Keeping Your Boer Goats Healthy

22. What are the most common Boer goat health problems?
It’s a question we get asked all the time – as a new Boer producer, what diseases or
health problems am I going to have to deal with? Great question – because a healthy
goat is a productive goat!
Although Boer goats are usually tough and hearty, there are a few health problems that
can mean disaster for your flock and your business - if you don’t recognize them and
deal with them properly.
The two most common health problems encountered by goat owners are parasites and
foot rot.
These diseases and a few others are described below.
Parasites
Boer goats are more sensitive to parasite infections than other breeds of meat goats.
Because their stock originally comes from a hot dry climate where these parasites don’t
survive as well, Boers don’t have as good of immunity against them as breeds of goats
that developed where they were always exposed to the parasites.
There are two major parasites that can cause death of goats:
o Haemonchus contortus, the blood-sucking abomasal worm that causes anemia
o Coccidia, which live in the intestinal wall, hatch out, and cause destruction of the
lining of the intestines, diarrhea, and possibly death if not treated appropriately.
There are many other types of worms that may inhabit Boer’s digestive tract, lungs,
liver, etc., but these are the two major ones that are the most common cause of death.
Parasites and the resistance of worms to dewormer treatment is a MAJOR concern in
any goat herd. Misinformation and a lack of veterinarians willing to work on goats has
led to a large amount of misuse of dewormer products.
“Dewormer resistance” means that you give the animal a dose of dewormer, but the
worms don’t die because they are immune to the medicine. This is a very bad situation
to be in, because in the meantime those worms are multiplying and making more worms
that are resistant, too.
There are many strategies you can use to decrease the rate or incidence of dewormer
resistance in your flock:
▪ Use the right dose of dewormer. Do not use the dose for sheep. Goats are not
sheep, and they need more dewormer than sheep on a per pound basis, usually 1.5
times the sheep dose.
By always under-dosing, it means you are not giving enough medicine to kill all the
worms, so the strong ones survive and resistance develops. Make sure you are using
goat-approved medicines, and the goat dose.
▪ Pasture rotation: many parasites take 21 days to go from egg to adult. This
means if your goats move to a new pasture every month, they won’t be able to pick up
as many eggs or larvae because the worms will not have had time to develop into adults
and produce eggs that are shed into the pasture in the manure.
▪ Keep good records. Make a note of which animals required deworming at each
check. If you find yourself deworming the same animals at every check, these are the
animals that always have a consistently high worm burden and are shedding the most
eggs, infecting your pastures. Cull these animals.
▪ Use fecal examinations to assess how effective your deworming is. The number
of eggs per gram of feces should decrease a lot following deworming. If not, that means
the dewormer is not working and you should use a different kind and reassess its
effectiveness.
▪ Keep feed and watering areas clean and dry. Feeding hay also helps, because
the eggs and larvae don’t survive the drying process as well as on wet grass. But make
sure the hay stays clean and dry; pooped-on hay is just as bad as pooped-on grass.
Elevated feed and water areas are good, although goats love to climb, so make sure
you design a system that keeps the goats out of the feeders/waterers, and are not built
in such a way that they can get feet, head, horns, etc. stuck.
▪ Co-graze with other species. Horses and goats do not share parasites, and cattle
and goats do not graze the same forages. The other species acts as a “vacuum”, eating
the parasite eggs and larvae that are on the grass, and so preventing their ingestion by
goats.
▪ Make sure your herd has enough pasture. If goats are crowded, they are more
likely to over-graze pasture and pick up more parasites. This is bad for the goats and
bad for the pasture, which will quickly turn into a dirt lot, or a mud pit, depending on the
weather.
The FAMACHA system: Animals’ mucous membranes are checked every 3 weeks and
they are only dewormed if they are pale, according to the color chart. This avoids the
over-use of medication and slows the rate at which resistance develops. Your
veterinarian or local extension office can assist you with learning this system and
provide you with a FAMACHA card.
To help you choose a dewormer for your Boers, below are the most common
dewormers used in goats
Brand of Dewormer & Dosage Comments
Valbazen 7.5 mg/kg 3cc/100lbs 5cc/100lbs Do not use in early pregnancy (if at
all); effective vs. tapeworms

