Greetings from sunny Michigan!

I am new to the Wonderful World of Goats! I have a 4 year-old pregnant Toggenburg doe (Firefly) & a Togg/Nubian mix doe who's a first time freshener whom I just brought home last weekend (Maggie). Maggie has a cold. I asked the lady from whom I bought her (respected goat person in the community) about the cold & she said it was merely due to the strange weather we've been having & not to worry unless I noticed a change in her health/behavior. &, I will add, I've noticed sniffling & coughing goats at other farms I visited in the area, too. We've had some realllllly stupid weather lately.

Anyway, Maggie doesn't act under-the-weather but she has a stuffed up nose (clear fluid) & an occasional cough. The coughing seems to mostly occur while on the milking stand & I think it might be due to her hogging down her grain & possibly inhaling some of the dust from the bottom of the bowl. HOWEVER, I don't want her to become more run down from it, nor do I want her to give it to Firefly.

I can't seem to find any info on goat colds & am ever-so-impatiently awaiting the arrival of my just-ordered books on natural livestock & goat care in the mail. In the interim, I'm looking for suggestions. I've seen threads where people talk about giving their goats cider vinegar for general immune system maintenance - "Great idea!", I think. So I tried it. Well, Maggie hates it & won't drink the water. & I just put a LITTLE in there - like: maybe a tablespoon in a 2-gallon (? I think?) bucket & she turned up her little stuffed-up-nose at it. So I tried smooshing a vitamin C & putting it in the water. Nope. Wouldn't have it. . . So I tried orange slices. Nope, don't like those either. (Firefly & the horses enjoyed them, though!) So I've resorted to giving her 3x/day doses of echinacea/goldenseal tincture that I KNOW tastes horrible b/c it's one of the rejects from our collection of natural remedies, LOL.

She does seem to be better today, though, come to think of it.

So. Advice? Suggestions? Questions?

Thank you all in advance for your help! Sarah/south-central Michigan

-- Sarah Sanders (colonel@frontiernet.net), April 04, 2001

Answers

This might not help you this time, as I don't think your spring is as progressed as ours, but whenever the girls get the sniffles, we feed them raspberry leaves. Works almost immediately. I always keep some dried for in the winter. But goats are smarter than you think, and anytime we go near the raspberry patch, they line up by their fenceline and fake cough! Good thing we have enough that they can get them for a treat, too. Now, I must add that you really should have kept your new lady separate from the first for at least 2 weeks, and then you wouldn't have had to worry about the other catching it. Now all you can do is hope that it is just a cold. But that is the whole purpose of quaruntine. Good Luck! Kathie

-- Kathie in Western Washington (twinrosefarm@worldnet.att.net), April 04, 2001.

Clear snot is not much to worry about. Keep an eye on it and if it turns green, yellow or some color other than clear, then that's a sign of infection or cold virus. Pneumonia is of particular concern this time of year with the weather rapidly changing in temperature and humidity. There is a strain of pneumonia that goats are susceptible to that can quickly kill if not treated promptly. Don't know if you'll find an effective herbal remedy for this. We keep some heavy duty antibiotic on hand to keep the pneumonia type infections under control. Here in Western Washington this time of year it's sunny and warm one day and rainy, cold and 90% humidity the next. Prime climate for colds and pneumonia.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), April 04, 2001.

This may not be the most natural treatment but we have had good success in giving 1/2 dropper full in each nostral at the first sign of a runny nose. Use a old tincture bottle with a dropper, add water and a few drops of laundry blech, just enough to impart a mild clorine smell when mixed. Thought is was strange when we first learned it from a local couple that has been keeping goats for 20 years.

Good luck, Tim

-- Tim Ritter (cbrooke@frontiernet.net), April 09, 2001.

So, please elaborate on the bleach remedy! I'm interested in hearing how it works, what it works on, etc. Thanks, Sarah

-- Sarah/MI (chilechile@hotmail.com), July 22, 2001.

Sarah since goats don't get colds, you can figure that even bleach will help get rid of them ;) LOL!! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), July 23, 2001.