Our Experiences with Goats

Farmall Cub Tractor Owner’s Manual Download PDF International Harvest McCormick Deering

Hi, my name is Starlene Stewart and my main hangout on the Internet is GAPS Diet Journey.

We owned goats for almost ten years and The Farmall Cub is a great little tractor, we used it around our hobby ranch to clean up goat pens. It makes the job much easier than shoveling by hand! The Farmall Cub is an International Harvester Company tractor and the model we used was built in 1951.

This PDF download is available for $14.95 and can be downloaded instantly.

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How to Draw Blood from Your Goats – Blood Drawing Instructions

Hi, my name is Starlene Stewart and my main hangout on the Internet is GAPS Diet Journey.

We owned goats for almost ten years and learned a lot about caring for goats during those years. From milking to hoof trims, worming and birthing, drawing blood was one of the many things we learned to do on our own.

I wrote How to Draw Blood From Your Goats to help you learn how to do this veterinary task easily and efficiently. Most of my goat owning friends are into doing it yourself in a big way and drawing blood is one of those things you can accomplish on your own without waiting on the vet to stop by. It’s empowering to learn procedures like these, plus you can save yourself money in the process!

Why call out the vet every time you need blood drawn? Wait to make that call for the bigger issues.

My tutorial, Drawing Blood From Your Goats is going to walk you through step-by-step.

Photo Tutorial

Inside you’ll get a photo tutorial, showing you where the vein is located from which you’ll be drawing blood, how to position the needle and how to draw the blood.

Step-by-Steps Instructions

You’ll get instructions to guide you through the process starting with what you need to have on hand before you walk out to begin your blood draws in a neatly categorized list, blood drawing tips, the proper way to package your specimens for shipping, where and when to ship right down to how to prepare the box for shipping.

Templates

You’ll get a Master Checklist so that you can check off each item along the way, plus a sample Accession Form, tube labels, identification sheet.

How to Draw Blood From Your Goats will guide you through with easy steps.

Here’s what you find inside:

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Click here to buy How to Draw Blood From Your Goats now!

Please note with this purchase you have permission to print and distribute up to 5 copies for your local 4-H group or when instructing a group on how to draw blood. However, we ask that you do not distribute this booklet via electronic means.

Black Mastitis

I have not had experience with this particularly vicious mastitis, thank God. I have read about it, and have found some good informational links which I am going to include in this post. One thing to be aware of – this (and other types) mastitis can be spread from one goat to another so do wash your hands very thoroughly before milking the next (or do this one last) if you even suspect your doe has black mastitis.

Some of the links will take you to a page which has more information but includes mention of black mastitis, so you will need to do a “find” on the page for the word gangrene or black mastitis.

Goat Dairying for Income’s page on Black Mastitis describing both symptoms and treatments. Photos of black mastitis – please be forewarned, the images are graphic.

Gangrene Mastitis Blog – This blog chronicles the experience had by Andi and her owner. Please be advised there are graphic photos of the affected teat.

Natural Cures for Top 10 Goat Ailments from Acres U.S.A. This link contains excerpts from Pat Coleby’s book Natural Goat Care and contains several treatments for mastitis, including black mastitis. I have had the pleasure of corresponding with Pat by snail mail, she is very knowledgeable about our caprine friends.

Saanendoah Gangrene Mastitis or “Bluebag”

Quote from Saanendoah:

Gangrene mastitis is not a particular “kind” of mastitis, but most often the result of the most common mastitis’ causing bacteria, coagulase-positive Staphylococcus aureus. Staph aureus can produce alpha toxin, a potent vasoconstrictor that is thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of gangrene mastitis. Other common pathogens are sometimes involved, including coagulase-negative Staphylococci, and any number of Gram-positive, Gram-negative, and coliforms bugs.

Apollonia Farms Mastitis search for keyword gangrene

From the Canadian Veterinary Journal: Peracute gangrenous mastitis and cheilitis associated with enterotoxin-secreting Staphylococcus aureus in a goat.

Goat Wisdom – Udder Care search for keyword gangrenous

Jack and Anita Mauldin’s Boer Goats – Diseases search for keyword gangrene

Goat Kingdom – Mastitis search for keyword gangrene

If you have any other pages to link to, please leave me a comment and I will add it.

Red Bag Delivery

A red bag delivery is the term used when a horse or goat’s placenta detaches prematurely (placentia previa). If you see the placenta presenting, you have six minutes to save the life of the life of the foal or kid.

This is one of the reasons I love being on the Holistic-Goats list. There is always discussion on things that are happening with people’s goats, and how to take care of the problem. The list is not very prolific, and I would say 99% of posts are on topic. I read just about every post that comes through.