Safe-Guard 5 mg/kg 2.3cc/100lbs Use in goats mostly limited to treating

5cc/100lbs tapeworms; only product in this class
safe during pregnancy
Synanthic 4.5mg/kg 2.5cc/100lbs Do not use in early pregnancy (if at all);
5cc/100lbs effective vs. tapeworms
Ivomec (drench) 0.2 mg/kg Large volume needed; not shown to be
3cc/26lbs 15cc/100lbs safe during pregnancy

Cydectin (drench) 0.2 mg/kg Large volume needed; not shown to be

1cc/11lbs 12cc/100lbs safe during pregnancy

Prohibit (drench) 8 mg/kg Can be mixed as a concentrate for

4cc/100lbs* 4cc/100lbs* adults or diluted for kids; safe for
pregnant does
Rumatel (feed) 10 mg/kg 0.1lbs/100lbs Simple to top-dress on feed; Coccidiastat.
0.1lbs/100lbs
Ivomec/Ivomec Inexpensive; safe for pregnant does;
Plus(injection) 0.2mg/kg resistance is a problem
1cc/110lbs 2cc/100lbs
Dectomax 0.2mg/kg 1cc/110lbs 1cc/110lbs Safe for pregnant does; less resistance
issues than ivomec

Cydectin (cattle pour-on, as drench) More practical than approved drench, but
0.2mg/kg 1cc/22lbs 5cc/100lbs no
safety/efficacy studies to support

