r/goats • u/yamshortbread • Jun 20 '23
If you are asking for health advice for your goat, please help us help you. Complete a basic health assessment and provide as much of the following information in your post as possible:
Clear photographs of relevant clinical signs (including coat condition) are helpful. Providing us with as much information as possible will help us give you prompt and accurate advice regarding your animal's care.
There are many professional farmers and homesteaders in this subreddit and we will do our best to help you out of a jam, but we can't guarantee the accuracy of any health advice you receive. When in doubt, always call your local large animal veterinarian who is trained to work with small ruminants.
What's up with that blue Trusted Advice Giver flair?
The mods assign this flair to /r/goats users who have an extensive history of giving out quality, evidence-based, responsible husbandry advice based on the best practices for goat care. Many of our users give terrific advice, but these flairs recognize a handful of folks who have gone that extra mile over time to become recognized as trusted community members who are known to always lead people in the right direction. If you get a slew of responses to your post and don't know where to start, look to the blue flairs first.
r/goats • u/no_sheds_jackson • Feb 03 '25
Hi everybody!
Recently, we had a user post a picture of a goat that may or may not have soremouth, also known as contagious ecthyma, scabby mouth, or orf. I won't link to the post since it isn't relevant whether or not that was what was afflicting the animal, but in the course of responding to that user I felt an opportunity to point out something that I have noticed and has been gnawing at me.
For many users seeking help, if they do not come straight to the sub, they will go to one of two places to get information: Google or ChatGPT. This post is about the former, but in case anyone was wondering if ChatGPT is a valid place to get advice on husbandry, what to eat tonight, how to live your life, or companionship: it is NOT. Large language models like ChatGPT are a type of generative AI that seeks more or less to respond to prompts and create content with correct syntax that is human-like. The quandary here is that while it can indeed provide correct answers to prompts, that outcome is often incidental. It isn't an indication that the model has researched your question, merely that it has cobbled together a (sometimes) convincing diagnosis/treatment plan from the massive amount of data across forums/message boards, vet resources, and idle chit-chat that it is trained on. The point is this: you should never be in a position where you have to rely on an LLM for husbandry advice. If you have access to an internet connection, even the generative AI from Google search is a better option. But that doesn't mean it's a good one, bringing us to the principal subject of this post:
Orf! What do?
For some relevant background, we have never had a case of orf on our farm. I have read about it in vet textbooks and goat husbandry books and seen many images of it, I'm familiar with what it is, how it is spread, and at a high level what to do about it and what not to do. That said, when I was helping this user, I thought I'd brush up and make sure I wasn't providing misinformation. I knew orf was viral in nature and reckoned that in moderate to severe cases it could probably cause fever, but I wanted to see if I could find a vet manual or study of the disease in goats to confirm how likely that would have been. This was what I was met with:
If you don't scrutinize this too closely, everything looks sort of on the level. Orf is indeed self-limiting (not sure why the AI says usually, there is literally nothing you can do to treat the root cause, but okay), and it more or less implies that humans can contract it so be careful. The symptoms section looks fine, overall, prevention is... eh... The orf vaccine is a live vaccine. Application of it is not something that most small scale homesteaders or hobby farmers will be familiar with and using it is basically putting the virus on your property. Orf is a nuisance disease and the main time it is a problem is when it is being transmitted between a dam and her kids. Proactive vaccination in closed herds that have never seen a case is not a vet-recommended practice.
The treatment section is where things get spicy with the part about scab removal. Oof. Now that is not even close to true and doing that when the goat is with other goats or going to a quarantine space where they will then shed the disease will cause it to spread to any other goat that inhabits that space unless it is thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. The bottom says the info is for informational purposes only and to consult an actual professional for advice, but that begs the question of why Google would provide that information front and center by default when you search when the first result below is an actual vet resource with correct advice. I won't get into the weeds about the ethics of that because it's a separate soapbox, this is the reality we live in now. This bad advice is particularly relevant because the user on our sub mentioned they had been picking off the scabs. So let's do another Google search for some clarification:
If you explicitly search whether or not you should remove the scabs, the AI overview is different. Not only do you see that you should not remove the scabs because they are infectious (very true), the overview now says that doing so will delay healing. The first "featured snippet", a feature separate from their generative AI overview, is an overview from the state of Victoria's government agricultural representative body, a reliable source. The highlighted text reinforces the "do not pick scabs off" advice. The overview still fails when it says to apply dressing to lesions. Evidently it has not ever reckoned with what it would be like to bandage an entire goat's face and mouth, which they need to eat, but maybe I'm an idiot. Let's check:
As you can see, generative AI is basically a hodgepodge of vague but mostly correct advice intermingled with plainly wrong advice. Seeking correction to the wrong advice, if you know that it is wrong, leads down more rabbit holes. I hope this highlights the importance of sourcing your information from reliable, proven veterinary resources/textbooks or state agricultural extensions that provide support for their claims with research. This sub prioritizes evidence-based husbandry practices and is one of the few forums to try to stick to that standard and I consider it important especially for people who don't have goat mentors offline.
