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Kids: Coccidia

Coccidia are a protozoan internal parasite, that most goats have, in small numbers. In adults, this is generally not a problem, but if kids get an overload of coccidia, it can cause diarrhea, intestinal scarring, and ultimately death, if not treated.  The first line of prevention for coccidia in kids is to keep their areas clean. This may seem like an unreasonable expectation--it's a barn, for all love--but what this means is essentially making sure the kids have minimal access to poop--they pick up coccidia from mouthing poop, soiled straw, etc. This can mean cleaning out the pen every day, or it can mean adding a new layer of straw once or twice a day, or even both. A good criteria (picked up from Deborah at the Thrifty Homesteader) is that you should be willing to sit down in the stall. Then, it's clean enough for kids. If you're not willing to sit down (while wearing "barn" pants. Not wearing a fancy dress, for instance) it's not clean enough for kids.  In
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Dietary Suppliments

There are three main dietary supplements that we give to our goats, and each is important in its own way.  

1. Baking Soda. This is important to have available because it balances rumen pH, which can help prevent digestive problems, like bloat. Goats know when they need it, so it can be made available free-choice. 

2. Minerals. A mineral supplement gives goats the micronutrients their bodies need to function properly. Goats need a specific goat mineral, not a goat and sheep mineral, but a goat mineral. And not all goat minerals are created equal, in terms of copper content, and content of other trace minerals. The only one we've found that has proper levels of minerals is Sweetlix Meat Maker, which can be found HERE.

3. We like to give our goats Thorvin Kelp, which helps provide them with micronutrients as well, especially iodine. This is their very favorite supplement--they eat it up like candy.

Supplements are generally fed using a mineral feeder (a simple search on JeffersPet or Amazon will lead you to one). We have one mineral feeder and one regular feeder, since we ran out of space in the mineral feeder. :)

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