I just got 2 Nigerian Dwarf Goats!!

[glenolam]

I'm not saying this is accurate either and am not trying to scare you, but sometimes being larger on one side may mean bloat. If she's acting fine/feeling fine, that's probably not the case.

Mine usually get a little lop sided when they fill up on something, then they pee/poop it all out and look even again.

 

[cmjust0]

Thank you very much for your suggestions anyway! I really appreciate it.

Since her side are not evenly wide ( one part sticks out a bit more) I would guess that she is pregnant. so if she is how much protein does she need in her diet?

What I was going by was as much the broadside picture as the overhead.. She looks wide in the overhead, but in the broadside, she looked kinda low and tight.. Might just be a Nigerian thing, though.

The last two months or so are when their nutritional needs really begin to increase.. Since you don't actually know if/when she was bred, it's going to be a little more difficult.. You can manage, though, if you keep a close eye on her condition..

Early bred does can pretty much be treated like open does up until 6-8 weeks pre-kidding. If she's too fat in early pregnancy, do what you can to slim her down or you risk A) toxemia, from a late pregnancy condition burn, or B) huge babies, from feeding to keep her overly fat to avoid toxemia which results from condition burn. Either way, not great..

What we usually do with open and early-preggers does is free choice grass or grass-mix hay, access to graze/browse if possible, and supplementing with grain according to body condition.. If they're fat, don't supplement. If they're thin, supplement. Feeding to condition requires more work in terms of continually monitoring their body condition on a goat-by-goat basis, but it's well worth it.

We bred an OBESE doe in the fall and slimmed her down throughout early pregnancy, hoping to avoid the two scenarios I outlined above in late pregnancy.. When she got to about where I wanted her in terms of condition, we worked to maintain that weight.. In later pregnancy, she started getting thinner than we wanted, so we we increased her supplementation to level her off again and stop the condition burn.. It took more to stop it than I figured it would, which seemed odd to me..

When she kidded, we immediately knew WHY....she had 23lbs of baby goat, including a 10lb buckling, a 5.5lb doeling, and a 7.5lb doeling..

BUT...she was actually fit when she kidded!

Six weeks later, we're practically shoveling grain at her since she's currently nursing what's gotta be somewhere in the neighborhood of 75lbs worth of kids...and she's still losing condition :/ ...but that's a whole 'nuther story entirely.

Bottom line: Learn to judge a goat's body condition score, and feed each goat according to its particular condition. If you can do that (..and it's not hard..) you'll be alright.

 

[Hollywood Goats]

She is fine, running around and chasing her baby.

We got right before feeding time, and I thought she looked kind of large compared to the other goats.

 

[cmjust0]

Wow...she's like two different goats from one set of pictures to the next. The 2nd set of pics says she's definitely still in the "who knows" category in terms of bred status....but if she was exposed to bucks recently, I'd say there's a fair to middlin' chance she is, indeed, bred. Given Blossom's age, though, it would definitely be too early to tell from appearance.

I'll say it again, though... To be in lactation right now -- likely peak lactation, at that -- she looks really good.

 

[Hollywood Goats]

she and her baby appear to have lice.

They were scratching a lot so I parted the hair on the baby and she is covered with no-see-um like bugs and the mother has a few.

I gave the mother a bath this morning with neem shampoo so that might have helped her lice, but how do I get rid of it?

 

[Hollywood Goats]

I just gave Blossom a neem bath, she hated it!

But it appears to have killed most of the bugs on her mother (Daffy) so I hope it relieves the itching a bit.

 

[cmjust0]

I've used Ivomec 1% injectable successfully for external parasites, dosed at 1ml/25lbs of bodyweight.

When using Ivomec injectable for internal parasites, I dose it orally.. When using it to treat external parasites, I actually inject it SQ.. I think some folks use it orally in either case, and it apparently works.

Your call, I guess..

Your baby Blossom is probably still small enough that she could be dusted thoroughly enough with Python or some other livestock bug dust to take care of any lice she may have.. Most are pyrethrin products, so they're pretty benign to anything that's not a bug.. I've used it on baby babies before....newborns, like, a few hours old...born to lousy crappy scrub commercial goats who ignored them, and they were COVERED in lice.. Within minutes of being dusted, you could see a bunch of motionless lice on their coats.

Speaking of Pyrethrins, there's another product called CyLence that supposedly works really well.. It's a Pyrethrin product, but it's a liquid pour-on.....and, yeah, it's actually used as a pour-on in goats (unlike Cydectin pour-on, which is typically drenched )..

I haven't used CyLence personally, though, so I can't vouch for it.. I've just read/heard about it, and the stories have generally been very favorable.

 

[Hollywood Goats]

I dusted them and bathed them in neem soap it seems to be all gone now.
they are not scratching anymore and I parted their hair and I couldn't find any.
I also dusted their bedding.

I felt her stomach it is soft by her back and hard down low, she is also weaning her baby and is not giving much milk.

Thank you all and have a great weekend!