It is no secret that I would like to get a pygmy goat to milk and make cheese with. I like to have all the facts before I start something so I have a better chance of success, so I am asking these questions. Do goats need special goat feed or can they eat the 10% or 12% protein horse mix I feed my horses? How much feed does a goat need and what about the subject of hay? Can a goat be wormed with the Ivamec wormer used for a horse (proportionate for weight) or does it need special wormer? Can goats be housed with other animals? What kind of diseases should I be on the lookout for should I ever be able to get a goat and do the pygmy goats have special needs because of their size that other goats do not have? How are they in the cold? I know these are a lot of questions but should I ever get to have a goat I want to be able to take good care of it. Thankyou for your help.
A goat question
Cajun --my horse is best buddies with my goats, they get along beautifully. They should not cross-contaminate. We get a special goat feed that has extra minerals. It is less expensive than the feed for horses and our horse seems to do well on it. Hay -well less hay than a horse needs, but they are messy creatures. Best to tie it up. Haven't had trouble with disease here --just worming frequently enough with the drought these past two summers. I'm certain the wormer will work --should be on an Ivomec label somewhere...dosage....if I find where it's written down...or others may know. Otherwise...a goat mineral block does wonders. Our horse eats it though...
Others will surely have more specific info...G'luck!!
This message was edited Jun 20, 2009 11:54 AM
Can you milk a Pygmy Goat? I'm envisioning tiny teats.
They give lots of milk for their size. I read up to a 1/2 gallon. I'm looking into a little vaccum thing that extracts the milk wit almost no effort. It's quick and easy.
Are you foolin with me Cajun? A tiny vaccum milker? For real? LOL....that would solve the tiny teat problem that's certain!
If they give that much milk the little guys will do just fine for me too! Is there a link or something with this milking machine? Inquiring minds want to know...*grin*
Yes. But it will take me a while to find it. I am so computer illiterate.
Jay,
You were the one who sent the link to that great gadget. I don't remember if we were talking about milking goats or mares. Do you remember it?
I remember someone got kicked trying...
I did some looking around and found this home made deal...which would work well for getting colostrum for newborns. I can't see milking very much this way but hey, in a pinch.
http://www.tvsp.org/sheep_milker.html
This looks interesting...
http://www.udderlyezllc.com/
I had NO idea....there's always something new to learn isn't there?!
They even have the ezmilker at Valley Vet...
http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=76cf0b47-a2e2-4d99-90ba-7824ba4f1c65
This message was edited Jun 20, 2009 11:59 PM
Lots of race horses have goats as companions. They go everywhere together, and the horses sometimes depend on them a bit too much;'
Twoey and the Goat
by Robbie Timmons
“Twoey and the Goat” (ages 7-15 to adult) about a REAL thoroughbred racehorse whose constant companion is a pygmy goat named Kidd.
His racing name was “Two Links Back” but everyone called him “Twoey.” A true story: Twoey would NOT RACE unless Kidd the Goat went to the starting gate with him, they were inseparable.
Twoey was a champion racehorse and even won “Colt of the Year.” When Twoey left racing because of injury, he came to a Thoroughbred rescue organization called CANTER, in which Robbie is actively involved. Robbie helped find a permanent home for Twoey AND the goat!
“Twoey and the Goat” is the charming story of how these two unlikely friends met, their adventures and mis-adventures, and how Twoey became a champion racehorse with the help of his teenage owner and of course, Kidd the goat.
While Twoey worked hard to achieve his goals, their bond of friendship helped them survive challenges of the racing world and brought Twoey to a winners circle he would never have to leave.
Readers can get updates on Twoey’s life by emailing twoeyandthegoat@aol.com.
There are lots of these stories to be found, so I'd say you'll make everybody happy...
*G*
Here is the link to the vacuum milker.
http://www.udderlyezllc.com/
Hi Cajun! I'm a bit late finding this thread, but...
Do goats need special goat feed or can they eat the 10% or 12% protein horse mix I feed my horses?
- I buy the Purina "goat chow" as a supplement, but generally, the horse mix should be fine. They eat mostly hay. If you are breeding though (for milking purposes of course, you have to), I would supplement with the horse mix. They also love molasses oats and corn. I use it as "treats" or for lactating females especially.
How much feed does a goat need and what about the subject of hay?
- Our mini goats (10 in one pen) get a bale every morning and evening. We don't have a bale feeder so we get quite a bit of waste. I need to correct that. They get grass hay and sometimes a little alfalfa mixed in. Doesn't need to be nearly as special as horse hay. They love woody browse (shrubs, etc) and pasture. They eat loads of weeds.
