Loose minerals and the finicky goat! Ever heard one of these internet pearls? Goats will always seek out what they need, goats will eat anything, no worries simply offering free choice loose minerals will ensure each herd member gets just the right amount of mineral supplementation in their diet...if only it applied to every goat, in every herd! While it's true most goats will cheerfully seek out what they need and gobble it up so long as the supply is kept clean, dry and readily accessible, there is always the chance you could end up with a "finicky goat". You know something's up, her coat just isn't the rich pigment it was as a kid, or you've noticed she's one of the last does to catch during breeding season, or fails to settle at all. Maybe her hooves seem more prone to chipping, or they just don't grow as strong or fast as her herd mates. A mineral deficiency can be hard to put your finger on, maybe it remains hidden until a reproductive problem arises. Sure, a blood draw and lab analysis are fabulous tools to pin down specific levels, but then what? How do you overcome a persnickety goat who just won't touch the stuff? Achieving daily palatability can be incredibly challenging at times. For some goats, carefully measuring her individual daily mineral requirement and mixing it thoroughly in with her favorite milk stand grain ration works well. Some folks utilize Replamin gel as an alternative to loose mineral, others mix a little organic molasses in with mineral to cover the taste and glue it tightly to the dairy ration. I've even heard of strawberry jam on a spoon mixed with mineral! Get creative, after a few weeks you might even get away with phasing out the sweets & treats. Don't give up, balanced mineral levels are essential to goat health! Our current mineral of choice: Sweetlix Meat Maker Favorite alternatives: Sweetlix Magnum Milk Treasured Sunrise Goat Mineral Replamin Gel

How sharp is your poop perception? One of the quickest methods of troubleshooting herd health is to study goat poop. Yup, that was not a type-o ...potty piles, g-poop, pellets, whatever you call them, you need to check goat droppings daily. With baby goats, checking bottoms is nothing less than a lifesaver. This is another reason bottle babies are so convenient, you can catch the little beggars & inspect them super easily, as opposed to practically needing a salmon safety net for certain rocket-powered dam raised kids. Newborn baby goats, like baby humans, will pass a dark brown tarry looking "slug" as their very first stool after drinking colostrum. It's usually sticky & a bit messy, we use Pampers baby wipes to make short work of cleanup. Afterword, goat babies should have well-formed light brown pellets that have practically no smell at all to them. We call them healthy "tiny gauge" poopers as opposed to our big dairy guns. Babies should never have runny diarrhea (the squirts), slimy green, gelatinous or bloody looking poop with a bad odor. These are signs of potentially life threatening health issues ranging from giardiasis to coccidiosis to parasites to bacterial infections & beyond - act immediately! Once kids grow up a bit, usually around four to six week of age, they will start nibbling solid foods such as grass hay & alfalfa pellets. This will transition the well-formed light brown baby goat pellets into a firm, slightly larger darker brown pellet, still having almost no discernible odor. Anything out of the ordinary should be acted on immediately, while not quite so fragile as tiny babies, young goats & juveniles are still very susceptible to coccidiosis in particular. Dietary changes should be made very gradually, starting with very small amounts of each new food, slowly building up the diversity of their regular diet. Adult dairy goats should have round, firm, solid, well-formed dark pellets. There is a small amount of plant type poop odor if you were to inhale a fresh pile, but nothing nasty or persistent. One of the most common issues we've seen with performance dairy goats is folks feeding perfectly healthy goats so much leafy alfalfa & rich grain to push milk production that instead of proper firm pellets, the does drop soft uni-slug like segments or in more severe cases, cow patty-like dung. This can lead to dirty rear ends, loafing areas that are a fright after only a single night & a more stressed animal overall. We've found that incorporating more fiber such as whole nuts, black oil sunflower & pumpkin seeds, Standlee organic Alfalfa pellets & Chaffhaye alfalfa along with high quality free choice weed free eastern orchard horse hay works wonderfully. Bottom Line - check up on your goats often. A clean rear end complemented by firm pellets is always a reassuring sign. Run regular fecal flotations, introduce dietary changes very gradually & always insist on the highest quality feeds free of mold, dust or other contaminants. PS If you thought those were goat pellets pictured at the top of the page, you've got some serious practicing to do in the field ;) Those are actually Milk Duds chocolate & caramel candy.

