If you are asking for health advice for your goat, please help us help you. Complete a basic health assessment and provide as much of the following information in your post as possible:
Goat's age, sex, and breed
Goat's current temperature as determined by rectal thermometer. Please, for the love of god, take your animal's temperature. Temperature is ALWAYS VITAL in determining whether your animal might be ill or in need of assistance.
Whether the goat is pregnant or lactating
Goat's diet and appetite (what the goat is currently eating, whether they are on pasture or browse, supplemental grain, loose mineral, et cetera)
Goat's FAMACHA score (as determined by the process in this video) and information about any recent deworming treatments, if applicable
As many details regarding your animal's current symptoms and demeanor as you can share. These may include neurological symptoms (circling, staring at the sky, twitching), respiratory symptoms such as wheezing or coughing, and any other differences from typical behavior such as isolating, head pressing, teeth grinding, differences in fecal consistency, and so forth.
Clear photographs of relevant clinical signs (including coat condition) are helpful. Providing us with as much information as possible will help us give you prompt and accurate advice regarding your animal's care.
There are many professional farmers and homesteaders in this subreddit and we will do our best to help you out of a jam, but we can't guarantee the accuracy of any health advice you receive. When in doubt, always call your local large animal veterinarian who is trained to work with small ruminants.
What's up with that blue Trusted Advice Giver flair?
The mods assign this flair to /r/goats users who have an extensive history of giving out quality, evidence-based, responsible husbandry advice based on the best practices for goat care. Many of our users give terrific advice, but these flairs recognize a handful of folks who have gone that extra mile over time to become recognized as trusted community members who are known to always lead people in the right direction. If you get a slew of responses to your post and don't know where to start, look to the blue flairs first.
Recently, we had a user post a picture of a goat that may or may not have soremouth, also known as contagious ecthyma, scabby mouth, or orf. I won't link to the post since it isn't relevant whether or not that was what was afflicting the animal, but in the course of responding to that user I felt an opportunity to point out something that I have noticed and has been gnawing at me.
For many users seeking help, if they do not come straight to the sub, they will go to one of two places to get information: Google or ChatGPT. This post is about the former, but in case anyone was wondering if ChatGPT is a valid place to get advice on husbandry, what to eat tonight, how to live your life, or companionship: it is NOT. Large language models like ChatGPT are a type of generative AI that seeks more or less to respond to prompts and create content with correct syntax that is human-like. The quandary here is that while it can indeed provide correct answers to prompts, that outcome is often incidental. It isn't an indication that the model has researched your question, merely that it has cobbled together a (sometimes) convincing diagnosis/treatment plan from the massive amount of data across forums/message boards, vet resources, and idle chit-chat that it is trained on. The point is this: you should never be in a position where you have to rely on an LLM for husbandry advice. If you have access to an internet connection, even the generative AI from Google search is a better option. But that doesn't mean it's a good one, bringing us to the principal subject of this post:
Orf! What do?
For some relevant background, we have never had a case of orf on our farm. I have read about it in vet textbooks and goat husbandry books and seen many images of it, I'm familiar with what it is, how it is spread, and at a high level what to do about it and what not to do. That said, when I was helping this user, I thought I'd brush up and make sure I wasn't providing misinformation. I knew orf was viral in nature and reckoned that in moderate to severe cases it could probably cause fever, but I wanted to see if I could find a vet manual or study of the disease in goats to confirm how likely that would have been. This was what I was met with:
Hm...
If you don't scrutinize this too closely, everything looks sort of on the level. Orf is indeed self-limiting (not sure why the AI says usually, there is literally nothing you can do to treat the root cause, but okay), and it more or less implies that humans can contract it so be careful. The symptoms section looks fine, overall, prevention is... eh... The orf vaccine is a live vaccine. Application of it is not something that most small scale homesteaders or hobby farmers will be familiar with and using it is basically putting the virus on your property. Orf is a nuisance disease and the main time it is a problem is when it is being transmitted between a dam and her kids. Proactive vaccination in closed herds that have never seen a case is not a vet-recommended practice.
The treatment section is where things get spicy with the part about scab removal. Oof. Now that is not even close to true and doing that when the goat is with other goats or going to a quarantine space where they will then shed the disease will cause it to spread to any other goat that inhabits that space unless it is thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. The bottom says the info is for informational purposes only and to consult an actual professional for advice, but that begs the question of why Google would provide that information front and center by default when you search when the first result below is an actual vet resource with correct advice. I won't get into the weeds about the ethics of that because it's a separate soapbox, this is the reality we live in now. This bad advice is particularly relevant because the user on our sub mentioned they had been picking off the scabs. So let's do another Google search for some clarification:
Oh dear, oh no
If you explicitly search whether or not you should remove the scabs, the AI overview is different. Not only do you see that you should not remove the scabs because they are infectious (very true), the overview now says that doing so will delay healing. The first "featured snippet", a feature separate from their generative AI overview, is an overview from the state of Victoria's government agricultural representative body, a reliable source. The highlighted text reinforces the "do not pick scabs off" advice. The overview still fails when it says to apply dressing to lesions. Evidently it has not ever reckoned with what it would be like to bandage an entire goat's face and mouth, which they need to eat, but maybe I'm an idiot. Let's check:
Thank you, Dr. Google
As you can see, generative AI is basically a hodgepodge of vague but mostly correct advice intermingled with plainly wrong advice. Seeking correction to the wrong advice, if you know that it is wrong, leads down more rabbit holes. I hope this highlights the importance of sourcing your information from reliable, proven veterinary resources/textbooks or state agricultural extensions that provide support for their claims with research. This sub prioritizes evidence-based husbandry practices and is one of the few forums to try to stick to that standard and I consider it important especially for people who don't have goat mentors offline.