Can a goat be wormed with the Ivamec wormer used for a horse (proportionate for weight) or does it need special wormer?
Yes, you can use Ivomec - we use a drench form of it rather than the injectable. I would recommend using Ivomec in the fall and then spring/summer use Safeguard. Safeguard gets more worms than Ivomec and alternating them like that prevents buildup of resistant species. Safeguard oral is what we use, but you can also get it in a mineral block form or injectable I think. It's a form of panacur.
Can goats be housed with other animals?
Yes, we house them with mini donkeys, llamas, and sheep, although with sheep they need different minerals but if you are not doing that I won't get into it. The llamas are good guardians for them, as are they donkeys.
What kind of diseases should I be on the lookout for should I ever be able to get a goat and do the pygmy goats have special needs because of their size that other goats do not have?
Three main diseases to be on the lookout for (I've added links to a useful goat site for each).
1. Caseous lymphadenitis (commonly known as CL in goat circles). Causes abscesses often under the jaw, on the neck, or on mammary glands. Bad, bad deal. The exudate from the abscesses is infectious and will infect other goats on the property. Also infectious to sheep. It can be managed but it's time intensive and you need to isolate animals with abscesses and lance them. It's just a hassle. I have had experience with it and learned that before I buy any animal, get it tested! Some states require all CL positive animals to be put down. Not sure if yours does. Also, abscesses can be internal and cause wasting and eventually death.
http://www.goatworld.com/articles/cl/
2. CAE (Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis). Causes joint problems and immunity problems. Transmits in milk. Bad deal. Get them tested for it!!
http://www.goatworld.com/articles/cae/
3. Johnes Disease (or Johnnes, spelled differently in different places, pronounced YO-NEES). This one is awful. I know, because I didn't have some goats I bought tested for it, and we are now in the process of having all animals on the farm tested, and may have to euthanize a lot. It's tragic. I can hardly talk about it because I am so upset about it on my farm. GET TESTED. I'm serious. You do NOT want this on your farm. We have to leave all our pasture for a year after we figure out who is positive/negative because it lives in the soil a year or more. Equines cannot get it, so we can leave our donkeys there, but we have to build new pasture right now. It's a royal pain. It's contagious for sheep, goats, llamas and infects young animals first. Mouth to manure transmission. We will even have to put down healthy animals who are not showing any signs yet because if they have it, they are shedding the bacteria in their feces and are infectious. It is going to be a very sad day for our farm when we get the results. PLEASE get them tested before buying. You do not want to go through what I am going through.
http://www.goatworld.com/articles/johnes/
How are they in the cold?
They develop a heavier winter coat and they are perfectly fine. We have ours in a 3 sided shelter. They make a goat heap in the winter. It's really cute to see them all sleeping in a snuggle pile. We put lots of hay in the shelter. It's not insulated though. They should have no problem at all in your "cold" weather compared to Iowa cold!!
Hope all that helps - feel free to ask more questions.
Claire
Those diseases sound terrible. Will I have to bring them to the vet or is there a home testing kit for them. If the vet draws blood for the tests, will all the tests be done on the same blood?
there is no home testing kit that I am aware of. CAE and CL are blood tests. Johnes is a fecal liquid culture test. There is a blood test but it can cross react with CL antibodies, so the fecal liquid culture test is the most reliable. Unfortunately it can take up to 90 days for a result. This is one reason I am presently on the verge of losing my mind...
Of course, you can purchase them, isolate them from other animals (equines are not susceptible to any of these diseases I don't think - definitely not Johnes), and have the tests done and wait for results.
Yes, they are terrible, but it would be even more terrible to infect other animals, so it's best to test and be sure. AT least, that's my opinion.
So sorry that you are going through this with your animals. Keeping my fingers cross the test come back negative.
Oh Claire! I'm so sorry! You carried that with you alone? You have such a full plate.. I don't know how you do it...
Sending healing vibes for negative results!
How long before you find out?
Wow.
It's just hard for me to talk about right now for any number of reasons. When it all gets sorted out, I'll post in depth about it, because I think it's important for others to learn.
It's been 2 weeks since the tests. It can be up to 3 months for test results, depending on bacterial load in each animal, and even then, sometimes the test is wrong if the animal is not in a "shedding" phase. We have to re-test after 3 months again on all the negative animals.