Lice & Fleas & Ticks - Oh My! The mere thought of tiny livestock on my critters makes my skin crawl! My mind instantly leaps to rat fleas during the dark ages responsible for contributing to the spread of the black death. What if they get on me? What if they get in my house? Heeeelp!! Truth be told, it's really nowhere near that dramatic or serious an issue, but it is creepy-crawly & nobody wants to think of their beautiful dairy goats being infested with lice or other tiny livestock. The problem is, with the long, wet winter months followed by spring monsoon season in the Pacific Northwest, parasites are a predictable matter of "when", rather than a wary "if". You are not automatically branded a bad goat caretaker with a filthy set-up because some tiny livestock found their way onto your animals. These parasites live naturally in the grass, on taller forage & brush, on wildlife and on many domestic livestock species. Some may prefer a particular host, but much like deer ticks and dog & cat fleas, you just never know. Better prepared & observant than caught with your proverbial pants down. The common method of prevention is to use an insecticidal pour-on twice in the fall, about 3 weeks apart. Popular products include UltraBoss, Co-Ral or Cydectin. These are serious chemicals that bear careful consideration to you & your family handling goats & drinking milk daily, no to to mention anyone valuing the presence of threatened essential insects like honeybees in our environment. We've personally had great success with FrontlinePlus for dogs and cats, but again it is a chemical insecticide that is active on the skin for at least a month. Surely there has to be a better way? A natural way that works? Well...there just might "bee" :) We saw a wonderful article encouraging natural prevention & control on the Little Avalon Farm site that really is worth reading IMHO. It explores a theory from Pat Coleby’s book Natural Goat Care explaining that "animals receiving the correct amounts of sulfur in their diet will not get lice”. This method includes offering goats free access to AniMed MSM (food grade sulfur) combined with the topical application of Greenway Organic Sulfur Powder by way of patting the coat with an old sock containing powder. Honeybee populations in particular are dwindling at an alarming rate. My sincere hope is that goat owners will not panic into an immediate pesticide pour-on reaction when they encounter tiny livestock. At least consider trying alternative natural methods of prevention, prior to chemical treatment.

Is Our Straw Safe? As GMO wheat, corn, barley and other assorted products become more & more prevalent, many animals lovers are becoming increasingly concerned about possible pesticide & herbicide residue in bedding. For example, if corn is specially bred so it's not harmed by spraying potentially toxic chemicals on it multiple times throughout it's development, how much residue is left behind after the valuable grains are harvested, stocks & stems are dried, then baled to be sold as bedding? Could are beloved animals be sleeping on a cocktail of dried poisons? Well, unfortunately, I'm not sure there's any way we can know for sure. We do our very best to purchase straw from reputable natural sources, they assure us it's safe for horses & chemical free, we ask if they know what farms it came from & if any certified organic bedding products are available. Usually I drive home feeling unsure & a bit confused, all I really know for certain is I bought horse quality straw & I'm praying the owners of those valuable equines are rabidly insistent on a quality product, but I just don't know. I'm concerned on many levels; the animals nibble & lay on the straw, their udders come into direct contact with the bedding for hours on end over night, we drink the milk our animals produce, I'm petrified of contributing to increased cancer risks in my animals & my family. Pretty soon I'm having an all out Chicken Little "the sky is falling moment". I can't be the only concerned dairy goat owner. What can we do? Ask a lot of questions, keep asking, seeking out new organic sources of bedding. There are an increasing number of organic farmers out there, if we support local sustainable agriculture those products will be in demand & the movement will grow, trickling right down to availability of certified organic bedding! One can't mention straw without touching briefly on what sits underneath to soak up goat pee. At Arenta Farm we use kiln dried aspen, white pine, yellow cedar (which is actually a cypress) or fir shavings, depending on seasonal availability. Personally, I'm a bit cautious of cedar shavings, they smell fantastic to humans, but some animals seem to develop skin irritation from laying on them over time.

