# Goat(s) spitting up 'great green gobs'



## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

Hi 

New to your forum, was recommended to me by a friend from my own horse forum, as a good forum for info on goats!

I have four backyard goats as pets, they live and graze around our yard/compound during the day and in the aisle of our barn at night.   

Been finding these chewed up gobs of grass in the aisle in the morning, not even sure which goat(s) is/are doing this.

I think it's undigested, meaning, I think they must be spitting this up, it's not coming out the other end, everything that's coming out the other end looks like the normal little black marbles.

No goat looks sick, all goats appear to be OK... but I'll be watching them today and trying to find out more.  Just not sure how worried to be about this, and/or whether I should try to split them up tonight to figure out which one(s) might be doing it.

All the goats seem fine, seem perky, they graze around and do goat things all day, nothing seems wrong with any of them.  Their weight is good. 

I have pictures of the green gobs, and the goats, but as a new member, it's not letting me post them yet.  Can try later if needed


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## redtailgal (Oct 11, 2011)

Hi!  Welcome to the group!

You are right there is a wealth of information on this site!  Some of the pro's will be on here soon and they would give you better information than I do.

I am new to goats, but not so new with cattle.
  What you are seeing, I think is cud.

I have seen cattle do this.

How old are your goats?  Older animals have a harder time chewing and sometimes spit out and coarser cud that they dont want to have to chew.

Have you ran a fecal on them?  I know with Cattle, stomach worms will occasionaly cause this.

Does your goat have any abcess's in the throat? dont forget the possibility of an internal abcess, I know of two heifers that dropped cud because of an abcess inside the throat or mouth.  Feeding coarse or very harshly stemmy hay can cause a lot of internal abcesses.

Check their teeth and gums........do they have a gum infection or sore tooth?

One old cow here will drop her cuds every spring,  I finally figured out it was the wild onions that she didnt like.

Go around and say "HI" to some other new people so that you can have enough posts to put up a pic.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

redtailgal said:
			
		

> Hi!  Welcome to the group!
> 
> You are right there is a wealth of information on this site!  Some of the pro's will be on here soon and they would give you better information than I do.


Thanks! 


> I am new to goats, but not so new with cattle.
> What you are seeing, I think is cud.


I think so too... though I've never seen cud... some looks very undigested, long grass in it, some moreso, look like rather loose horse 'apples' in consistency.




> How old are your goats?  Older animals have a harder time chewing and sometimes spit out and coarser cud that they dont want to have to chew.


They vary...  Two are young (less than two years) male Nigerian Dwarf wethers, two are older females, don't even know how old, they were given to me.  One is a Pygmy, one is a Toggenberg.

I have been wondering myself if a suspect might be dental problems in one of the older girls.



> Have you ran a fecal on them?  I know with Cattle, stomach worms will occasionaly cause this.


No, I haven't.  



> Does your goat have any abcess's in the throat? dont forget the possibility of an internal abcess, I know of two heifers that dropped cud because of an abcess inside the throat or mouth.  Feeding coarse or very harshly stemmy hay can cause a lot of internal abcesses.
> 
> Check their teeth and gums........do they have a gum infection or sore tooth?


Have not checked for things like this either....  Though they are pet goats, they aren't "petting zoo" tame, at least the older girls aren't.  Though they will follow me in for dinner, we have to do a bit of rodeoing to catch them for things like foot trimming so I haven't done a 'hands on' for any of them yet.

Was hoping to have an idea which one to wrangle first, and what to check for. 




> One old cow here will drop her cuds every spring,  I finally figured out it was the wild onions that she didnt like.


Wondering if they don't like the new grass hay.  It's a good quality grass hay, but it's not the alfalfa they really want.  They used to get a mix, but I'm not feeding alfalfa to the horses any more, and they really miss that. When I feed them the grass hay, they look at me like "OK, this is what we sleep on, where's the real FOOOD!" They're all digging for leftover alfalfa leaves in the hay room when they get a chance. 



> Go around and say "HI" to some other new people so that you can have enough posts to put up a pic.


How many posts does it take?


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## Natisha (Oct 11, 2011)

Hi WB, I hope you get answers soon.  I  know how much your goaties mean to you.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

Thanks,....    Thanks for recommending the site to me


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## elevan (Oct 11, 2011)

When you reach around 10 posts you'll be able to post pics.

You'll find your post count 
<<<-----------Here

Here are some links on posting photos when you're ready:
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=97
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=13987

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now to your questions. 

RTG gave you some pretty good answers (she might be new to goats but learning fast   )

It's cud.  I know it's gross, but try smelling it...does it smell oniony or sour?  That may explain why whoever is spitting it out is doing so.

I'd try putting out some baking soda free choice and hopefully who ever is doing it will take some...it may also be due to an upset stomach.

Definitely run a fecal.  It may or may not be related but knowing your worm situation is never a bad thing...you have to know where you stand.

Check the jaw of each of your goats to make sure one of them isn't retaining cud.  When they do this it kind of gets stuck around the hinge of their jaw.  If one of them is, then that's probably your culprit.  A vet will need to fix the problem so it doesn't keep happening.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

I'll do all of those things tonight when hubby's here to help wrangle them, try to figure out which one(s) is/are doing this.   I'm fairly new to goats also, had horses a long time, only had goats since we picked up the two dwarfs, as an impulse buy  

I've not wormed them since the two wethers were at the vet to be neutered as babies.   The two girls, the prior owner wormed regularly, she said, they were given to me this last summer. 

I guess I should know more about worming them than I do...  What wormers should they be given and how often? Or do you recommend occasional fecals and worming as needed from that?  That is the routine I've adopted with the horses of late.


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## elevan (Oct 11, 2011)

I would suggest you read the Parasite Management link in my signature for getting a basic understanding of worms in goats.

