# Slow growing babies



## Ariel301 (Dec 1, 2010)

A friend of mine and I both raise LaManchas, and I have been noticing that her kids are getting bigger faster than mine and I'm trying to figure out what's going on. 

She raises all of her kids on bottles, I prefer to dam-raise, though the two kids I have now that I am concerned about are bottle fed, and from my neighbor's herd. 

The doe I kept from my 2009 kids, Bonnie (LaMancha/Oberhasli cross) grew very, very slowly. She is going to be 2 in April and is still much smaller than my full grown does. I thought she was probably just from slow-growing bloodlines, but I sold her dam to my friend, and the dam's kids from this spring, less than a year old, are already bigger than my nearly 2 year old doe! And the two kids I got from my friend's herd and bottle raised, I think they may be growing too slowly too, the kids at my friend's place are huge compared to mine, and they are the same age. 

I did fecal tests on my kids, and also compared them to the FAMACHA chart. Didn't find anything in the test, eyelids nice and bright pink. They were weaned at 10 weeks old, and are given as much alfalfa hay as they can eat. My friend's kids were weaned at the same age and also eat the same diet, which is what confuses me! I have fewer kids also, so there is less competition at the feeder at my place; my two are in perfect body condition and have healthy looking full bellies. Neither my kids or hers have been given any dewormer so far. We buy our hay at the same place even, we get it at the same time and split a truckload, so her feed is not higher quality. 

My buckling is a little over 7 months old and he weighs about 50 pounds. He is not just a small individual, I think. His mom is pretty hefty and his dad is HUGE. His half-sister from the same buck, different doe is also very tiny, she's about 5 months old and 30 pounds, and still looks very baby-ish. That's smaller than they should be by now, right? A yearling doe at my friend's place from the same bloodline is already close to a hundred pounds, if not a little over. 

What other than parasites could be slowing my kids down? None have shown any signs at all of illness, get tons of food and have access to a good mineral.  Until I saw the kids at my friend's farm I just assumed that was how LaManchas grew, another friend told me that when she had them, they always took about 3 years to grow.


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## ()relics (Dec 1, 2010)

...genetics...if you don't cull poor traits they reappear in the does kids...Slow growing doe might give you slow growing kids.  If they were my boer does and they grew slowly, they would not have the option of being bred because they would have been culled as the bottom end of the group.  I understand dairy cull standards are different than meat cull standards but you question seems to indicate youe goats are slow growers , not necessarily bad milkers...I have a herd standard based on performance, if a goat falls below the average they are culled, No Other Reason Needed...for just this reason.  If you keep slow growers you are promoting a slow growing trait in your herd...JMO


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## ksalvagno (Dec 1, 2010)

Barberpole worm could affect them. But you said you didn't find anything in the fecal. However, you don't always see things in the fecal test.

I had to read your post twice but it sounds like the slow growing ones came from one buck? Maybe that is your answer. Do the kids from this same buck grow better at the other farms?


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## Ariel301 (Dec 1, 2010)

Bonnie, my slow growing 2009 kid came from a doe I used to own and an Oberhasli buck from another state. She is growing slow, not quite a hundred pounds yet at nearly 2 years old. Her 2010 half-sister at my friend's farm (same mother) is already at least as big as her, if not bigger. 

I have a buckling and doeling from a buck my friend owns. Her doeling from the same buck born around the same time is probably twice as big as my kids. Maybe it's a generally slow growing line on that buck's side and she lucked out getting the one fast growing kid while I got the slow ones...who knows? 

It seems all my kids are slow growing (Except a Nigerian doeling I got this summer from a rescue, she's growing fine oddly enough, it's just the Manchas...) no matter the bloodlines. :/ I thought maybe my friend just had unusually fast growing animals, so I looked around online for other kids the same age and breed as mine, and they are definitely bigger. 

I'm going to pick up some dewormer and hit them with that just to be sure I'm not missing something parasitic. I hate to medicate when there's no obvious signs of needing it, but obviously something is going on here. 

I don't really have the luxury of being able to cull extremely heavily in my breeding since I can only keep a small herd, about six does is the most I have in my permanent herd ever. I do select for temperament, conformation, and milk production, and always breed my does up to the best quality buck I can. They don't necessarily need to grow at the rate of a Boer kid destined for market, but it does become an issue if does are so small and immature I have to feed them until they are two before I can breed them, then there's another five months of feeding before they start making milk for me...that gets expensive.


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## Ariel301 (Dec 1, 2010)

Here's some recent photos of this year's two slow growers, you can get an idea of their size. 

The doeling with my husband, 5 months old. 






And the buckling, 7 months old. He's doing a funny pose, he stretched just as I snapped the picture, but you can still see how tall he is. 





Do they look undersized?


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## Calliopia (Dec 1, 2010)

He's about as big as my Nubian buck was at that age.   And then around 10-11 mos he started to grow and now he's quite decent.  Not sure how much he weighs but he tops all my does except one. And she has freaky long legs


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## ksalvagno (Dec 1, 2010)

I have Nigerians so I don't know how big regular size dairy goats should be. My Alpine will be giving birth next spring but she was bred to a Nigerian so even those kids wont' be as big as a regular size goat. So I'm not much help.

I don't see how you have ended up with all slow growing bloodlines. It just doesn't sound right. Especially if other people with the same bloodlines aren't seeing the same thing. So maybe you worm your slow growers now and then see how your kids do next year. It is a mystery.


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## Roll farms (Dec 1, 2010)

The only thing I can tell you is that until I started preventative treating for cocci, my kids seemed to grow slower than others as well.