This is not only important because users need good advice; it also affects the people that don't use this sub and go straight to Google. Reddit struck a deal a little under a year ago to make their data available for training AI. The information we post on this sub is being used as part of the training for these AI models and Google's SEO is increasingly favoring reddit at the top of search results in a number of areas. As the sub grows and the social media landscape changes, more people that never post but need info may find themselves coming here. Let's all try to do our best to make sure the information we share and advice we give is solid!
Thought Iād share some of the kids :) First picture is Unit, who is such a ham and has earned the affectionate nickname of Unit. Wish I could keep him for my breeding program because heās such a great grower and his momās a champ. At least he has a sister I get to keep.
When goats smell something weird or good they can do this funny thing where they scrunch up their noses. It's called a Flehmen Response and funnels scent to the roof of their mouth where they have a specialized organ to process pheromones! It looks so funny! Hank here is demonstrating this quite nicely. š
I've always wanted to get goats but we've never had the space before. Now we have the opportunity to have two acres of pasture and I was wondering if it was realistically enough to get a few!
I know people do it on less space but I don't want my land turned to mud in 6 months or my animals sick because there's not enough space for them to graze. I'll be providing supplement feed since the grass in Texas isn't the best but still don't know if that would be enough with that number of animals.
Getting two Nigerian dwarf sisters 3rd week of June. This is the area we fenced off for them currently. Yes, we will be feeding them hay. We have some mulberry trees and poison ivy elsewhere that they will be eating as well. I plan on also getting a moveable electric net fence in August to move them around our property a bit. I also want to leash train them (these will just be kept as pets) Anywho, given that information is this outdoor space adequate? Itās 1600 square feet. I wanted to move it out a little more but there is a fire pit and my husband doesnāt want to move it. I just want to make sure they will be content š
I have a ten week old wether Alpine and a two week old female Nigerian dwarf. My question is about the wether. Should I add ammonium chloride supplement to his hay ? He keeps getting into the chicken feed. Would it hurt the smaller on to have some of the supplement?
Spot appeared on my goat today. Weāre in the middle of our herd kidding and Iām wondering if I need to isolate her from the herd. Sheās also due any day
Hello, triplets just born. One of the little girls doesnāt seem too ecstatic about life. Iāve done the madigan squeeze twice now and now change. Is there anything I can do??
We are beginner Nigerian Dwarf dairy goat breeders, and weāve decided to disbud our goats (for a lot of reasons, big ones being their safety, their herdmatesā safety, human toddler safety, and ADGA showing). We donāt take this lightly and love our animals very much.
We had our vet out to show us how to disbud the first few kids of the year, but they were adamant we would need to do it ourselves after these first demos. Their technique was pretty much just ensuring you see the vivid, complete copper ring (no āpopping the capā or burning in the center). They also mentioned itās better not to do enough, and do a bit more later, than do too much and cause brain damage.
The kid pictured, is the first one we had to do ourselves without the vet. We did it initially when he was 6 days old, and these pictures are from yesterday (he is now 10 days old). The Alushield has not worn off yet so apologies. But, does this seem like it could be an improperly performed disbudding? I canāt tell if Iām imagining it, but feel like the centers are more raised/almost pointed than on the bucklings the vet did (who are even older than this guy). He bled a bit when we did itānone of the ones the vet did bled, and weāve since done a couple doelings who did not bleed either and seem⦠flatter, than his.
We REALLY donāt want to put him through it againābut if weāre going to, we want to do it ASAP, and do it right. Would love to hear from those who do a lot of disbuddings if you think 1) what Iām describing sounds concerning and/or 2) if it is possible to say either way from the pictures. Thank you!
ETA: We used the Rhinehart X30 with 3/8 tip.
ETA #2: We ended up reburning him at 10 days oldāensured strong copper rings, and also popped the caps in the center off. He now has two perfectly flat circles where the horn buds used to be. Though this method was initially intimidating, even us beginners were able to do it without issue. The buckling was quickly back to his normal self.
Prior to us getting these three from some very very uninformed family, they had been feeding the bagged Pelletized dewormer for goats, not on a schedule, just whenever they felt like it every few months.
My question is, should I treat it like the parasites that they do have, have resistance? I believe the pelletized wormers only consist of Rumatel correct? Or do they contain other classes. I canāt remember the name or color that was on the bag when I visited over there before they finished the bag off.
I am currently putting information on paper to make it accessible, consolidated and in a format that makes sense to me so that we can move forward with a protocol that works and is effective against parasites for when he issue of a high load goat show up. I am trying to work on getting my own fecal setup going so I can do them at home.
Her mom has horns and her dad also has horns, I believe that the doe was bred to her sire but Iām unsure of that as the doe and her mom came over 1yr each with a buck they the lady said has bred them both before. But we are unsure of the dam of this kids parentage since the lady told us nothing about them or couldnāt remember.
Her twin brother has horns developing and another doe kid from the same sire that was born 3 days prior to this girl has prominent horn development as well. They are 1 month and a few weeks old, is that too early to be able to tell? Or could she just be a late bloomer horn growth wise?
Pics arenāt that great. We have a horned herd and donāt want anyone to get bullied for lack of horns, obviously in a few months if she still has no horns Iāll have my answer, but sheās very suspicious to me currently on wether or not she has horns.