dog food goat, need some advice please.

[DonnaBelle]

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

 

[aggieterpkatie]

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

 

[Kenneth Flippen]

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

 

[dhansen]

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.

 

[SDGsoap&dairy]

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!

 

[Greendecember]

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

 

[ChksontheRun]

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......

 

[cmjust0]

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.

 

[DonnaBelle]

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

 

[cmjust0]

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......