Aspiration Pneumonia - Hope?

[GoldenTreePackGoats]

Aw, he's a cutie. I love his white "old man" eyebrows! He doesn't look very thrifty. His coat looks rough and he's got a potbelly. I'm sure you're doing all you can to fix whatever is causing him to be a "poor doer". He actually looks a little copper deficient. I'm sure you're giving enough copper, but I wonder if maybe he's getting too much of a copper antagonist such as iron, sulfur, or molybdenum in his diet and it's blocking his uptake.

How do you feed your does and wethers differently? I don't usually feed my boys and girls different diets, but I did last year and regretted it. I fed everyone too much alfalfa last year, but the girls got even more than the boys and they suffered from copper and selenium deficiencies during kidding season because of it. I sometimes feel that I overcomplicate things. Some of the healthiest goats I've seen are ones that get almost no care at all and no special diet (like how we fed Cuzco for years and years!). Sometimes it's instructive to keep that in mind when I find myself overanalyzing feed, minerals, medication, and housing. I don't want to neglect my goats by any means, but as I discovered last year, it's easy to become paranoid and end up causing problems through over-management.

Yes his eyebrows are the best, they move when he looks around and its just so cute. He is a special guy, we've started to wonder about our water, it hasn't been tested an a couple years so that's next on the list of whats up with Rafiki. Otherwise his bloodwork looks good and all his vitals are normal, his fecals are perfect, and the cashmere beneath his coat is super thick already. His spine fur is extra long because I shaved the rest of his body over the summer and gave him a mohawk, but as for being bleached I don't know. With the number of vets we work with they say I shouldn't need to bolus, leading to thinking maybe something is off in the water or somewhere else. That being said, Hucks fur was crappy, bleached and curled, we thought it was a copper deficiency and think we overdosed him because his copper was fine and his zinc was depleated. Huck's trace element panel showed toxic levels of copper in his serum, which I know isn't a super accurate way of telling but he also had other signs of copper toxicity, an abnormal muscle value, poor posture, lethargy, and slight tinge of yellow to his mucous membranes. Which was all before/during/after the herd sickness we went through this summer. Truth is everything is/was so mixed up we decided to feed as suggested by a ruminant nutritionist, supplement zinc, and restest trace elements when we send our preg tests in. Otherwise, we are trying to to manage it so much... for now.

Both my does and wether/bucks get free choice grass hay, and minerals. My does get a feeding of alfalfa & lespedeza pellets once a day based on weight, and my wethers get fed alfalfa every other day. Grain is given to does based on body condition, pregnancy. Then wethers/bucks under a year get grain every other day. I had the lespedeza pellets shipped to WA from SE US and it was really expensive, I'm going to use them as a trial with my does only, a trial. Huge difference feeding 3 does vs 8 goats total, however if I see it works to keep away barberpole than I will try and round up local goat people to go in on a larger shipment.