Pregnant Alpine Goat with Worms!!!?
Question by CassieCutie: Pregnant Alpine Goat with Worms!!!?
We have never dewormed our goat, and she is pregnant for the first time. I went down to check on her, and I saw a little off-white EXTREMELY thin little thing wiggling around coming out of her rear end. Is that a WORM!?! If it is, then what should I give her? Some people give them horse dewormer, but should I give her that since she is pregnant? Or, could it be something other than worms?? PLEASE HELP ME!!!
Okay, thank you SO much! I will have to ask my goat farmer friend to help me 🙂 You really helped me out a lot!
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2 Responses to Pregnant Alpine Goat with Worms!!!?
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We keep sheep and de worm our ewes about 6 weeks before they lamb so yes she should be ok to treat. It’s this time of year that you start to notice worms in their faeces although they will probably have been there for some time. Don’t use a horse wormer, it won’t be as effective on treating your goat as a proper sheep’/goat wormer. If you know of any farmers or goat keepers ask them if they can have enough to treat her.
T.
March 26, 2014 at 4:29 pm
I’ve been raising goats since 1999. I have 78 goats in my herd. I use Ivermectin horse paste wormer.
Since you can actually SEE the worms, your goat has a fairly bad infestation.
Worm her the first time with Safeguard horse paste wormer. Set the wormer for a 500 pound animal. Don’t worry, you will not overdose her, and kill her. Modern wormers are very safe. They poison the worms, not the animal.
There’s a reason you need to worm her with Safeguard first. It’s a very mild (gentle) wormer. It also does not kill as many different types of worms as Ivermectin.
When you worm a goat, the wormer kills all the adult worms in the gut of the goat, but does not touch the eggs. Since your doe has a very bad worm infestation, she could bleed to death as all the worms die. Each worm is attached in her gut, as they let go, they leave a tiny bleeding spot.
Using too harsh a wormer, and killing too many worms the first time around could put her at risk for bleeding to death.
Three weeks after worming her with Safeguard, worm her with Ivermectin, at a 500 pound dose. Worm her three times total with Ivermectin, each time three weeks appart.
You also need to worm her the DAY she gives birth to her kids.
The hormones that get her body ready to give birth, also signal the worm eggs to go nuts, mature, and hatch, so they can infest the next generation. It’s perfectly normal for kids to nibble on the manure of their mother. Indeed that’s how they get the proper bacteria in their own gut so they can begin to digest hay and grass. It’s also how the worms infest the next generation.
You need to worm her so many times, three weeks appart, because as I stated, wormer only kills the adult worms. It does not touch the eggs. So you kill the adult worms, and all the eggs read the chemical signals from the goat that there is suddenly a lot of open realestate in her gut. So the eggs hatch to reinfect her. By worming every three weeks, you are killing the worms as they hatch, but before they are mature enough to lay eggs of their own.
Since your doe is thin, labor and producing the milk will be hard on her. You would be wise to get her a molasses protien/mineral lick. She needs every bit of protien to help those kids grow, and then to produce her milk. She needs the molasses to help prevent ketossis during and after she gives birth. She needs the minerals to help resupply her body with all that the worms have robbed from her, and so she can also pass them on to make her kids healthier.
If you are feeding her on the ground, stop. You need to get her food up into a contianer. Otherwise she will just be re-infesting herself with worms ever time she eats.
~Garnet
Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years
Raising meat goats since 1999 (currently 79 goats in my herd)
Bohemian_Garnet_Permaculturalist
March 26, 2014 at 4:29 pm