The goats needed some new things to play on, so an eagle eye spotted a pallet with a solid top and brought it home.
This is how I’ve started treating pallets in an attempt to slow down rot and insect damage:
Put the pallet out in the sun and ensure it’s dry.
Purchase a gallon of Boracare. It’s a borax and glycerin mix that soaks into the wood and will cause any insect that eats it to cease living. Once dry, the wood can be painted to prevent the weather from leeching the Boracare out (mostly by the sun). It’s safe to use for garden wood too (per the manufacturer, I called and checked). I don’t use it around animals that chew (looking at you rabbits) but I wouldn’t use pallet wood around them anyway as you don’t know what has been on it.
It’s a tad pricey, but you mix it 5 to 1 with water (water 5 parts boracare 1 part) for new wood so it goes pretty far.
Here’s my jug (and below is a link to amazon if you’d like to support my blog)
Then I use a cheap paintbrush and coat the pallets with the Boracare. You only have to do one side of each wood piece as long as they are under 4″ thick as it absorbs that far into the wood.
Then I let the pallets dry and paint them with whatever clearance paint I have on hand :).
I thought I’d share some pictures from when I built the goat raising house. I say “goat raising” because they will be outgrowing it, and I plan on using it as a nursery in the future.
The basic idea is an old chain link dog pen (10×10) that used to be my rabbit “barn”, a tarp roof, and pallets around 3 sides to prevent predator break ins.
Here you can see the basic house. I’ve put up the chain link pen, the roof, and half the sides. Missing in the picture is the shadecloth and the raised sleeping area I built out of pallets and cinder blocks.
I used landscape timbers and 2×4’s to build a roof frame work over the pen. This supports bent cattle panels which in turn support a tarp. I’ve found that just a tarp sags when it rains and seems to wear out faster.
The wood is held together with strapping, plates, and lots of screws. the cattle panels are tied to each other and the frame with UV resistant zip ties. I like to leave the ends long to discourage things from roosting/building nests there.
Against the sides I added wooden pallets, screwed together with 2×4 pieces and other cut up pallets. This stops the goats from pushing the fencing too far out and things from pushing the fencing in, as well as providing shade and a wind/rain break. View from inside:
And how it looks outside:
Once everything is tied/screwed together, tiedowns are added over the tarp (shown above is the roof to pen ties, not shown are the augers). So far this type of building has done well in storms.
Issues I’ve had are the rain blowing sideways into the sleeping area and not being able to cut the grass that’s growing between the pallets. I’ll eventually add another tarp for a bigger weather resistant area , and the grass is being handled by the geese for now.
I wouldn’t be able to figure out an exact cost on this one since I already had most of the materials. The tarp was $100. Pen cost me $300 new, I think they’re $400 and up now. Pallets were free. I didn’t count screws but I easily went through a box of those, and probably a dozen plates and different hardware. I already had the landscape timbers and 2x4s , also from the old rabbit pen.
Decided to start collar training the baby goats because of how hard they are to snag when they don’t want to be caught (aka any time there isn’t food involved). As they tend to get themselves into everything, I ended up buying cat collars that have a breakaway feature. Inexpensive enough that if (when) they lose them, replacing won’t cost a fortune. Multi colors to tell everyone apart, although they are pretty obviously not the same. We’ll see how long these last!
The little cat head is the breakaway feature.
(Update: Two days. They lasted…two days. Still looking for two of them….Time for plan B.)
I’m not sure which one of us was more scared at the end me or her… It was just a normal feeding time. They get a small handful of pellets at night only because the smallest one needs the extra nutrition and there’s no way to feed her without giving the other two a little something.
I stay pretty close to them while they’re eating to keep the big two from pushing the little one out of her bucket. I was feeding the other animals and watching them and noticed Lizzie dad started shaking her head. As I watched her she started flinging it more frantically but was not crying. She is a very vocal goat so this made me realize something was wrong.
I ran over and scooped her up into my arm-luckily she only weighs 20 pounds at this point. I put her head along my left arm and thumped her sides with my right hand while tipping her facing downwards. I then slung my arm toward the ground hoping to dislodge whatever she was choking on. The 2nd time I did it a huge wad of powdered powdered pellets and slime flew out of her mouth.
