# dog food goat, need some advice please.



## DonnaBelle (Nov 20, 2010)

Hi all,

I need some advice.  I am "rescuing" an alpine female about 2 years old.  I had a fecal done today, no worms.

She has not had anything to eat except cheap dog food and leaves.

No hay, no goat food, no minerals, just the above.

I have on hand: hay, dairy goat feed, goat developer, red cell and gray goat mineral.  I have alfalfa hay and prairie hay. I also have bicarbonate of soda available.  I know she has not been vaccinated for

This little female has been raised on bottle and kept alone in a pen by herself.

I have some Nubians, all does and one buck who is hopefully breeding my does.  Should I let her in there with the rest of the goats or keep her penned by herself, but she can see the other goats??

She's never been bred, just a lonely little goat in a pen by herself.

BY THE WAY, SHE HAS HORNS, THE OTHERS DO NOT.

DonnaBelle


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## ChksontheRun (Nov 20, 2010)

Oh boy, you have your hands full I think.  A few things to think of, she needs to be changed to a goat diet instead of a dog diet, but slowly so she doesn't bloat.  Perhaps offering her some hay in small amounts while still giving her a little of the dog food (ugh) till her rumen gets used to the hay, then moving to just hay, then, depending on her condition, introduce a tiny bit of grain.  (all of these changes being done very slowly)

She should be quarantined JMHO, and tested for the bad goat diseases.... CAE, CL, Johhnes, Brucelosis.  Even though the tests are not a guarantee, I would have her tested for these before putting her in with the others.

You need to see how she acts with the other goats after the above is done in terms of butting.  If she is a real head butter, perhaps addressing the horns would be an issue, if she is very submissive, perhaps it is not such an issue.

Remember, when she is introduced to the herd, don't expect it to be smooth sailing.  They will have their disagreements till they all figure out their place.

I am sure there are lots of other opinions on all of this, these are just a few of my first thoughts.


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## ksalvagno (Nov 20, 2010)

When I got my Alpine mix girl, I just ended up putting her right in with the others. She had been living by herself in a more suburban area and she had a clean fecal along with CAE, CL & Johnes tests coming back negative. She was living in a grassy area and it was kept clean. She also had not been vaccinated or anything. She also has horns and none of my other goats do. She is the boss but the other goats are Nigerians. I put tennis balls at the ends of her horns. I was going to band her horns but never got around to it this year. Will do it next spring after she kids. I know others will not agree with me but I would say to do what is best for you. You could always try her out in the pen with the goats and if it doesn't work, then put her in a pen next to them.

Obviously you aren't going to be able to slowly change over her diet so expect some loose stool.


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## DonnaBelle (Nov 20, 2010)

I am going to give her a CD & T shot I think, and some fresh hay and water.  I have a pen I can put her in where she can see the other goats, but can't get close to them.

I will give her a bit of dog food (ugh) with a tad of goat developer, maybe a half a cup and load it with probios.

Thanks for the idea about the TENNIS BALLS.  Great thinking!!!

DonnaBelle.


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## ksalvagno (Nov 20, 2010)

I got the smaller tennis balls from the dollar store that were in a pack of 3.

That is great that you are  willing to take her in. Congratulations on your new goat!


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## DonnaBelle (Nov 20, 2010)

Well, we just got back with her and put her in the small pen next to the other goats.  I gave her a CD & T shot.

She really looks pretty good, not skinny or anything.

BUT HER HOOVES!!   OMG!! THEY ARE A MESS!!

And those horns!!  eeeeeeekkkkkkkkk!!

We are definately going to let her calm down a bit before we tackle the hooves!!  She has NEVER been trimmed I'm sure.

She has long hair, unlike the Nubians. She's a mottled black/brown/dirty white color.   But I'm so glad she doesn't have worms or cocci!!

This goat thing is getting outta hand!!!

Oh! did I say?  We paid $20.00 for the privilege of rescue.

Gotta get some tennis balls though.....dollar store here I come.

DonnaBelle


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## freemotion (Nov 20, 2010)

OK, first, yay for rescuing her!  I wouldn't give her any more dogfood at all.  Just leaves and some hay for a bit, then good grain if she needs it in a couple of weeks or so.  And a good mineral with copper sulfate.

Just because she has horns does not mean she will use them against your current goats.  I have three with horns and three without, all living together, and as long as they have plenty of room to get away, they are ok.  My meanest goat, the one I worry most will hurt another one, is a polled Pygmy cross.

