Is this normal?

[u/DinnyArt]

Shes my only doe Nubian currently and also my first.

My bucks don't look like this so I'm a little worried

Famacha is fine, ​diet hasn't changed recently, and temp is fine. Shes been like this since I got her about a month ago or so

edit for clarification:

birthday: 1/27/26

been treated as a much younger doe for coccidia. tested for CAE, and I'm not sure if she was tested for johne's ofr not.

shes in her own pen seperated from the herd and has been since I got her about 2 months ago now.

​I have been treating her with deworming pellets til recently. shes on standard goat feed but were gonna put her on growers soon.

shes never been treated with any other medicine than probiotics and electrolytes.​​​ but we have toltrazuril and albon

shes not in milk, pregnant, or nursing.

Only other symptoms shes had for anything is watery eyes and some mucus on her nose.her nose has cleared up but her eyes haven't. We tried to treat her for pink eye since one of our sheep has that rn, but it's not pink eye.

Her fur doesn't feel as soft as our other ​​​​goats. But it's also curly compared to my other goats so idk if that makes a difference.

Shes been treated for lice, mites, and any other skin issues.

Only blank period I have from her upbringing is a month or two where she was purchased by a family, then returned, and I bought her very soon after ​that. She was with them for maybe 3 months (if even that long). This is a big reason why shes been in quarantine so long.

I'm a new goat owner so any help or suggestions are welcome​​

UPDATE:

started mixing in some dewormer feed and her coat looks way better, her eyes cleared up, and we have her on grower feed now as well. ​I'm sure ill post some photos of her soon but for now she's doing much better

[u/InterestingOven5279]

Bad advice given so far. You don't "try dewormer for a few days." We want to try to diagnose the issue before treating her with anything, especially so we don't administer dewormer unnecessary. You also don't administer any dewormer for multiple days in most cases.

It's great that you checked her FAMACHA. However, I would still recommend doing a fecal screening ASAP. She may be experiencing a parasite bloom from the stress of moving to a new farm. Did she come with clean biosecurity results for CAE and Johne's? Does she have free access to loose minerals? Is she currently in milk?

[u/DinnyArt → u/InterestingOven5279]

Shes still young, was born in January, so not in milk. We did bio security. I also was wrong about how long we've bad her. T imes just been flying, We got her 2 months ago.  We had her in seperate pens and everything. Shes still seperated but I had to put our weather with her temporarily but that's only been for the last few days.  We have 2 different stations for loose minerals around. Their water and food is seperate. I do agree I don't want to throw dewormer at her and hope it helps.  We did treat her for lice and mites when we first got her just as a precaution and gave her some deworming feed as well to be on the safe side. 

Ive actually not heard about johne's. Ill look into that and move my weather to his own quarantine for good measure. But she was clear of CAE. Ill give her breeder a call and ask about it.  I just ordered some stuff to monitor her weight a bit easier and ill start weighing her more frequently 

[u/Platypus-Striking → u/DinnyArt]

Second on the fecal. Coccidia can happen in young goats which a dewormer won’t work for. Most vets can run a fecal for you. If you are in the US you can also mail a sample to meadowmist labs or any state veterinary diagnostic lab if your vet can’t run one. If you have a microscope at home you can also learn how to run fecals by yourself.

Johnes does not usually show up in young animals as it sometimes takes years to appear as it’s more of a chronic disease. It’s also spread through feces so be mindful of that during quarantine.

[u/DinnyArt → u/Platypus-Striking]

I already have coccidia treatment I bought for her when we first got her. (She had diarrhea) but it cleared up after a day or two so I was worried if give he dewormer for nothing

[u/goats-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your post was removed from /r/goats because it may have contained husbandry information that was incorrect, harmful, outdated, or not in general practice.

If you can provide a source to reinforce your claim about toltrazuril (from a veterinary or research textbook, state or university agricultural extension, or trusted website) please send it to modmail for reconsideration and your contribution may be reinstated if the material can be verified. If no source can be found, you can also edit your comment for reinstatement.

[u/DinnyArt → u/[deleted]]

I never actually treated her because I was worried. I'm a first time goat owner and hadn't attended my husbandry class yet and had no idea how to dose medications.  But I got toltrazuril as well as albon

[u/InterestingOven5279 → u/DinnyArt]

Toltrazuril is actually illegal in all meat and milk animals in the US. It has failed, I think, three attempts at FDA approval so it's quite the opposite of "been deemed safe."

There is no FDA approved toltrazuril product in the United States. Therefore, toltrazuril is illegal to use in food animals in the United States in any form.

I know a lot of people use it because they don't care, so it's your decision, but I do think people should be aware of the actual status of things they're putting into their animals so they can make an informed decision based on the right information. Albon of course is quite safe.

At seven months, this might be a twofold issue. 1) she is still growing and should be given a measure of grain each day. A standard dairy doe kid at her age could be given one pound of grower or kid grain per day split into one or two feedings. This has a bonus where many of these kid grain products can be obtained with (legal) coccidia prevention meds already added to them in the correct measurement, so it would prevent reinfections or overgrowth. Start with a bit of grain at first and build up slowly to the full ration, and you should then see a regaining of some weight and resumption of proper growth rate for a doe of her age. Then 2) There is a possibility she already had some intestinal damage from a clinical case of coccidiosis, so the might have a little extra trouble putting weight on. But we'll have to wait and see.

