Hi everyone, I stumbled onto this forum looking for goat info. Here are my questions. I was given a baby goat last summer so she is about 8 mos old and aprox 80-90lbs. I am interested in breeding her but dont know how to tell if she is in heat. She is in a box stall with our steer. They are buddies and share hay and grain. Is this ok? Eventually I would like to add a few more dairy goats and try milking but I am out of room in my barn. Would an outside area be okay to house the goats in if they have shelter? I am in N.W Penna and it is pretty cold in the winter.Also a worming question, I have read thet ivermectin is okay to use, I have horses and worm with a paste wormer, could I use what is left from that? What would be the apprpiate dossage? How often do you worm? Any other tips for me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again. Tracy

-- Tracy Murphy (murf@alltel.net), January 28, 2001

Answers

Tracy , your best bet would be to look in the archives .You can find answers to all your questions and more .Your goats should be ok outside if they are healthy , well fed and have some place to get out of the wind and rain .If you don't know where the archives are scroll down on the questions board and you will find them .Ken has done a great job seperating them into catagorys .Have fun reading.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), January 28, 2001.

Have a buck lined up already, because does are notorious for being "in" this morning and "out" by tonight when you have found a buck! When she is unusually talkative and wags her tail alot more than usual, she's in. If she is a quiet one, and there are some, take a clean rag, rub it all over a buck's head and neck, put it in a coffee can, and let your girl get a whiff of it. When she's in heat, the rag will be a real hit. She will rub against it, talk to it, put on quite a show. Time to go see the buck. Sometime within the next 3 weeks, if she is healthy and normal, she will come in heat.

-- melina b. (goatgalmjb1@hotmail.com), January 28, 2001.

Thanks for your respnse Patty, I have been looking through the archives and was not able to find the answers to the worming question as far as using horse wormer.I also couldnt find any info regarding keeping a cow and goat in the same pen. This is a great forum by the way.

-- tracy (murf@alltel.net), January 28, 2001.

Tracy let me see what i can find Vicki was great enough to answer the worming for me .As far as the cow and goat they should be fine as long as they like each other and share food.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), January 28, 2001.

Worming : Valbazen { 8cc per 100lbs by mouth}Ivermectin {1% cattle injectable at 2 cc per 100 lbs }Cydectin pour on for cattle {1 cc per 25 lbs given orally}

A great site is Maryland small ruminant page @ www.sheepandgoat.com And www.saanendoah.com Hope this helps. PS I will look for amounts on the paste

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), January 28, 2001.

Tracy,we keep 2 calves {10mon} ,1 pony,3 goats and a potbelly pig all together in a small field for the winter,they do fine.

-- renee oneill{md.} (oneillsr@home.com), January 28, 2001.

Hi Tracy. I'm in NJ, probably the closest then anyone else here.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), January 28, 2001.

Tracey I am about 5 min from P.A e-mail me .

-- renee oneill{md.} (oneillsr@home.com), January 28, 2001.

We've been raising Nubians for several years. I would move your steer out as soon as possible. It won't hurt him to be outside and he'll soon be big enough to injure or kill the goat, without meaning to. They just don't know their own strength. Goats can do fine in an outdoor shelter that has good protection from the wind, rain and snow, but I would plan on having something better when kidding time comes around. We have a nursery box in the barn. It's a 4' x 5' x 4' high stall with cover, curtain and heat lamp. All the babies spend their first several weeks there. We quit using Ivomec for worming. It really stings going in. We now use oral wormers. Check with a vet knowledgeable about goat medicine (few are) about safe wormers for goats. We worm annually. Here's a good site with tons of links and useful information: www.cybergoat.com You can find links there to various email groups by breed.

Skip Walton, Sunday Creek Nubians, www.sundaycreek.com

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), January 28, 2001.

Goats make friends with the oddest animals, you will have to watch them as the steer quite aggressively out grows their friendship. If your goat is of the dairy breeds than she is a seasonal breeder, coming into heat naturally from July/August, depending upon how far south you live, and ending in January/Feburary. If your doe is of the meat breeds than they will breed year round. She should show some sort of interest in the steer, or he of her about every 21 days, even if it is just sort of her being more antsy than normal.

If she weighs 80 to 90 pounds than you would double the dose of your horse Ivermectin paste, so you would be setting the worm tube as if she weighed 200 pounds. If you use the Horse Safeguard it is 3 times the dosage or about 300 pounds. You can't overdose either of these with a paste wormer, even having told you the dosages I don't use Safeguard, as it simply on fecal doesn't kill anything. Ivermectin 1% injectable, which is syringed out of the bottle, take off the needle and then give it orally is given at 2cc per 100 pounds, and works great for most of the stomach worms we get, the only time we use it injectable is for mites, lice, menengial worm and also now a new form of scabies (mange) that some folks are seeing. Texas A&M did trials on all breeds of goats, with fecals before an after, so these are the dosages I base my worming on. We fecal here, and even with those base dosages from A&M we know that we have to use Valbazen at 8cc per 100 pounds, though they used it at 6cc per 100 pounds.

I think that the steer and your goat would be much better off in a large area with just a shelter, and perhaps a sleeping bed in the shelter up off the ground for the goat to jump up onto to get away from the steer. I would be worried about him accidently laying or stepping on her! It also is so much easier to have a buck at your place so you don't have to detect heats in your new goats. Perhaps purchase a December or Feburary buckling so he will be old enough to breed your doe for you this late summer early fall! I also do not breed does at this weight, they are still very aggressively growing and I like my does to kid when they are mature, at about 2 years. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), January 29, 2001.

Tracy:

We kept our hereford and a couple goats together for a couple years with no problems. If I could just get my mrs. to send the goats to the freezer, as easy as she disposed of my cow. Boo hoo. I miss her.

Be careful, though, about putting your goats in the same pen with the dog... The dog will pick up some nasty microscopic critters, from walking around in the goat's droppings. No lie.

Good luck with em, I'd rather eat goat than milk it.

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-- Action Dude (theactiondude@yahoo.com), February 01, 2001.

Oh, and I might mention, Tracy, Goats and cows can make do with the same poor grades of hay, whereas horses and sheep require higher-grade alfalfa, etc.

...Makes for convenient bed-fellows, as long as they stay friendly with each other.

Action Dude in NJ

-- Action Dude (theactiondude@yahoo.com), February 01, 2001.

Tracy just in case you took any of that seriously, goats do not pick up anything from dogs but fleas, which then of course make both of them suceptable to tape worms. Dogs do not catch worms from goats, and most parasites are species specific. Now cattle are actually great for grazing with the goats, because some species of worms are actually inactivated in the cattles stomach after ingestion. Since the cattle prefer short grasses and the goats prefer the longer grasses, weeds and browse it actually keeps parasites down in the pasture and improves the pasture for the cattle. If you feed a poor quality of hay than you have to feed a higher protein grain to your pregnant, milking, growing and breeding stock. I of course would have a hard time picking between eating the goat or having the wonderful milk, cheese, ice cream................Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 01, 2001.

Thanks so much Vicki for mentioning that bit of info about the dogs with the goats and worms. That really needed clarification. I cannot get my hands on the article right now as i am getting ready for work, however, there was an article I came across that mentioned the incidence of worms co-existing with goats. Was not an probleme. And I'd like to stress that goats and dogs do co-exist as in the case of livestock guard dogs. Oh well... guess everyone has their own opinions:) Got to run.

Bernice

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), February 02, 2001.