Goat Bloat - Treating One of Our Milking Does

Each day we learn many new things. Some out of necessity, some from mistakes. Today we had our first run-in with bloat. 

Mayday's Got the Bloat

This morning Sweetbreads noticed that Mayday looked a little misshapen. I thought she looked a little more rotund than usual, but typically that’s just a sign of healthiness for goats. Mayday has two kids nursing on her and is a couple weeks away from weaning the little tykes so I thought maybe she was starting to get her body condition back.

Sweetbreads, on the other hand, spent a little more time with the goats and had a suspicion that this might be bloat. We had read about it before we ever owned a goat - dreaded encountering it, and now, here it was. You can see in the photo that her left side was much larger than her right. We learned that this is one of the symptoms of bloat. The rumen is bigger on the left side and that’s the part of the stomach where the bloating occurs.

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Portable Goat Shelter and Shade Shack: Attempt #1


It looks so nice when it's standing upright and providing shade and shelter

Now that we have the goats out in electrically fenced paddocks each day we want to provide them a little area to get out of the hot sun, or cold rain. Goats are susceptible to pneumonia and dairy animals in particular can be adversely affected by extreme heat (lower milk production, etc). So on Sunday we took a couple hours and built them a little shelter/shade shack.
 

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Livestock Guardian Team Assembled


Izzy and Sophie, getting muddy and getting their "mark" on

Last Saturday I picked up a couple adult livestock guardian dogs (LGDs). They are 3 and 4 yrs old and are full sisters from different litters. Izzy and Sheba are their names. They are 1/8th Anatolian Sheperd and 7/8ths Great Pyrennes. We just refer to them as Great Pyrs, but they do have some Anatolian traits, including some darker hair around the shoulder blades. Around here the new LGDs are known as “the big girls”, becuase, well, they’re freakin’ huge! We thought Sophie was getting to be a big girl. She looks like a little peck compared to her new friends.

 
Why Get Livestock Guardian Dogs?

 

We are using LGDs because we’re in an area that has coyotes, packs of wild dogs, and other predators (potentially including a bear, although that’s yet to be substantiated). Our goats are vulnerable to predation when they’e out on pasture, especially when they have little goat kids running around with them. It's the dogs responsibility to help protect them. It's our responsibility to facilitate the dog's success as a guardian and keep them happy and healthy.

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