What a hard thing to have happen. Now that it's on your place what does that mean? I know some disease stays in the soil and is always there and something that you just have to be aware of and deal with, is this like that? I understand about not wanting to talk about it, tear your heart out stuff. I can wait.
Hoping all will be well.
Hmmm. Hangin' in there with you, Claire........
cmox
Did you get test results yet? How do your goats seem? I mean, do they look healthy?
If I get goats that are negative and they never mix with any other goats, would they be safe from getting the disease?
Cajun,
No test results yet I'm afraid. The tests were put into the incubator on June 16. Any positives are double checked with a PCR test after coming up in the liquid culture test. They said that it would probably be 3-4 weeks before we hear anything at the earliest. It was 3 weeks on Tuesday. Sigh. It's just so exasperating.
Our Nubian goats (the suspected source) and remaining angora goat (2nd suspected source) look skinny, even though they are very well fed. We have isolated them. Two of our sheep look pretty skinny also. We have been adding grain to their diets with no change in weight. The problem is that the original goats that we believe to be the source have been on all the pasture land we have, so any other animal may have been infected.
In all, we have lost 3 angora goats, 2 Nubian goats, 2 sheep, and 1 llama, all suspected cases. All of our pygmy goats look very healthy. In fact, they look kind of tubby! But, they could still be carriers and just not symptomatic yet. Most of our sheep look fine too, except the 2 I mentioned.
If you get goats that are negative, and they never mix with any other goats, sheep, or llamas, they are most likely safe from getting the disease except for the following potential infection routes (all fairly unlikely if you are reasonably careful).
1. contamination from shoes or boots of people visiting your farm from a farm with the infection, or you visiting farm shows, etc and bringing the infection home on shoes that you then wear in your pasture.
2. being put on land that previously had sick animals on it that hasn't been left for at least 1-2 years
3. contamination from purchasing hay or other feed from a farm that has the infection where there was the opportunity for that feed to come into contact with infected animal manure.
4. drinking from streams or other natural water sources that have run through farmland where infected animals live and either use the same stream or have runoff from manure that could get into the stream.
It is not an airborne pathogen so they can't catch it from other farms by it being carried on the wind or anything like that.
Cattle also get Johnes disease; is it the same - transmissible from goats, sheep, llamas?
I have never had any heifers I bought tested, but have hoped to avoid Johnes by never buying from a farm where the older animals looked unthrifty. So far so good.
There are three different strains of the bacterium. There is a cattle strain and a sheep strain and an "intermediate" strain. Cattle are officially susceptible to all 3 strains but only have the sheep strain infrequently. Goats usually only contract the cattle strain. Sheep generally only get the sheep strain but are also susceptible to the intermediate strain. So basically yes, the cattle can get it from sheep, goats or llamas because they are susceptible to all three strains.
In cattle, more than in the other small ruminants, the younger animals are especially susceptible. It seems in the small ruminants, while there is still a tendency for younger animals to be more susceptible, older animals are also at risk. That's not to say that older cattle never get it, it's just less likely.
I am not sure about the testing in cattle. In goats in particular, the blood test is cross reactive with other goat diseases (notably Caseous lymphadenitis or CL) so the blood test isn't very effective. Maybe it's better in cattle. Our goats that are the presumed source looked good when we got them last year, and one of them gave birth just about a month ago, but is still most likely infected as is her kid. The vet said they were likely infected 2-5 years ago because it can take that long for symptoms to manifest.
Although the infection is likely to start in calves, it usually does not show up until later - as with your goats, hence the avoidance of herds with skinny cows even if the calves look great. I have never dared to buy from a fairly close neighbor because his cows looked so bad. Then his brother took over care of the cattle and they all gained weight; no Johnes after all! Perhaps I now have a convenient source of heifers.
I was not aware that it was a disease that affected other species.
I was not aware of the disease at all when I began to get my livestock last year. I had learned about CL in goats and also CAE, which are two common goat diseases that one wants to avoid, but didn't know about Johnes at all. Then when we lost our first goat after she was being well fed and in a group where the others looked normal but she looked skinny, I began to investigate more. Ugh. I didn't like finding out about it. I think it tends to be kept "hush hush" because people don't want others to know that they have it on their farm. Since my farm is more of a hobby than a living, I feel like I can be an advocate for teaching others so they don't fall into the same problem.
For me, the euthanizing of otherwise perfectly healthy looking animals is going to be really tough. Likewise, having to leave land just sit for a year plus is also going to be hard. At least I can keep my 3 mini donkeys on it.
