critters, but it shouldn't be a big part of their diet.

Heehee! Don't do a scheduled deworming and have a fecal test done ~ maybe hubby is doing you a favor!

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), October 07, 2001.

My mother told me a story once about her dad use to grow tobacco for his own use. He would hang the plants upside down in the barn to cure and they would always have to be on the guard to keep the goats out of it. Apperently goats love tobacco and would eat it like candy. She never mentioned anything about the goats getting sick on it. So I would think that a rolled up leaf called a cigar wouldn't hurt them either.

-- r.h. in okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), October 07, 2001.

This wormer using tobacco question was given to a very well know small ruminent specialist, Dr. Joan Bowen. She answered it in Dairy Goat Journal. The amount of tabacco that would be needed to really worm a goat would kill the goat. So the odd cigar now and then, the bite of a tabacco plant, the pinch of snuff between the cheek and gum, and like my old friend who blows her cigarette smoke into her old does face (the goat comes to the fence for her smoke) isn't doing anything, certainly isn't worming any more than the rumen, and rumens don't have worms :) So.............take it for what it is worth.

In my 1952 AGS yearbook (won it on an auction), there is an ad for wormer, contains arsneic, so all those who say that goats are so much unhealthier now than they were when grandpa had them, even in a publication like this, feed and wormer were about all the ads in it. There is some very interesting infant (human) baby formula's with goats milk if somebody is interested. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), October 08, 2001.

Check with Bill Clinton, bet he knows.

-- Steve (snorburg@cis.net), October 13, 2001.