Now when the topic of red bag delivery came through, I had never heard of such a thing. I read the resulting posts that came through and did some research. Now I know if one of our does presents a “red bag” which would be the placenta, we have to act fast to save the life of the kid. Once the placenta detaches, the blood stops pulsing through to the baby so you must get the kid out quickly! The red bag will contain the inner white bag. You must cut through the red bag, and then into the inner white bag and pull the kid.

A few days after we were discussing this topic, one of the list members posted a site from another list she is on where some horse owners caught a red bag delivery on video! This is from I AM Ranch Miniature Horses.

Very exciting and very informative! I cried because it brought back a rush of memories from past birth problems we have had. Check it out and file it in your memory for future kiddings.

Stone in the Teat – Calcium Deposit in Goat Udder

Dani, one of my four milkers, got what is called a stone or pea in the teat. Apparently it is a calcium deposit and they are sometimes still connected by a “string” up into the udder.

I could feel something in her teat, a small lump. A very small lump, but Miss Dani just happens to also have very small teats connected to her very capacious udder.

She has had calcium deposits before, but they always popped out easily without any concern. This time however, the stone was blocking the teat to the extent that I could not get her milk out! The stone was in her teat on Sunday, and since her udder can hold a lot of milk easily, I wasn’t too concerned about not milking her out for one day (we milk once every 24 hours). I figured the stone would come out the next day, Monday. When it didn’t, I started to get a bit alarmed, and went to my favorite online goat resource list, Holistic-Goats to share what was happening. I got back some advice from my favorite goat mentor, Irene Ramsay.

Hi Starlene,
A ‘pea-in-the-teat’ is the pits. It’s a calcium stone that has a tail on it attaching it to the wall of the teat canal. Vets have a nasty thing like a corkscrew they use on cow teats for this, but it’s not safe for soft goat teats – our vet told me to take a jump when I asked, he didn’t like using it on cows!

What does work on goats is a very fine metal crochet hook – the kind that’s fine enough to hook up a run on a silk stocking. Sterilise it and introduce through the teat orifice, feeding gently up the teat canal, rotating slightly as you ease it up, then just as slowly rotate it out again. Your aim is not to hook the ‘pea’ but to break its thread, so that next time you milk, it will come out. Or it will retreat loose into the milk reservoir so you can get the milk out. Sometimes you have to repeat this manoeuvre if it doesn’t work the first time.

I haven’t had to do it myself – my doe’s ‘pea’ lost its tail when she dried off, and flew out so fast when I milked her at freshening that I couldn’t find it in the bedding straw (very annoying, I’d have liked to see it). But the method was described as above by several on the WSU list some years back. If you do it right, there’s no infection, swelling or blood, so no need for medication. The goats seem to be fairly co-operative, I guess it beats having the pea running up and down tugging on the inside of the teat canal, which must hurt.

I could feel what seemed to be a “string” and I did have a tiny metal crochet hook on hand.

The next morning I boiled it for ten minutes, then went out there to see what I could do. I was surprised how easily the crochet hook went inside the teat. There is truly a “canal”. I was unable to hook the string or tail, however.

I was very upset because I didn’t want Dani to dry up on that side, but if I couldn’t get the stone to stop blocking I wasn’t sure what else we could do. I did manage to milk out about a cup or so while holding the crochet hook inside the teat with one hand, and milk with the other.

Actually I was milking with my fingers, as that is what it takes to milk Dani since her teats are so tiny. I will have to post some pictures sometime of the difference in size of my girls’ teats.

The crochet hook kept the stone from blocking the orifice, so I could milk her but it was too strenuous to keep up. I milked her out on the one side and went to bed feeling bad about the other side which was still full.

Goat owners let their does’ udders fill with milk all the time when they force dry them. But I don’t like to do that. Like Irene is fond of saying, Goats are dairy animals, they are designed to milk, why dry them off?

So now she’s not been milked out on that side for 48 hours.

By the way, Dani was being very wonderful throughout all this. She didn’t really kick, except she would sometimes lift one back foot and try to scrape my hands away. Otherwise the probing with the metal hook didn’t seem to bother her much at all.

Finally on the morning of the 30th, Wednesday, I managed to get the tail of the stone to break.

I think I’d been trying to get the hook around the tail and break it, but what ended up working was to press the teat as if I were milking to engage the stone down into the orifice as tightly as it could go. Then move my fingers down to the orifice to hold the stone there, then insert the crochet hook past the stone and twist the hook around the stone as if trying to grab hold of the stone and remove it.

The metal hook against the stone was like scraping glass. With that last manuveur I think I pressed the stone against the inside of the teat canal which caused some minor cuts as some blood came out with the milk.

But it also seemed to break the tail from the stone.

I didn’t think I’d done anything, and decided to just milk her out. I was very upset, shaky and crying and praying.

I milked the one side, and decided to just go ahead and milk the other side and at least try. I figured I’d give up now and just let that side dry up.

