Betty Yin

When a vet comes out to treat a colic, they use mineral oil.
I would tube the goat, making sure I'm not in the lungs before introducing the oil, eliminating the danger of aspirating the oil.

We have turned old truck caps into 3 sided shelters.
Take 2 x 4s and build 3 walls, about 30" high, matching the size of the truck cap, leaving the flap part of the cap with no wall. Screw the walls together, and top with the truck cap, screwing that to the top of the walls.
We sided ours with unused galvanized siding leftover from the chicken coop.
If you want to move it often, put it on skids and it can be pulled with a tractor easily. Less often, or with no tractor, it can be disassembled and moved that way.
We have also used them as kidding jugs, attaching a cattle panel to the open side with eye hooks and carabiner clips, or as a creep feeder for kids, with a small entry cut into a cattle panel or plywood, attached the same way.
Ours have been in service over 5 years, with does, bucks and kids, and no damage.
If I can figure out how to add pictures, I will.

Philip Green wrote:Getting into grain can cause bloating and potentially death. Try giving him oil (pretty much any type of oil works... except mineral oil) and then massaging his sides as this may help to break up the gas bubbles and allow them to be expelled.

Actually, the opposite is true. Any vegetable oil will digest, and add to the problem. Mineral oil will NOT digest, and help things move through.
Also Pepto-Bismol, 30 mL every hour or two, and CD&T antitoxin at 10 mL.
The next day, give vitamin B to help stimulate the appetite, and a probiotic or a bit of another goat's cud to re-start the good bacteria in the gut.

I bought my first pigs this year, and the barrow had a swelling like that. It worsened very quickly and the barrow died.
Everything I had read said that they can be raised to slaughter weight with that going on, but please do keep an eye on him.

Emile Species wrote:Also, isn't their potential for breeding problems between a guinea hog or pot belly and larger breeds?

The problems would arise if you bred a large breed boar to a small breed sow.
If you bred a smaller breed male to a larger breed female (any species) you would not be likely to risk offspring being too large to birth.

We have 2 llamas, and have friends with many more. Our llama owning friends have always told me that llama manure is one of the only manures that is safe to use directly on the garden without composting first, with no danger of nitrogen burning.
In fact, one of them has quite a business selling bagged fresh "Llama Doo."
That being said, it never hurts to compost first anyway, but it seems like it may not be as necessary as with other types of dung.

IMO the Kiko is the hardiest breed, whether as a pure bred or to cross with. I have a 5 year old Kiko buck, that I raised as a bottle baby. He has the best feet, I've only had to trim his feet maybe 3 times, ever. My Boers have to be trimmed every 2-4 months.
He is very parasite resistant, I have wormed him maybe once a year, and he keeps a very low fecal egg count, and good FAMANCHA score.
His mother was a very good milker as well, and I can milk his half Boer daughters as much volume as my purebred Toggenburg or Nubian does.

IMO the Kiko is the hardiest breed, whether as a pure bred or to cross with. I have a 5 year old Kiko buck, that I raised as a bottle baby. He has the best feet, I've only had to trim his feet maybe 3 times, ever. My Boers have to be trimmed every 2-4 months.
He is very parasite resistant, I have wormed him maybe once a year, and he keeps a very low fecal egg count, and good FAMANCHA score.
His mother was a very good milker as well, and I can milk his half Boer daughters as much volume as my purebred Toggenburg or Nubian does.

I wean at around 10-12 weeks. That's when they are developmentally ready to digest regular feed efficiently enough to not need the milk protiens.
I used the multi kid feeder from Hoegger Supply, which has the nipples at the bottom of the bucket. The only problem I had with it was that as the kids get older, they can tear the nipples, and the milk would leak, so I learned to have extras on hand.
I cleaned it every 4 days or so when it was cool out, and every other day when it was hot. When it was hot out, I'd also change the frozen milk jug mid-afternoon.
They are quite easy to clean, just make sure you have a baby bottle brush to get inside of the nipples, and rinse them well.
It saves a ton of time, probably 30 minutes a day for me.
If they start to scour, try adding a teaspoon of baby rice cereal to the bottles. It seems to tighten things up if it's only a milk issue, rather than a pathogen.
That's a great way to start out with goats for meat!

Straw bedding is notorious for harboring lice. Dust the straw AND your goats with diatomaceous earth once a week or so, and you should not see the little creepers again.
If your goats DO happen to get lice, check their inner eyelids to make sure they're pink. Otherwise some injectable iron is a good idea.
Anything that sucks blood, whether its an internal or an external parasite can cause anemia, which can be fatal.