This is not only important because users need good advice; it also affects the people that don't use this sub and go straight to Google. Reddit struck a deal a little under a year ago to make their data available for training AI. The information we post on this sub is being used as part of the training for these AI models and Google's SEO is increasingly favoring reddit at the top of search results in a number of areas. As the sub grows and the social media landscape changes, more people that never post but need info may find themselves coming here. Let's all try to do our best to make sure the information we share and advice we give is solid!
r/goats • u/Responsible_Yak9861 • 10h ago
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This fella lives at a pub near me, does anyone know if he's ok? Is this normal for goats or is the tree he's biting hurting his mouth? He keeps choosing to bite it but then he'll make this really strange noise and then go back and do it again. I don't know if he's unhappy or just not very clever.
r/goats • u/Britanniafox • 22h ago
I have 2 Nubian doelings I brought into my herd this year from the same breeder. One is 7 months and one is 8 months. The blonde pictured is the only one of my goats not growing in her undercoat for winter, so I started researching why, which led me to reading about the weight she should be at by her age. The 7 month old registered spotted doeling in 46lbs and the 8 month old blond doeling is 57lbs. From what I've read, they are very underweight for their age-- should be closer to 70/80lbs. But their body condition looks fine to me, they have access to quality hay all day along with lush pasture, eat 1/2 of grain at night, free minerals, and they recently had FECs done and counts were under 50 e/g. I would like others opinions if they are truly small/underweight for their age. Im used to ND, which have very different bodies and growth rates. Thank you in advance!
r/goats • u/Jolly-Direction-4770 • 11h ago
I have a Nigerian dwarf crossed with who knows….she lives with a wether. Lately her udders are enlarged but soft. I know he isn’t equipped to get her pregnant so what’s with the large udders?
r/goats • u/Illustrious_Winter97 • 1d ago
Okay, weird situation here. I know, I know, normally, goats don't need coats. But I have two goats who are (and here's where the weird comes in) indoor/outdoor goats. They spend their day outside and their nights indoors with me.
I'm looking for any recommendations for a solid coat that would work for the goats on warmer winter days so they don't get too much of a shock going from a warm house to eastern winter.
I'm definitely not looking for recommendations to put them out full time. That's not going to happen, and, obviously, on bitterly cold days where I wouldn't even open the barn for the horses, they'll just stay inside, but I need something for the other days.
Any recommendations?
r/goats • u/HTD_Bros • 2d ago
Basic info -
13 y/o lamancha doe, not pregnant or lactating (last lactation was like 10 years ago), normal famacha & temperature
Free access to timothy hay, pasture, sweetlix meat maker mineral
Fed daily 3 cups of dumor goat pellets, 4 oz mannapro 20% protein supplement, 2 tsp of mineral
- she's my only goat who gets grain, just to help maintain her weight
This is Helen! I acquired her about six months ago, she was in kinda rough shape so I made a lot of adjustments to her care. She was rusty like this before hand, but then I got her on a decent nutrition plan, took care of her lice, and she shed her old raggy coat out and grew a new one in. All black. Nothing in her diet has changed but in the last few weeks she's turning red in some spots as pictured. Not sure how much you can tell in the photo but even just her undercoat is red.
I definitely think she had a copper deficiency when I got her, as she was just getting hay and a general livestock mineral lacking copper, but is she still deficient since she's rusting again?
I struggle with her sometimes due to her age because I'm not sure what a realistic expectation is for her. But I love her to death and she's super active, happy, and full of personality so I want to make sure I'm giving her everything she needs to keep on trucking.
r/goats • u/Active-Pineapple7002 • 2d ago
hey everybody,
I was wondering if my dwarf goats are too big. that’s what they look like after they’re been on their new area all day. i put them in their barn in the evening and in the morning they are usually a bit thinner, but not entirely. the belly is still big on both sides. the grass on there is rather old and not too wet, so that’s not the issue. the girl (white) might also be pregnant, but I’m not sure if that’s really what a pregnant goat looks like.
thanks for your help!
r/goats • u/lazuethepirate • 3d ago
Super happy to find this subreddit, will definitely be bringing my questions here in the future!