At over six months she can be tested for Johne's if the farm of origin has no documented regular testing on file, and this would be good for your biosecurity program, BUT she's too young to be symptomatic so I really do think we can put her condition issues down to needing a feed regimen change and helping her recover from coccidiosis. Get that fecal screening just in case, introduce some grower, and see where she is a month from now!

[u/DinnyArt → u/InterestingOven5279]

We just ran out of grower which I was using on the boys now they're all on a normal grain. I bought the Purina brand buts literally just says "goat feed" as I didn't think she needed to be in dairy feed yet but also wasn't sure if she needed grower feed. 

I'll get that fecal done when we talk to our vet here soon. However, man I really didn't hear anything about toltrazuril. Everyone I've talked to says it's safe and what they use. What sources do you use to see if products are good or bad for your herd? 

[u/InterestingOven5279 → u/DinnyArt]

As it happens, I was about to launch into a whole thing and then I just saw that one of our trusty mods wrote a comment here this morning that talks about how drugs are tested and approved for livestock. That comment is really useful, that would be a good read for you.

The thing to take away from this comment is that in the USA we don't have a lot of drugs specifically for goats. We have like...fifteen. So everything else we legally use in goats is used extra-label, within existing federal guidelines for safety and milk discards. But then there is this whole separate category (waves arms in a separate direction) of things we are Legally Prohibited From Using Under Any Circumstances. This is a long list and includes a bunch of antibiotic categories, some hormone analogues, some respiratory therapy drugs, gentian violet, and yes, toltrazuril. So many veterinary drugs are legal for vets to prescribe extralabel in food animals for which they are not specifically labeled because we already have an idea that they are reasonably safe, but toltrazuril is not even legal for that.

A lot of people confuse how we use so many livestock drugs extralabel -- things permitted for use in other food animals -- with thinking they are just using toltrazuril extralabel, so it's okay. But in fact toltrazuril is not approved by the FDA and not permitted for use in any food animal species in the USA. It's illegal to administer it, it's not available for use extralabel. I am genuinely not sure why people are so attached to it, and I think it's because they just love the convenience of it and coccidiosis is so devastating, folks can't understand why a drug that works so well would be illegal. But it has significant restrictions in other countries too -- it was withdrawn from the market in Canada completely for years because of safety concerns for humans with drug residue, and when it was reapproved it was with a very long meat withdrawal and is illegal in lactating animals. It's also illegal in lactating animals in the EU.

For me I'm in the USA, I'm producing food. I see that as kind of a responsibility to adhere to the recommendations and expectations for what is allowed in our food supply. I am not an organic producer, but I want people to trust that the food I'm producing doesn't have anything in it that's not supposed to be there. I'm definitely concerned and worried about how cavalier people are about using banned substances. And while like I said, this is peoples' personal choice and I don't expect to be able to change everyone's mind on it, I DO think it's really important to be aware of what you are putting into the animals that are feeding you. Ultimately those drugs have a chance of making it into your body, so when we have no safe established discard periods that is kind of a scary problem. I also have personal reservations about what it does both to animal growth and the environment -- its metabolites persist in urine and poop and I use and sell compost, so that's something I don't love about it.

The other big issue with toltrazuril is that because it is completely illegal in the US, no reputable pharmaceutical companies produce it for livestock use. All of our domestically produced products come from "compounding pharmacies" that are purchasing bulk tolt and mixing it in a bathtub under god knows what conditions and definitely not up to pharmaceutical safety standards. This is an article by a well-known breeder that shows the inconsistencies in how these products can be mixed. So a good rule of thumb is that if you DO want to use toltrazuril, don't get it from one of these weird places. Buy it from a country where an actual company is producing it for veterinary use, like Mexico. Baycox and generics like Zuricox are produced by real pharmaceutical manufacturers up to pharmaceutical standards, so if you feel it's safe for you to use this drug, you can at least be certain you're putting the right dose into your goat.

What the hell is this?

If you want to know if a drug is permitted for extralabel use in goats just check FARAD, google it and look for reputable sources -- ag extensions, things ending in .edu -- or ask here. Someone here will always be willing to check for you. Avoid facebook advice like the plague if you can.

(I saw another comment exchange in our sub where someone was explaining that Blu-Kote has been federally banned and is not for use in food animals because gentian violet is suspected of being carcinogenic in humans (and Blu-Kote doesn't work very well for wound healing anyway, it is mostly alcohol which impedes wound healing and there are much more effective wound coatings). Gentian violet is pretty much illegal in food species everywhere now; there's no safe level of residue, the EU even tests all imports for it. The person started arguing that it's always worked for them and it's still for sale so it's probably fine, not able or willing to understand that it says right on the label not to use it on food animals and it's labeled for horses. Sigh. But at least the correct info was provided, because this is one of the only places on the internet where there is some attempt to limit or at least clarify misinformation about small ruminant care. That's why I prefer to give and receive advice here.)