She started yelling bloody murder and freaking out despite my attempts to calm her down so I ended up setting her on the ground. She staggered a distance away and stood there pitifully yelling sounding like she had a very hoarse throat. From the way she was swaying on her feet it was clear that she was close to having passed out.
About 5 minutes later later she decided that she wanted the rest of her dinner and slowly approached me approached me to get more pellets. I only gave her a little bit because I figured her throat would be sore after all that.
But 20 minutes later she was more active and ran for the hay feeder although she was not still her normal hyper self. I’m hoping everything’s OK but I’ll feel better after some time has passed. Managed to scare the heck out of both of us. I’ve had to do the sling method to clear the throat of a choking duck before but this is the 1st time I’ve ever had to do it on something that big. I’m thankful she’s small enough I could pick her up.
Update: I watched her closely the next few days and she appeared to have no ill effects. I asked my vet about it and he said if she’s not coughing or running a fever, she’s good. Next up, finding a way to slow her down from eating huge mouthfuls.
The goat….freshly washed and wrapped up drying nicely. The sandwich….my lunch, half eaten. The cat…basically a stomach on four legs and really really wanted the sandwich, enough to brave getting near the weird loud thing (aka baby goat) wrapped up in my lap. The end result? Dry goat, full me, and yes…the kitty got a piece of the lunch meat!
My goats ended up having lice. Ugh. I thought the black goat had dandruff (the blurry picture below), but a vet told me nope. Those are nits. I looked closely at the white goat’s fur and was able to see them as well, pictured below. So if your goat has “dandruff”, check closer-it could be lice!
Vet showed me to try and pull it off-the lice nits stick to the fur and don’t pull off like dandruff would. Also showed me how they were in layers on the hair, hair keeps growing so the ones close to skin were new and the ones further away were the ones that hatched before that.
When asked about mites, he said mites you aren’t going to see easily with naked eye, but you’ll see them rubbing excessively on everything they can.
Good news is humans and goats do not share the same lice and mite species. Whew!
Well, I managed to get everything together needed (recommended by vet and things I’ve read online) to treat my trio.
Kaolin Pectin is for treating the diarrhea in the two with it. They weigh 6 and 9 pounds each so I’m giving them 3cc each.
Micro B-12 to boost their nutritional amount of B12, given per label instructions.
Adams Flea and Tick Shampoo…which ended up being almost empty so I used a new bottle. Pyrethrin was the important ingredient the vet wanted me to use and Adams has worked well for me in the past on other animals. I wish they’d put better labels on! As you see, handling and them getting wet wears them off.
Dectomax is a doramectin sold as an injection. Everything I’ve read and heard, and the vet confirmed, says do orally. Apparently goats “process” their feed quicker than other animals so the doseage has to be adjusted higher. I settled on 1ml/35 lbs, ORALLY for their doses. I still had to have a needle (bag behind the bottles) to draw it out of the bottle though, and gave it using a 3cc syringe (not pictured).
Probios was to restore some of the gut flora from being sick, given at label dose. They LOVE the taste! I could only find cattle version so turning the dial was veryyy slow :).
The yellow packet is electrolytes, I mixed up half a cup worth (using package directions) and gave everyone 6 ccs orally. Usually you put it in their water, which I have been doing, but I wanted to make sure they all got some.
Last up is a generic for Baycox-Toltrazuril- which per the vet local breeders have said works the best. I had to get the generic as the name brand was out of stock everywhere, I got it online from a racehorse supply site. He said Corid would be next up to try if I didn’t have that, but you have to do it for 5 days in a row and supplement thiamine. The Toltrazuiril is a one day dose given orally, rate is 1cc/5lb.
Fun part is , all of this will be repeated in 10 days again :).
So after wrestling three little goats, singly, in a nice warm shower I got to have a little fun…This is a towel. Oh, no, my shower is not pink…that’s weird…but anyway this is a very cute towel isn’t it?
Tada! See? Cute! Bambi was not much of a fan of a bath, although she was quiet until I stepped out to grab all the supplements….then the whole neighborhood could hear her!
Back out in the pen after their baths, three goats all lined up getting an apology handful of pellets :). You can see that Molly (far left) is feeling good with her tail nice and perky. Bambi does have abdomen now so she’s filling out slowly. Lizzy (far right) never showed signs of feeling bad, but her eyelid color is improving so the lice treatment seems to be helping.