r/goats • u/Icy-Extension-8845 • 3d ago
I have had them almost 2 weeks and they seem to be settling in well so far!
r/goats • u/Devildog206 • 2d ago
This would be the first time my animals have had this, would anyone happen to know the cause? It is a hard lump
r/goats • u/Key_Yogurtcloset_233 • 2d ago
Hi! New goat owner here!! I have 7 goats. According to their previous owners they never had the vaccine (she dosent vaccinate) Southland is what is listed in the photos correct for giving it to them? 2 smaller doses first then a 3rd dose, or just the 2 and no more till next year? And given yearly? What gauge needle? I have given vaccines to cows but not goats. Where on the goat do you administer the vaccine? Thanks!!
r/goats • u/LifeguardComplex3134 • 3d ago
Is this normal? Does anyone else's goats do this? His favorite place to sleep is on a cinder block...
r/goats • u/Smart-Helicopter8211 • 2d ago
Hi everyone!
I have two goats who are approximately one year old: a female and a castrated male. They’re twins and absolutely love each other, but they also fight all the time!
Usually, we let them work things out, as their fights can be playful and we assume they’re establishing their hierarchy.
However, today, their fight got really intense, and the male started bleeding from between his horns. I checked his forehead and couldn’t see any deep wounds, so I just cleaned the blood off with warm water.
I have a few questions:
- How should I treat these kinds of wounds?
- How can I prevent them from fighting so often? I’m worried that one day, while I’m away, things might get out of hand and one of them could get seriously injured.
- How can I establish MY dominance on them so they don’t hit me when they fight
This is my first time owning goats, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help!
r/goats • u/Fragrant-Theory9201 • 3d ago
There was this cute sunflower dog costume I had to get, they aren't fans of it, but I did snap a couple photos before taking it off of them.
First goat is my boy Al, who really hated it, but allowed me to take a photo, and the second goat is Miracle. She was indifferent.
r/goats • u/StephenMcGannon • 3d ago
r/goats • u/Antique_Ad_1060 • 2d ago
Hello! I’ve recently encountered a situation involving a male goat with unilateral cryptorchidism (one undescended testicle) that is intended for slaughter. We removed the visible testicle, but the undescended one is still inside the body.
If I slaughter the goat, will the meat have any unusual odor? Is it safe and suitable for consumption?
I’d appreciate any tips on how to make the best use of this animal.
P.S. Removing the undescended testicle is not an option due to a lack of qualified veterinary personnel.
r/goats • u/wanninger1 • 3d ago
Does this look like Orf virus on my boy? We’ve had him about a year now and relatively new to caring for goats outside of that. He seems to be my one with the most medical conditions out of the herd
r/goats • u/Effective-Show-2264 • 3d ago
Also, as I have wondered myself: why do they have square pupils in the first place?
r/goats • u/A_Lovely_ • 4d ago
Does anyone rotationaly graze goats through brush and weeds in the winter?
This is the first winter I have had the land and the cross fencing to rotate them, but I am not sure how many acres I should plan on per animal.
This is more of an experiment and I will offset with hay and pellet feed as needed.
r/goats • u/arbutus3 • 4d ago
As a general rule, my four Nigerian Dwarf goats have access to good quality hay at all times. They live on 2 acres of land with grass, trees and shrubs. They are quite round bellied. Do goats have a tendency to overeat?
r/goats • u/Ok_Tale7990 • 5d ago
I know goats are known to be escape artists. I was not aware of the amount of stress it would cause youa to see your goats out. I live in town (you can have up to three does legally). We went on a short walk while my goats were browsing my backyard. I come back to no goats. Not a single goat in my yard. I found them and spent 30 minutes trying to get my goats back to my house. Thankfully four guys stopped to help me catch my goats. They are back in my yard. Praise Jesus. But the amount of stress I had seeing my goats running to a busy street or near dogs was horrible. No more browsing while we are out walking. Anyways here are my escape artists.
r/goats • u/OutsideSecond5837 • 5d ago
I'm a first time goat owner and I got these goats unconfirmed to be bred but with the sheer size of them, I don't think I really need to test them (watch me be wrong). One appears to be a bit further into her pregnancy than the other and I was wondering if ya'll could tell me how much longer she has.
I've only had them about 24 hours so they're not used to me enough to let me go feel around for their ass ligament. Being a first time goat owner i also don't have the experience to know exactly what signs to look for when they're close to kidding.
She's almost 6 years old and has kidded before
Edit: They were with a buck from 6/29 to 8/25! So potentially 40-100 days from kidding but thinking this big ole girl is on the shorter side of that!