And then POW, into the bucket the little stone flew!

What a relief! I was able to milk her out completely. In the next few days her production was a little lower than normal but then rose again.

Click here for all the Wisdom of Irene Ramsay articles

Irene asked that I include her email address for anyone that has queries. Her email address is shown below in an image, you may also use this contact form.

I am acquainted with Irene Ramsay through the Holistic Goats list on Yahoo Groups. I read all of her posts as they are always full of wisdom and natural remedies for healing. I am honored that Irene Ramsay has agreed to allow me to publish some of her articles on my website. I hope they will be as helpful to you as they have been to me. Thanks, Irene! Please note that Irene lives in New Zealand and sometimes the items she recommends won’t be available in the US under the same name. Copyright 1974-2020 Irene Ramsay. All Rights Reserved. Do not copy without express permission of the author. Thank you. Please note that Irene lives in New Zealand and sometimes the items she recommends won’t be available in the US under the same name.

How to Bottle Feed Baby Goats

How to Get the Kid on the Bottle

If you do decide to stick with bottle feeding you might have to work with him to get him to suck on the bottle. What I do is sit down on a chair. Rest the baby’s stomach over my left leg — baby’s front legs draped over my right leg and baby’s back legs hanging down on the left side of my left leg. Put my left arm around the back of the baby and cup my hand under the muzzle, holding the baby’s head still and firm. Then I hold the bottle with my right hand and gently squeeze the bottle so milk comes out. He’s not going to like the bottle nipple compared to his dam’s teat so you have to be patient and persistent.

How we bottle feed and wean our bottle-fed kids (2003/2004)

With our kids, from 2 weeks to 6 weeks of age we have them on 16 ounces morning and evening, and they have free access to water and hay. We want them a little on the hungry side so they will begin to eat hay. I have observed 2.5 week old kids eating hay, and already starting to chew their little cuds.

On the 6th week, we begin decreasing the morning and evening feeding down to 1.5 cups morning and 1.5 cups evening. Usually I’ll do this very gradually. Like 2 cups in the morning, then 1 3/4 cups at night, then 1 3/4 cups the next morning, then 1 1/2 cups at night, then 1 1/2 cups for the next week or so.

Then about halfway through week seven, we start decreasing again. 1 1/2 cups in the morning, 1 1/4 cups at night. 1 1/4 cups the next morning, 1 cup that night. 1 cup the next morning, 3/4 cup that night. 3/4 cup next morning, 1/2 cup at night. 1/2 cup next morning, 1/4 that night. Then maybe 1/4 cup each feeding the next day, then we just stop the bottles altogether so weaning occurs at about 8 – 9 weeks of age.

I don’t know how old your kids are, but if they are 8 weeks old I would probably start right away by giving them only 2 cups morning and evening so they will get hungrier and start eating hay to get their rumen going (if it isn’t already). I’d probably stick to 2 cups morning/night for a week or so, making sure they are eating hay and drinking water, then the next week I’d start decreasing and wean them off the bottle within another week.

This is how we have weaned our kids when we pulled the kids and bottle fed.

Now (2005) we have had our does tested for CAE, and allow the dams to raise their kids. This is still in the experimental stage. The dam raised doelings (Moselle and Zoë) are a bit skittish, but we are working with them. We are thinking about giving the next set of kids one bottle a day, and letting them stay on their dams the rest of the day.

How we bottle feed and wean our bottle-fed kids (2006)

We did not bottle feed any kids in 2005. In 2006, Brooklyn passed away 20 hours after kidding from hypocalcemia. She gave us triplet doelings. We were able to place one doeling the day after she was born, as one of my neighbors has wanted one of our “spotty” doelings since she found out how spotted Dallas and Bambi were. The remaining doelings are named Little Brooke and Mocha.

We have changed our ideas about bottle feeding. If the kid is a buckling, and will be reserved for the freezer, we will wean him at about 8-9 weeks of age. This is the destiny of most of our male kids, as we do not have many purebred animals in our herd. However, if the kid is a doeling, we will keep her on the bottle until she is six months of age to give her a good head start in life as a milker. We start the kids out slowly at birth, with four feedings, at 6am, 10am, 2pm and 6pm. 1/2 to one cup at each feeding the first few days. At about a week we go to 3x day feedings, giving them about 1 cups at each feeding for a total of 3 cups daily. At two weeks we move to 2 cups morning, 1 cup noon and 2 cups evening. We continue this amount until they are three months old. We then go to 2x day feedings, 2 cups at each feeding. We continue 1 quart each day until they are six months old.

We have two other doelings from this year’s batch. Starburst, Dallas’ singleton doeling and Cocoa, Moselle’s doeling kid. Cocoa has been interested in and friendly toward me since birth. Starburst is less friendly, but she loves scratches. I am spending time with the four doelings the days I am able to, scratching and talking to them.