Coccidiosis The devastating effects of coccidiosis on young goats are heartbreaking to see, and in the worst cases, may prove fatal. Coccidiosis is parasitic disease caused by coccidian protozoa in the intestinal tract. The disease spreads rapidly from one animal to another through infected feces that baby goats naturally come into contact exploring their new world - nibbling bedding, nosing a dirty puddle, even their own dam's udder if it's come into contact with fecal material in a loafing area. Diarrhea, which may become bloody in severe cases, is the primary symptom. However, not all young goats show symptoms until it's too late and the gut damage is done, or worse the baby suddenly falls on death's door. Unfortunately, exposure to cociddia is an inescapable reality for baby goats. It lives in the gut of healthy adult animals too, they've just developed enough immunity over time not to be affected by it. Mom is usually the primary route of exposure for her babies. The tricky bit is assessing the risk and providing your baby goats with sufficient preventative care to keep them healthy as they develop natural immunity too. Stress & husbandry are major factors. It's essential to keep your whole herd clean, healthy & happy. Make sure soiled bedding is shoveled promptly & thoroughly down to the cement, provide fresh clean water daily, make sure mangers, racks, bins, tubs and pails are cleaned regularly. Use hot soapy water for all the smaller plastic/rubber items. By bottle feeding baby goats you help ensure both the Pritchard teat they're feeding from as well as the milk they're drinking is clean & free of fecal contamination. Keep your babies clean, dry & happy. Clean, well-fed, socially engaged goat kids are happy goat kids, this naturally helps them resist coccidia proliferation. Do not overcrowd conditions at any age. My herd enjoys fraternizing together during the day, but at night they all seem to prefer sleeping in small groups of "best friends" by age/social rank. I keep my goat kids in limited groups with separate enclosures as well. This keeps everyone cleaner & gives me the ability to more closely observe individual kids. There are many coccidiostats available for the purpose of preventative care. Personally, I'm not too fond of the ones added to milk or water, top dressed on food or mixed with minerals, nor anything that could cause impairment of the kids' ability to metabolize thiamine (vitamin B1). We favor two oral products - banana flavored Albon suspension (Sulfadimethoxine) or Baycox suspension (Toltrazuril). For exact dosage & treatment schedule, please refer to manufacturers' instructions. At the moment, our favorite preventative overall is Baycox. Keep a close eye on your baby goats. Times of stress like sales, re-homing, weaning are all huge red flag events for young animals. They frequently trigger an explosion of naturally occurring coccidian protozoa to proliferate wildly in the intestines. You could send a perfectly healthy goat out the door, and a brief time later the poor thing is deathly ill. Prevention is the key! We prefer to give a dose of Baycox before the goat leaves for her new home as a precaution. Keeping kids well fed & allowing baby goats to maintain the comforting feeling of milk "snacks" for a longer period of time will also reduce stress. This is one of the reasons we keep kids on the bottle for a longer period of time and wean very gradually.

Does It Matter? I doubt it matters much to goats, but for their two-legged herd owners, the benefits are many! There are multiple dairy goat organizations out there, and I'm sure each one has merit. We chose to go with the American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA) as our primary registry of choice. When you purchase a purebred registerable/registered performance prospect, it's helpful to check ears for legible tattoos & ask the seller for a signed Bill Of Sale & the completed ADGA Application for Registration form or signed ADGA Registration so your new goat can be transferred into your name. If you forget, then decide months-to-years later you'd like to complete the process, it may not be very fruitful. When in doubt, print out blank forms yourself, take them with you to pick up your new dairy goat & ask the seller to fill them out/sign off at the time of purchase. What does the ADGA Application for Registration form look like? Click on links provided, then print page. As a herd owner, once you become an ADGA member, you'll have access to convenient online registration, enrollment options for performance programs & goat reports. The annual Membership Directory is also included, as well as many discounted services, so the value adds up quickly. Paperwork can be a hassle, nobody jumps for joy at the thought of doing more of it, but overall we believe you'll probably be happier keeping your options open by starting with a registered herd of dairy goats.

Hoof Care Uuggg probably my least favorite job on the whole farm! My back aches, my goats are bored & fussy, not to mention I have the "dubious pleasure" of repeating this task every three to four weeks, due to all that amazing natural food our caprines eat, coupled with our delightfully soggy climate! Anytime you're tempted to slap on rose colored glasses dreaming about grandly expanding your herd, be sure to factor the amount of time & energy you'll need to trim every animal's hooves monthly. It helps to have your goat secured on a raised stand, or some sort of sturdy platform. We use Felco goat & sheep hoof clippers, though someday I might just try electric hoof trimmers. They look pretty darned nifty in their advertising videos! Sharpen your blade every three goats or so, I use a small flat stone to hone manually. Be extremely careful to wear a protective glove on the hand you hold hooves with, lest you accidentally snip the end of your finger or thumb. When envisioning a good trim, I try to picture healthy new baby goat hooves as nature's model. Carefully trimming hoof walls, toes & shaping the heel pads to a nice level natural angle, including paring away any excess between pads causing heels to distort or rub together too much. If you leave toes too long you'll put added stress on pasterns, if you leave heels too long you create uncomfortable force on knees, shoulders or hips - imagine being trapped in perma-high-heels. Check hooves very carefully for signs of foot rot, embedded gravel or foreign material, bruising or injury, anything out of the healthy norm. A small plastic vegetable brush works well to remove debris prior to trimming. Without a sound set of trotters, your goats' productivity & possibly even longevity could be permanently affected. Never trim too deeply, you want to remove excess growth neatly, but not quick your goats or carve so far into the pink of the pads they walk sore on hard surfaces. Practice makes perfect!

