Chat
12-16-2019, 12:33 PM
This morning my wife and I went out to let our 8 goats (4 wethers, 4 females - all aged between 9-11 months) out of their enclosures, give them a bit of grain and hay, etc.
Everything was normal for about 10-15 minutes as the goats ate their grain. My wife took a few of the goats on a walk to the other end of their enclosure and give them a treat to encourage them to get moving on these cold mornings. A couple of the goats always hang back with me as did one of my wethers. My goats have gotten much quieter as they age and rarely actually bellow preferring to make quiet talking under their breath, mouth closed chatter instead. I was walking toward the other end of the enclosure with one wether and talking to him when all of a sudden he got vocal (kind of a weak cry like something was bothering him but not serious). At first he acted like something had bit him or he had a really bad itch and was trying to use his horns to scratch at his back. He reared up halfway once, then all the way up, made a couple of more little crying sounds, layed down and kind of rolled a little bit like he was trying to rub his back. He got up, took a treat from my wife then ran back to their shelter. He acted like he was trying to scratch his back or neck. Layed down then got right back up, went to the other side of the shelter and layed down and stayed there. (Not normal after being locked in their enclosure all night, during feeding time, when we are out with them giving them attention). I had my wife go in and mix some pulverized B-12 granules in warm water (about 3 tsp pulverized granules in 10 ccs of warm water syringe) while I stayed with him. While she was gone for maybe 5-10 minutes he stayed laying down and was alert, not crying, but made a little bit of an odd noise when breathing). I gave him about half of the diluted B-12 solution which he didn't care for too much and got up and went strait to a grain pan and started eating. I went ahead and gave him most of the rest of the B-12 solution and watched him for another 20 minutes or so. (I realize the B-12 probably didn't have much if any effect but figured it couldn't hurt). Anyway, he never really showed another sign of anything unusual and slowly started to eat some hay and has acted normal since.
I'm probably being overly protective but this was extremely odd behavior from any of my goats even thought it only lasted about 10 minutes. The closest behavior like this I have seen was when this same goat was 4 weeks old and on a bottle, one night for a couple of hours he would lay down, cry out, roll on his side, and was lethargic. We think that he was constipated and gave him some mineral oil in his bottle the next morning and he was fine. Today I don't think he was constipated because I had just caught a stool sample from him before this started.
Any thoughts from my fellow pack goat owners?
Everything was normal for about 10-15 minutes as the goats ate their grain. My wife took a few of the goats on a walk to the other end of their enclosure and give them a treat to encourage them to get moving on these cold mornings. A couple of the goats always hang back with me as did one of my wethers. My goats have gotten much quieter as they age and rarely actually bellow preferring to make quiet talking under their breath, mouth closed chatter instead. I was walking toward the other end of the enclosure with one wether and talking to him when all of a sudden he got vocal (kind of a weak cry like something was bothering him but not serious). At first he acted like something had bit him or he had a really bad itch and was trying to use his horns to scratch at his back. He reared up halfway once, then all the way up, made a couple of more little crying sounds, layed down and kind of rolled a little bit like he was trying to rub his back. He got up, took a treat from my wife then ran back to their shelter. He acted like he was trying to scratch his back or neck. Layed down then got right back up, went to the other side of the shelter and layed down and stayed there. (Not normal after being locked in their enclosure all night, during feeding time, when we are out with them giving them attention). I had my wife go in and mix some pulverized B-12 granules in warm water (about 3 tsp pulverized granules in 10 ccs of warm water syringe) while I stayed with him. While she was gone for maybe 5-10 minutes he stayed laying down and was alert, not crying, but made a little bit of an odd noise when breathing). I gave him about half of the diluted B-12 solution which he didn't care for too much and got up and went strait to a grain pan and started eating. I went ahead and gave him most of the rest of the B-12 solution and watched him for another 20 minutes or so. (I realize the B-12 probably didn't have much if any effect but figured it couldn't hurt). Anyway, he never really showed another sign of anything unusual and slowly started to eat some hay and has acted normal since.
I'm probably being overly protective but this was extremely odd behavior from any of my goats even thought it only lasted about 10 minutes. The closest behavior like this I have seen was when this same goat was 4 weeks old and on a bottle, one night for a couple of hours he would lay down, cry out, roll on his side, and was lethargic. We think that he was constipated and gave him some mineral oil in his bottle the next morning and he was fine. Today I don't think he was constipated because I had just caught a stool sample from him before this started.
Any thoughts from my fellow pack goat owners?