The two populations of goats that are most susceptible to Haemonchus infection are
young kids (a few weeks to a few months old) and recently kidded does.
Special attention should be given to the attitude and appearance of these two classes of
animals. Mucous membranes should be checked every two to three weeks for signs of
paleness, and deworming should be done as needed based on the FAMACHA
guidelines and labeled dosage charts.
Goats with Haemonchus infection may not develop diarrhea, so if a goat doesn’t have
diarrhea it doesn’t mean it does not have a dangerous parasite load!
Signs to look for other than paleness of mucous membranes are:
▪ Lack of energy
▪ Depression
▪ Poor/rough hair coats
▪ Not wanting to nurse
Young goats (a few weeks to a few months of age) are the most susceptible group to
Coccidia infection.
Signs of Coccidia infection include:
▪ Diarrhea
▪ Weakness
▪ Tiredness
▪ Not wanting to nurse
▪ Lying down a lot
A fecal examination can confirm Coccidia infection. Deworming should be repeated in 3
weeks.
Foot Rot and Foot Scald
Foot Rot
Foot rot is a disease caused by infection by two organisms that eat away at the hoof
wall and soft tissues underneath.
Older animals are more susceptible to foot rot and foot scald, and the main source of
infection is other infected animals. Although the organism can only survive in the
environment for a few weeks, it can survive in the feet of infected animals for good.
Infections most commonly occur when goats have not received proper foot
care/trimming, leading to overgrown hooves, and when ground or living conditions are
always wet, muddy, dirty, or contaminated with feces.
Foot rot is extremely painful, and animals limp or lie down a lot (they may stand on their
knees, looking like they are kneeling in prayer). When the foot is examined, you may
notice a foul smell coming from the foot. Infected parts of the hoof will be soft, rotten,
and black, bloody, or oozy.
If you discover one of your Boers has foot rot and you want to keep the goat instead of
culling it, you’ll have to be aggressive in your treatment – including trimming away all of
the affected tissue until healthy tissue is reached.
Trimming away all rotten foot tissue can mean a lot of bleeding and the removal of large
portions of foot. Then the animals need to stand in a zinc sulfide bath for at least 20
minutes, once or twice a day, which will kill the bacteria and help the feet dry and
harden.
Antibiotic treatment has little effect on foot root; the most important thing is to eliminate
any “pockets” that hold dirt and debris.
Healthy animals should be separated from affected animals, because the bacteria will
contaminate the whole pasture or barn, and other animals may get infected, leading to
further spread. Ideally, you should be putting the healthy Boers into a “clean” pasture.
The bacteria can hang around for weeks, especially in wet weather. Animals should be
checked frequently and animals that develop lameness should immediately be removed
and put with the affected animals.
Once a herd has foot rot, it is very hard to eliminate, even with intensive care. The most
common way a herd gets foot rot is introducing a new animal that has it to the herd,
which is why isolation of new arrivals and careful examination before putting them with
the rest of the herd is so important.
Foot Scald
Foot scald is not as big a problem as foot rot, but can still cause significant lameness.
The difference between foot rot and foot scald is that foot scald is an infection of the
skin between the toes, not an infection of the hoof wall itself.
Foot scald can also smell terrible. The skin between the toes will be swollen, soft,
cracked, and may have a cream-colored pus-like substance. Foot scald also occurs
most often when feet are overgrown and conditions are wet.
Foot scald can be cured by doing the following:
➢ Cleaning the skin between the toes with gauze soaked in betadine,
chlorhexidine, or zinc sulfate (Hoof and Heal™ is a great foot product that contains zinc
sulfate)
➢ Giving the goat a foot soak or footbath
➢ Improving footing conditions and providing routine foot care
Some animals seem to be predisposed to foot scald (those goats usually have bad foot
conformation).
Providing foot care right when you see a problem, and always maintaining clean living
conditions, are the best ways to avoid both foot rot and foot scald.
If feet are trimmed regularly and kept dry, this avoids cracking, peeling, and folding of
the hoof wall, and over-separation and stretching of the skin that leads to problems.
Some goats just have “bad feet” and are more prone to developing feet problems.
These animals should be culled.
Other Boer Goat Health Problems
While parasites and foot rot/foot scald are the two main health problems that Boers get,
you need to be aware of other conditions that your herd might encounter. As they say,
an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!
Lice
Goats can get lice, especially in the late winter/spring, when they have been huddled
together through the cold months, and may be a little run down and under-nourished.
There are two types of lice: biting and sucking. Biting lice have broad heads, and
sucking have narrow heads, compared to their bodies.
Lice like warm dark places, so if the goats seem overly itchy (and normally they do like
to scratch themselves some on the fence, with their horns, on the feeders, etc. but it
should not be constant) and you see hairless patches on the animal, you should
suspect lice
If you suspect lice, look in the creases of their elbows, in the inner thigh area, and next
to the scrotum, in the males. Lice are tiny and can be hard to see, but part the hair and
you may see them crawling around. You may also see the eggs (nits) attached to the
fur.
There are many products to treat lice, like permethrin dusts or injectible Ivomec (which
only works for sucking lice). You will have to re-treat in 3 weeks to kill the lice that
hatched from the nits, because the lice products only kill the larvae and adults, not the
eggs.
Lice are species specific: goats get goat lice, sheep get sheep lice, cattle get cattle lice,
and one species cannot give its lice to another (and you can’t get lice from your goat).
Respiratory disease
Boer goats can get pneumonia like any other animal. Young goats are most susceptible,
especially if their living conditions are crowded, dirty, or dusty, their nutrition is poor, or
they don’t suckle enough colostrum at birth.
Bacterial pneumonia is the most common, and will cause fever, coughing, sneezing,
nasal and ocular discharge, difficulty breathing, and lack of appetite.
There are a variety of antibiotics that can be used to treat pneumonia, although a lot of
bacteria are resistant to tetracyclines and penicillins, which are available over-the-
counter.
Sometimes goats can get lung parasites, too, although infection is rarely severe enough
to cause death. Usually the animal with lung worms has a cough, especially after
exercise, but no nasal discharge or fever, and seems otherwise healthy.
Drug Withdrawal Times
One thing to keep in mind with any meat goats is the drug “withdrawal time”. This is the
amount of time that you must wait after giving a goat a particular drug before its meat is
suitable for consumption, or the time it takes for that drug not to be detectable in the
meat at slaughter.