Here Molly is checking out the minerals…vet said it was ok to start them on em. Left is plain baking soda, and right is Manna Pro brand Goat Minerals. I had gotten them since it was a smaller bag and I figured 3 goats are not going through 25lb of minerals that quick. The vet confirmed my choice as well and said he recommends that type over the generic bagged minerals anyway.
Face picture of Lizzy…who still is very shy of being petted although she is realizing I come with food. And she likes food!
Well, she’s still not feeling good. Another picture of the attitude of a sick goat:
Through the breeder I got the number of the vet she has used before and set up an appointment. He came out that evening (luckily he had a meeting not far from me) to see the goats. He agreed that the smallest did not look like she was feeling well and took fecal samples from all three. I was used to fecals being off found pellets, but apparently now you take the manure right out of the animals’ butts! I’ve seen them do it for the cat and dogs, but they use a plastic loop thing. For goats you apparently get to go right to the source with a finger…but in these little guys even a finger is huge and I had 3 very unhappy goats when it was done!
While he was there we discussed possible outcomes and treatments and I showed him the list of medications I had recently gotten. Turns out I’ve gotten a large majority of what I may need already.
I showed him the dandruff on the back of the black goats’ head…andddd it turns out it was lice nits!
Lice! On MY goats!!! *shudder*. He saw the look on my face and laughed, let me know that goat lice are not transmittable to humans. Whew.
Add that to the list of things to treat for! He showed me how you could tell when the nits attached-basically the further away from the body the nits were, the longer ago they attached themselves. He told me to go ahead and treat everyone for it using the Dectomax I had on hand as well as a bath in any Pemetherin containing shampoo. I asked if the Adam’s brand was good, he said yes. He also told me repeat the bath in 12-14 days to get the next batch of lice, and if still some do it again after that. Below is a blurry picture of the nits on the girls’ head, and one of it in the fur of the white one which I discovered after the vet left….
Well. That’s fun. NOT.
We spend a few more minutes discussing goats and discussing my plans to get the supplies to do my own fecals in the future (already ordered). He left with a promise to let me know in the morning the results.
The next morning bright and early he sends me a text and tells me all three have coccidiosis, and the smallest one was heavily infected! I suspected it in the smallest one based on the dirrhea and attitude but now it was confirmed. He said to get them treated NOW, especially the smallest one. Based on what I had on hand, he suggested Corrid or Baycox as the treatment. He also told me snag a sample of feces from the smallest and keep it in the fridge until my supplies come in. Said it would be great to learn on as there were a lot of coccidia visible in her sample, and it would keep for up to a week in the fridge.
Next up…bath and treatment time for everyone! This is not going to go over well!
After bringing home 3 baby goats to start my herd, I noticed that the smallest didn’t seem to be feeling good. When I had picked them up , the white one had diarrhea suddenly but I was hoping it was just stress. I gave everyone a dose of Selenium and Vit E as they had not had anything yet (7 weeks old). Two days later, the smallest still wasn’t feeling good. This is how she was standing. Note the head carried down, the ears flat and facing backwards, the hunched up back, and the wet tail being held behind her instead of up or relaxed.
Top view showing the ear carriage as well as the sunken in area in front of the hips.
And this is how she was in the pen-note the backwards low ears and how she’s propping her head up against the fence.
At this point I checked her for dehydration and found that she was (by gently lifting a piece of skin away from body and seeing how fast it went back flat…hers “tented”). I then spent the rest of the day giving her Kaolin liquid, electrolyes, probios, and as much fluid as I could syringe into her mouth.
After 10 hours of treatment, and a dose of ScourGard (a pig medicine useable in goats at 3x the label dose), she was no longer dehydrated and she started struggling when I picked her up (much better sign than the limp body). At one point I noticed the little pieces of hay in the bottom of their hay bowl and put a pinch in her mouth. She immediatly started chewing it up and nosed my hand, so I ended up giving her a good sized handful of the little pieces that she ate.
At this point I started looking for a vet I could either take them to to have their feces checked or one that would come to the farm. I knew it wouldn’t be cheap to do but it needed to be done!