So the symptoms are goats that look poor? If a goat looks poor but responds well to worming and feeding then it may just be they had worms and needed feed? Is there any coughing or runny noses like when horses get "shipping fever"?
Symptoms of late stage disease are goats that cannot gain weight despite proper feeding, and sometimes diarrhea, but not often. Cattle pretty much always have the diarrhea, as I understand it. Goats maybe 20% of cases have it. Otherwise, no signs like coughing or runny nose or fever.
Early and mid-stage disease, during which goat is shedding low to moderate to high amounts of bacteria (infectious) in its feces may have no symptoms whatsoever.
http://www.johnes.org/goats/diagnosis.html
As stated in the above link, the bacteria can be shed intermittently, which explains the need for multiple tests.
Is it a common disease. Should I be scared to buy goats?
LOL, don't be scared to buy goats....just be aware. I will still buy goats, but having had this experience, I will definitely isolate any new goats and have them tested. Maybe if I bought from a very well respected farm, I would risk not testing, but generally, I would test. As for its common-ness....depends on the part of the country you live in, and I don't know about KY. I know that it's more common in Iowa than goat producers care to admit. One problem is that it is perceived to be less common than it is because once people have it, their farm would be "labeled" just by word of mouth. If their livelihood is their farm, they don't dare to talk about it. That is why I was nervous to talk about it, but I think it's important to educate others, especially since I don't depend on the farm for my income. So in that sense, yes, it can be common, but pretty much nobody will admit to having it. Best person to talk to about its prevalence in your area is a vet who has a large practice for small ruminants and/or cattle. They should be able to give you a good sense of whether it's present in your general area.
Thanks for the info. Hope things work out for you and your animals.
Wow came across this thread late in it...
I would like to state for the record that I would be more than happy to buy anything that came off of CMoxon's ranch
..Ok have to ask Claire, have the test results come in??
Cajun Have you gotten some goats yet??
Gathering info at the moment.
MissJ - thanks for your vote of confidence. At the moment, it would be highly irresponsible for me to sell anything (except my mini donkeys, because equines cannot get it). However, whenever I do get around to selling any animals, it will only be because we have tested, re-tested, and re-tested until we are confident that we have clean animals. That is the only time I will consider it. Unfortunately, for some people, this would be the time they would send all their animals to the sale barn. I find that to be reprehensible. Buyer beware!
Hope this link works. It's for a lab to send blood to to have goats tested and it's MUCH cheaper than having the vet out!
the tests are only $15 for all three
If you intend to sell kids you need to test eventually, if you want to get the full price. If the mothers are positive for CAE you can do things to prevent the kids from getting it. Many goats die early from these diseases unnescassarily.
http://www.pavlab.com/services/index.html
That could be useful, but I would just caution that the blood test for Johnes is cross reactive with the antibodies for CL. We did the blood test initially on a small group of animals (4) to see if we needed to do further testing, and when all 4 came up positive, that's when we decided to proceed with the fecal testing, which actually cultures the organism itself and is much more reliable than the blood test (this information is particularly true in goats, although llamas and sheep can also have CL so it can be a problem there too).
If you had negative results on all 3 blood tests, probably your animal is clean. But, in goats, the antibodies take a long time to develop and therefore they could still have it and not be positive.
See below (taken from: http://www.johnes.org/goats/diagnosis.html -- that site explains the various tests and advantages/disadvantages of each, and why the fecal is the most accurate).
The production of antibody is called humoral immunity. In Johne's disease, this type of immunity neither clears the infection nor slows its progress. Production of antibody is thought to be a late stage event in the course of the infection. When it is detected, it is probable that the goats is or soon will show signs of disease and likely is shedding M. paratuberculosis in its manure and perhaps its milk/colostrum.
There are three blood tests available. They differ somewhat in their mechanics but each is designed to accomplish the same thing: detect antibody in serum produced by the animal in response to M. paratuberculosis infection. The tests are:
1. "CF", or complement fixation assay
2. "AGID", or agar gel immundiffusion assay
3. "ELISA", enzyme linked immunosorbent assay
The most commonly used blood tests in goats are the ELISA and the AGID. It is thought that AGID sensitivity is comparable to the ELISA for clinically affected goats. Specificity may be higher for the AGID than the ELISA (false-positive results may occur more often with the ELISA due to cross-reacting antibodies caused by infection by other organisms such as Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis, the cause of caseous lymphadenitis - "CLA", or other mycobacteria). The CF test remains the M. paratuberculosis infection screening test usually requested by the importing country for animals being shipped internationally.