Feet....get them trimmed the best you can, then just work on them over the next year.  It can take a long time to get feet back to looking good.  They may never look like feet that have been taken care of properly, so relax about that and do your best to make her comfortable and keep her comfortable.  

When I rescued Mya, she had elf shoes for hooves, it looked like she'd never had a trim in her life.  I spent $150 rescuing her!  Plus vet bills and farrier....I had my farrier do her first trim, as she was a bit unruly.  I do it myself now, usually two feet at a time on the milk stand after milking.  Like fronts one day, hinds the next.  Without assistance, if I tried to do all four at once, blood would be shed.  Not sure if it would be mine or hers.


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## ohiofarmgirl (Nov 20, 2010)

and pictures please



great work!


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## PattySh (Nov 20, 2010)

You are awesome for taking her in. I have a "horned" goat(Alpine/Oberhasli) in with my others and she has never used her horns to hurt anyone, goat or human. She is actually one of the bigger goats in my small herd. If you can steal a cud from one of your other goats and feed it to her it would help develop her rumen.  I would offer her baking soda and hay(maybe you can get some late baled with leaves in it??) free choice and nothing else but water. If they are hungry they will usually eat.


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## elevan (Nov 20, 2010)

Dog food!? Oh my goodness! What some people think is ok?!

Good for you for taking her in!


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## DonnaBelle (Nov 21, 2010)

Thanks for all the positive cheering on!!  I will get some pictures in about a week, leaving for Thanksgiving with the family today.

DH stays home, refuses to leave the ranch for a big time in Big D
(that's Dallas for you guys in the the Northeast).

He has quail hunting on his mind, and working with his Brittanys.

It's a man thing.  Why he doesn't want to go shopping and eat in the tea rooms is beyond me.  

He's the only man I know who can go straight into Bass Pro Shop, get what he wants and leave in 15 minutes.  Heck, I can't do that!!

DonnaBelle


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## aggieterpkatie (Nov 21, 2010)

I also would stop the dog food and feed hay.  Hay (grass hay) should not cause any issues at all.


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## Kenneth Flippen (Nov 21, 2010)

I have a automatic dog feeder under the barn for my pyrenees and I let my goats out of thier pasture from time to time in the yard and they will wipe the dog food out if I don't put it up I have went a couple of months between turn outs when the farm crops are in full swing and they don't forget to check for it. for some reason my goats love it although I don't feed it to them. I also feed for another guy when hes gone to shows he feeds his pyrenees in the goat pasture and the goats wait for them to finish to see if theres any left. I don't think the dog food was bad for her in being that it would cause problems but it is made to meet a dogs needs probably don't have all the vitamins and minerals goats require.

I'm new to dairy goats myself this being my 3rd year but this is what I have been told when bringing in new goats. probiotics should help with the change over I try to give it to mine once every week or 2 I may have over looked some one saying it but Baking Soda should help to control bloat some keep it free choice others don't. I don't but probably should.


                               Kenneth Flippen


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## dhansen (Nov 22, 2010)

My goats will eat our LDG"s food if she leaves it unattended.  She finally learned to eat it all  and then stay close to guard it.  The goats still try to get to it, but she growls at them.  Not sure why they like it so much, but I also know they are not getting more than a few dropped pieces from the ground.  Most dog food has a lot of corn in it, so maybe that's why.  
I always have a bowl of baking soda available for my goats.  I have NEVER had a case of bloat.  It's cheap and an easy preventative.


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## SDGsoap&dairy (Nov 22, 2010)

If I've learned anything from my goats it's that the more you want them to stay out of something the more they want to get in it!  I have one who has discovered the LGD-in-training's food and now he has to be fed separately.  I think she only wants it because she knows she isn't supposed to have it...   Same thing with the cosmos I've had blooming all summer/fall... earlier in the year they'd get an earful (and a bucket of cold water thrown at them) for getting into it.  As soon as it started going to seed and I didn't run them off as vigorously if they sampled it they decided it was inedible and left it alone!    Sorry, off topic.    That's a lucky goat that found you!


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## Greendecember (Nov 29, 2010)

dhansen said:
			
		

> My goats will eat our LDG"s food if she leaves it unattended.  She finally learned to eat it all  and then stay close to guard it.  The goats still try to get to it, but she growls at them.  Not sure why they like it so much, but I also know they are not getting more than a few dropped pieces from the ground.  Most dog food has a lot of corn in it, so maybe that's why.
> I always have a bowl of baking soda available for my goats.  I have NEVER had a case of bloat.  It's cheap and an easy preventative.