It's a "big" read, so don't read the whole thing at once...it was the culmination of my notes from 3 seminars and a field day.  There's a lot of other member's input in there too.

De-Worming on a schedule is bad news imo.  Always run a fecal.  But know what to look for so you don't go broke running fecals to the vet.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

Will read 

My vet who neutered them had said to me , rightly or wrongly, that he'd wormed them then, that since they were moving to a place that had not had goats previously, they would not likely have parasite problems... at least right away.  But to run fecals from time to time. 

I guess now should be one of those times?


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

The vet above also had said not to over-use wormers.  

And this is a strategy I've adopted with my horses as well.  No longer giving them wormer every two months 'whether they needed it or not' the way we used to.


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## elevan (Oct 11, 2011)

IF they were clean when you took them to your new land and that land has never had goats or sheep or deer on it then the vet is right...you'll likely enjoy a period of time that is relatively parasite free.  But it won't stay that way.  Our extension vet says that the period of bliss will last approximately 3 years and then bam...you're gonna get a bloom.  You'll learn that by reading that thread.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

Thanks.... reading through that thread now, while I have lunch.  (Sounds weird, but that's the way it is )


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

One quick spam post and I'll have 10...


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

OK - Now I can post pics...

Here's the green wads...  I didn't sweep this together, they were all found in one place like this, near a pile of hay were it looks like at least one of them bedded down.







This one looks more digested, I guess it's more like what a 'cud' must look like, though I'd never actually _seen _one.






All the goats seem fine, seem perky, they graze around and do goat things all day, nothing seems wrong with any of them.  Their weight is good.  No diarrhea. 






Too cute not to post, Patty the older Pygmy... who hubby thinks has expressions a lot like the pig in "Babe".


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## elevan (Oct 11, 2011)

Looks like the largest you have there is a Togg...I'm inclined to think that's probably whose doing it cause those cuds look to be a good size (though photos can be misleading).

How many days did it take to accumulate that amount of wads in the one pic?


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

That's all from one night!


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## elevan (Oct 11, 2011)

I'm leaning toward your togg being the culprit.  Give her a really good once over.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

Will do tonight...  If she's the one who needs to be inspected, I especially need hubby to help... she's strong! 

I'm checking her for:

Sore teeth, by feeling?  
Stuck cuds in her jaw?  
Abscesses?-How would I know this, lumps or pain?


I think she is an older goat... but really don't know.


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## Natisha (Oct 11, 2011)

WashingtonBay said:
			
		

> Will do tonight...  If she's the one who needs to be inspected, I especially need hubby to help... she's strong!
> 
> I'm checking her for:
> 
> ...


At least she doesn't have horns.  Wouldn't want Hubby to get nailed in the face by one of your critters-again.


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## redtailgal (Oct 11, 2011)

Use all your senses, well maybe not your sense of taste....unless you just want to, that is.  

Feel for hard or soft places, swollen places etc.

Watch her reaction to the places that you feel and listen for grunts or squeals of pain or discomfort.

Check way back in the pockets of the cheeks for stuck cud. I have dug stuck cud out of cattle before. It is gross, it stinks.  To be blunt, I would have rather gone up the other end.  Youve been warned.(hopefully its not so gross with goats)

And smell her mouth, OFTEN but not always infected gums stink as do abcessed teeth, if you smell something that smells like poop, or road kill, or that sickeningly sweet smell or just plain old RAUNCHY.....there is an infection in the mouth throat area.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

Thanks all    Will check tonight and let you know what/if we find/feel/smell/taste


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

Well, tonight we did a close inspection of the jaw, teeth and throat of the two older girls, and found nothing.  Nothing seemed sore or swollen or anything stuck.  While we were at it we trimmed Patty's toes, which needed it! 

And I didn't end up separating them either, not tonight... no time to set up the spare stall.  I'll keep an eye on this in the next couple of days, see if I can get to the bottom of it.


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## elevan (Oct 11, 2011)

Put some baking soda out in one of your mineral feeders...if it's due to an upset stomach it'll help.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 11, 2011)

Thanks for the reminder, I'd forgotten about that suggestion.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 12, 2011)

Fewer green gobs last night, a couple, if any...

Not sure if it's related, but Pearl, the big Toggenberg, appears now to be in standing heat, and the two dwarf wethers are making a lot of bizarre grunting sounds that apparently mean something like "hey baaabieee, hubba hubba" and fighting each other over the privilege of mounting her.  Sometimes settling for a bizarre sortof three-way kinky chain dance.

I'm not sure how much worse it would be if they were actually breeding bucks, and I'm sortof glad I don't know .   

They're out now, I'm hoping they'll settle down and browse around a little today, tonight I'll be giving them some of the baking soda.


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## elevan (Oct 12, 2011)

WashingtonBay said:
			
		

> Not sure if it's related, but Pearl, the big Toggenberg, appears now to be in standing heat, and the two dwarf wethers are making a lot of bizarre grunting sounds that apparently mean something like "hey baaabieee, hubba hubba" and fighting each other over the privilege of mounting her.  Sometimes settling for a bizarre sortof three-way kinky chain dance.
> 
> I'm not sure how much worse it would be if they were actually breeding bucks, and I'm sortof glad I don't know .




They are quite comical.  

Depending on the level of amorousness that your wethers have a buck would be very similar in sound and attention.


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## elevan (Oct 12, 2011)

I'm glad there were less blobs.  It may just have been something that one of them ate that disagreed with them and they were spitting it out when it came up for cud.  :/

I'd still put the baking soda out and see if it helps. Only leave it out for a couple of days.


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## WashingtonBay (Oct 12, 2011)

I am going to give them some when I put them in tonight.  They're outside now.


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