Coccidia damages the intestinal lining so that no matter what they eat, they can't absorb / get what they need from it.

One bad bout that's treated / they recover from can still damage them....
So even if they don't *have* cocci, they may have had a bad bout that left them w/ scarring.

Now that I've been giving them sulmet every 21 days all summer, my kids grow really well.  
I get a lot of "That goat's HOW old?" even.

edited to say, I *meant* to type "DiMethox", not sulmet....but...sulmet is sooo much easier to remember.  My bad.

There are some slow maturing dairy lines, though.


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## helmstead (Dec 1, 2010)

I'm on the same line of thinking as Roll...

My Merlot buck was slow to mature, and his kids tend to be, too...but not to the extent of being overly small (they still look their age).


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## Ariel301 (Dec 1, 2010)

If it was cocci bad enough to cause lasting damage, would they not have had some symptoms? My kids in 2009 got some diarrhea when they were a few days old, but nothing serious. The 2010 kids didn't though. I will look into a cocci preventative for this year's kids, I have not treated with that  so far. 

The buckling seems to be a late bloomer overall. He still has not shown any interest at all in mating, I've never had one get to this age without developing an interest in females. But, he may just be intimidated, my does are all bigger than him except the Nigerian, who will chase him and slam him into fences. 

Also, a random question...Someone told me that kids won't grow well at all if they didn't get a CDT vaccination, that if they don't get it they will be stunted and not do well. (Mine were vaccinated) That's not true, right? Obviously people were successfully raising goats long before vaccination...


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## helmstead (Dec 1, 2010)

No, that's not true about the CD&T.

And, there's a thing called subclinical cocci...which might be your issue.


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## SDGsoap&dairy (Dec 2, 2010)

helmstead said:
			
		

> And, there's a thing called subclinical cocci...which might be your issue.


That's what comes to my mind too.  Also, I've read tapeworms can cause slow growth but I would think you'd see those in the fecal.


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## Ariel301 (Dec 2, 2010)

Yes, tapeworms are pretty hard to miss. 

If it is subclinical cocci, would treating them now be of any benefit, or would I only treat them under a certain age?

Also, would this be an issue in an adult goat, or is it only a problem of kids?


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## ksalvagno (Dec 2, 2010)

I know most people say it is only a kid thing but I can tell you from experience that adult goats can get coccidia too. I would treat your goats for coccidia.


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## helmstead (Dec 2, 2010)

Adults goats do carry cocci, and can have cocci blooms (coccidosis) but are less likely to die from it.  It is wise, when you have high cocci loads to treat your adult goats twice a year for cocci.  This will knock down the soil load, over time, as does feeding medicated feed.

A "cocci baby" is pretty much always easy to pick out of a crowd.  They tend to never grow to their full potential and are never able to sustain good body condition.  So, the answer is...once the damage is done, it's done.  There is scarring in the intestines - and the animal is never able to fully utilize its feed...or else requires a substantial amount of extra nutrition to maintain good condition.

Cocci is one of those things you can just count on.   Babies are 'infected' as soon as they're born.  The huge misconception, thanks to several websites with some misinformation, is that cocci is only an issue when you see scouring.  In fact...a goat can have, and subsequently die from, cocci and never scour.  Cocci can even be the cause of constipation.

The best idea is to get a herd fecal (a fecal test with several different samples) and find out where your cocci load is.  Test the poor keepers individually.  Then, treat as appropriate.  

Then, with your kids - find and follow an effective cocci prevention program.


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## mossyStone (Dec 2, 2010)

What is the dosage for Sulmet? I assume it goes into the drinking water? or is it  drench? Or can you feed this in feed form?

Thanks in Advance


Mossy Stone Farm


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## helmstead (Dec 2, 2010)

Roll and I are gonna butt heads on this one.  MOST strains of cocci are now resistant to Sulmet.  Lucky Roll, must have like the ONE strain that still is gotten by it.

It's been so long since I used it, that I don't remember the dose for Sulmet.  Altho it's a drinking water preparation, you drench it full strength - that I do remember.

I prefer DiMethox 40%, SMZ-TMP and CoRid for prevention and treatment, personally.


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## Roll farms (Dec 2, 2010)

I'm not head butting 
I use DiMethox, but I buy the powder from Jeffers and mix it myself....
I said, "Sulmet" in my earlier post b/c for some goofy reason it's easier for me to remember Sulmet than it is DiMethox.


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## Ariel301 (Dec 3, 2010)

helmstead said:
			
		

> A "cocci baby" is pretty much always easy to pick out of a crowd.  They tend to never grow to their full potential and are never able to sustain good body condition.  So, the answer is...once the damage is done, it's done.  There is scarring in the intestines - and the animal is never able to fully utilize its feed...or else requires a substantial amount of extra nutrition to maintain good condition.


That might be the answer to why I have one older doe who is ALWAYS skinny. I've wormed her and done lots of fecal tests on her, and nothing ever really shows up, but she is impossible to keep weight on, she's been that way since I got her. She's been tested negative for all the major goat diseases that can be tested for. I even checked her teeth to be sure they were not bothering her. I normally don't grain dry does, but she has to have a pound of grain with a generous splash of corn oil on it when dry, plus as much alfalfa and brewer's grain as she can hold, and double the grain when milking just to keep her going, nothing at all seems to put much padding on her bones. She's a terrific milker, though. She's a little on the small side compared to my other older girls, I wonder if she was stunted from cocci...


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