I really lucked out. My goats don't want to do more than sniff and turn up their nose at my LGD's food. I feed them all at the same time though so maybe they just know what they have is far better


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## ChksontheRun (Nov 30, 2010)

My goats will get into the dogs food given half a min.  This weekend we are going to try to make a dog door through some cattle pannel from the dogs area to the large goat pen.  We have read that if we make it about 2 feet off the ground that the dogs will climb through, but the goats will not try.  I will let you know how that works......


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## cmjust0 (Nov 30, 2010)

A raw egg in the dog's bowl works wonders for dog-food-eating goats..  Dog food may be ground up and processed so intensively that a goat no longer recognizes the MEAT and ANIMAL FAT in it, but an egg?  Nope.  My experience has been that even the snarfiest of goats won't eat a slimy, wet egg.

Good for doggy's coat, too.  

About those feet...when feet get that bad, don't be afraid to take the heel off.  

Some of you just rocked backward in shock and fell out of your chairs because everyone knows you simply don't take the heel off, but trust me when I tell you that others -- people who've remedied *bad* feet before -- went "Well, duh."

Seriously...when they've grown out to the point that cutting off the extra toe just makes it look like she's walking entirely on the heel...kinda like this:







...it's time for the heel to go.  

Thing is, there will be *quite a bit* of heel there.  Just start whittling at it, setting her feet down frequently to see how she's lining up.  And, yes, it seems counter-intuitive...like, removing the heel *should* make her toe flip up MORE...but it doesn't, because what you're actually doing is removing excess sole between the tip of the toe and the part of the back of the food that's gonna end up on the ground.  That brings the tip of the toe _down_ -- not up.

Clear as mud?  Good!

Ok then, so there's your corrective trimming tip of the day.  

Oh, and if you draw blood at any point in the process, it'll almost certainly be out toward the toe because that the part we're "trained" to cut and you'll keep whacking at it after you set her foot down and realize her angles are all screwed up..  Stop when you hit bloot out there and, if her feet resemble the crudely drawn picture above (I can do signed prints of that, btw..$4 + postage, shall we say?) THAT's when you start whittling on the heel.  

Hard to whittle with trimmers, too.  This is where a hoof knife comes in handy.  

Ok...carry on.


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## DonnaBelle (Nov 30, 2010)

Thanks guys, for all the responses.

I did take Maggie's poop sample to the vet.  NO WORMS OR COCCI. 

Maggie's been getting all the hay she wants and a cup of grain each day.  She is doing very well.

However, the other goats hate her.  It's breeding season, and I have a small buck in with the other females.  They do not like her, don't want her in with them.  The hackles rise up on their backs, just like a dog's would!!!!

So for now, she can see them, but a fence is between her and the rest of the herd.

Wonder how long this will go on?

DonnaBelle


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## cmjust0 (Nov 30, 2010)

It'll go on until you turn her out with them full time, they all figure out who's who, get their pecking order re-established, and everyone gets used to one another.

Same thing happens around here when mamas kid and get stalled up with their babies for a week or so..  When mama comes back out, everybody gets all pissy with one another and they all get their panties in a bunch, hackles are raised, heads are butted, rumens are slammed into stall doors, and then everybody gets back in a groove.

That's goats for ya.  

ETA:  Just because the fecal didn't show any worms doesn't mean she doesn't have any worms...especially at this time of year.  She may be infested with worms, but the length of day's pretty short right about now, so the majority of barberpoles are going/have gone dormant and are overwintering in their host goaties.  They're in a larval stage during dormancy, which means they're not adults, which means they don't produce eggs.

You can see anecdotal proof of that in the dearth of recent "MY GOAT HAS WORMS OMGAH" posts here..  Been a while, huh?  Yep...that's because it's not barberpole season anymore.  

Just sayin' -- don't rule her out for worms this Spring.

On the other hand, one thing -- quite possibly the ONLY thing -- that's good about her having been kept in a stall by herself and fed a ration of dog food is that she probably wasn't grazing ground where other goats had crapped out worm-larvae-infested poop, and grazing larvae-contaminated grass is how they pick up barberpoles to begin with.  So, ya...she really *may* be barberpole free.

Of course...the bad thing about that is that she's never seen barberpoles and would have no natural immunity, which could be a liability next spring and summer.

Six in one hand......