Copper Bolusing Goats are hardy, rugged & quite capable of adapting to a wide variety of environments with great success. Unfortunately, in many parts of the country, forage sources & soil are sometimes seriously trace mineral & nutrient deficient. Unlike sheep, who can die from copper toxicity, goats absolutely must have sufficient copper to remain healthy over time. There are options available. Some folks prefer Replamin gel, most goats don't seem to mind the taste & it's an excellent product. I've used it on new additions with great success, but as an overall herd management protocol we copper bolus each goat every three to four months year round with Copasure. I give adult goats eight grams each, young goats four grams each. This is because our soil is very poor, even the best horse hay available to us has tested with a wide variation in nutrient value. The climate is very wet, raining as much as nine months of the year & this is a relatively temperate zone where many types of parasites thrive - including the potentially fatal barber pole worm. Do not underestimate how sharp your goat's molars are by reaching your fingers into her mouth to push down a bolus like you would a pill for a gentle pet dog. We recommend investing in a metal Bolus Gun made by Stone Manufacturing. The same company that makes our tattoo kit of choice. Gently restrain your goat by steadying her neck between your thighs, head below your chest, cup your hand under her chin & slide the bolus gun into the proper position carefully, then release the bolus & withdraw the gun slowly. It helps tremendously to have an experienced goat mentor show you how to bolus safely. Signs a goat might be trace mineral/copper deficient could include an unthrifty, rough coated animal, perhaps with a "fish-tail-like" appearance to the hair on the end of the tail. Any goat dramatically lighter or faded in color from their appearance as a baby kid, like black coated kids that appear red-rust as adults. Possibly a contributing factor in short cycling, failure to settle (become pregnant) after breeding or sometimes even carry a pregnancy to full term. We recommend you come at the mineral/parasite issue with multiple vectors; copper bolus quarterly, incorporate food grade amorphous fresh water Diatomaceous Earth into seed mix daily for one week each month, offer free-choice Zin-Pro 40, Sweetlix Meat Maker loose mineral & Thorvin organic Icelandic sea kelp in their daily diet. Perform FAMACHA testing monthly & run seasonal fecal flotations. Chemical dewormers definitely have a time & place in your management routine, but given the reality of parasite resistance, herd owners are wise to remain vigilant & innovative!

Cuteness personified! Few baby critters are as adorable as young goats. They're incredibly playful, affectionate and faster than greased lightening! Bottle feeding babies is a fantastic way to know exactly how much they're eating, how often & bonding closely with your new goats. At Arenta Farm goat kids are pulled immediately at birth & bottle fed with colostrum from their own dam, any extra colostrum saved for emergencies is heat treated and frozen into cubes for storage in the freezer. Initially, I feed the babies four times a day over my waking hours, as much as they want to eat. New babies tend to sip milk & be more finicky, so they need frequent smaller meals. If tiny babies are struggling, a 3cc sub-q vitamin B complex shot and breaking a vitamin E capsule onto their tongue will often help perk them up. We also hold the back of the baby's head gently behind the ears with our left hand & cradle the baby's chin on the Pritchard teat with the right hand, to teach them how to use the bottle and stabilize overly enthusiastic drinkers. The babies will naturally let you know when they're ready for only three bottle feedings a day. They'll be shiny, healthy, well-fleshed-out & simply won't be hungry enough to want the extra bottle - playing around, mouthing it, or only sucking for a few moments before wanting to go play. We've found this usually happens at two to three weeks of age. Once you go down to three bottles a day, it's a good idea to count the number of seconds each kid eats, as opposed to all-they-can-eat. Counting 30-45 seconds is a good balance. You don't want them to turn into balloons! The same logic applies to reducing three bottles down to two a day. Kids will be plump, healthy, nibbling on hay & interested in pellets/seeds. For us, this is usually around six to eight weeks of age, depending on the size and condition of the kid. We continue to give two bottles a day till the kids are a full three months of age, sometimes four months of age. Then, if we're satisfied with the size/development of the kid, and dietary enthusiasm they have for solid foods over the fourth to fifth month of age, we go to one bottle a day at bedtime as we gradually wean them down to adult foods only. This may seem like an extraordinarily long time to offer milk, while it's true kids can be weaned as early as eight weeks of age, we've found that leaving them on milk longer in addition to eating solid foods, seems to net the healthiest, strongest, most parasite resistant well-developed outcome. It also helps build a lifelong bond with your goats.