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## Ariel301 (Nov 30, 2010)

cmjust0 said:
			
		

> A raw egg in the dog's bowl works wonders for dog-food-eating goats..  Dog food may be ground up and processed so intensively that a goat no longer recognizes the MEAT and ANIMAL FAT in it, but an egg?  Nope.  My experience has been that even the snarfiest of goats won't eat a slimy, wet egg.


Hmmm....my goats must be "snarfier" than yours lol. Before I put up a fortress of fencing for my chickens a few months ago, my does would break into the chicken coop and eat the eggs out of the nests. I couldn't figure out where in the world the eggs were disappearing to until I caught the goats in the act. I wonder how they figured out those white rock looking things in there were something tasty?! 

The goat being fed dog food doesn't surprise me sadly...when I was a kid, I remember going to the zoo and they had a little vending machine like the kind you get candy from, and you could get a cup full of dog food kibbles out of it to feed the goats there. For years I assumed that's what goats ate, because that's what we fed the ones at the zoo...Thankfully I learned better BEFORE I bought goats of my own!


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## SDGsoap&dairy (Dec 1, 2010)

Cm, can you put me down for one of those prints?   I had the "rocking horse" experience when I first started trimming feet as well and I will say they don't have to be overgrown.  I gave them to one of my bottle babies the second time she had her feet trimmed and had to shave the heel down with a rasp quite a bit to level them out.  

It seems like foot conformation might have something to do with it?  It's really only the one doe I have to be super mindful about the heel or I end up doing it again.  And (probably since I groom for a living) I tend to be a little anal about their feet and do them regularly.  Maybe the experts can weigh in on that?


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## DonnaBelle (Dec 1, 2010)

Hi all,

I called my horse farrier this morning and told him about Maggie's hooves probably never been trimmed.  I asked him about goat hoof trimming, if he had ever done it, and he says:  I used to trim 50 goats for my uncle when I was growing up, know more about goat hooves than I do horses!!  He's a super nice guy who comes every 2 months and trims my 2 horses.

Sooo, yeah rah, he's coming this afternoon to do Maggie.  He's a real pro, does the show horse circuit in Texas.  And did I say, he is a really nice person.  

I'm going to get some pictures on here too, will get em this afternoon.

DonnaBelle


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## ksalvagno (Dec 1, 2010)

That is great that you are able to get all her problems taken care of. I would think she should eventually be included in the herd. Just need to give it time.


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## DonnaBelle (Dec 2, 2010)

Hi all,

The farrier came out yesterday afternoon.  He trimmed Maggie's feet, and showed me a thing or 3.

Like don't cut the pads at the back of the hoof.  Just trim the pointy parts.

I tried to download some pictures.  I got them as far as my desktop, but alas, couldn't get them on BYH.

DonnaBelle


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## cmjust0 (Dec 2, 2010)

> The farrier came out yesterday afternoon.  He trimmed Maggie's feet, and showed me a thing or 3.
> 
> Like don't cut the pads at the back of the hoof.  Just trim the pointy parts.


If he didn't have to trim any heel to make "new" hoof wall hit the dirt squarely from heel to toe, she must not have been *too* bad off.  



> I tried to download some pictures.  I got them as far as my desktop, but alas, couldn't get them on BYH.


Click the "Uploads" link in the blue menu bar toward the top of the page.

When that page comes up, you'll see a button that reads "browse" - click it.

That will bring up what we geeks call a "file/open dialog box"...it's just a window that will allow you to locate and select a file.

At the top of that window, you'll see a drop down menu..click it and select 'Desktop'..  

You'll see all the files on your desktop appear in the big white box on that window.  Find the image you want to upload and double-click it.

The file/open dialog will disappear, and you'll be back to the page with the 'browse' button you just clicked.  Below that button is another  button that reads "Submit" -- click it.  That will upload the image to BYH.

After the image uploads, you'll automatically be taken to another page where you'll see your image and two text-boxes below it.  The boxes will be labeled "Thumb" and "Image".  Click somewhere inside the box labeled "Image" and the text will turn blue -- that means it's highlighted, and ready to be copied.

You can either RIGHT click and choose "copy" from the context menu, or you can press CTRL and C simultaneously to copy the text to the computer's "clipboard" -- that puts the text in memory.  Nothing magical happens here.  If you've never done this before, you'll do it and nothing will happen and you'll think you did something wrong -- but you're fine.  

Once that's done, come back to this thread and begin a post as you normally would..  

Then, either RIGHT click again and select "paste", or press CTRL and V simultaneously, and that will paste the image location text from the clipboard into the reply.

Submit.

Rejoice.

Repeat, as needed, for additional pictures.


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