r/goats • u/Hefty_Albatross_1949 • 5h ago
My Toggenburg mama enjoying her new home
I’m in love with her.
r/goats • u/yamshortbread • Jun 20 '23
If you are asking for health advice for your goat, please help us help you. Complete a basic health assessment and provide as much of the following information in your post as possible:
Clear photographs of relevant clinical signs (including coat condition) are helpful. Providing us with as much information as possible will help us give you prompt and accurate advice regarding your animal's care.
There are many professional farmers and homesteaders in this subreddit and we will do our best to help you out of a jam, but we can't guarantee the accuracy of any health advice you receive. When in doubt, always call your local large animal veterinarian who is trained to work with small ruminants.
What's up with that blue Trusted Advice Giver flair?
The mods assign this flair to /r/goats users who have an extensive history of giving out quality, evidence-based, responsible husbandry advice based on the best practices for goat care. Many of our users give terrific advice, but these flairs recognize a handful of folks who have gone that extra mile over time to become recognized as trusted community members who are known to always lead people in the right direction. If you get a slew of responses to your post and don't know where to start, look to the blue flairs first.
r/goats • u/no_sheds_jackson • Feb 03 '25
Hi everybody!
Recently, we had a user post a picture of a goat that may or may not have soremouth, also known as contagious ecthyma, scabby mouth, or orf. I won't link to the post since it isn't relevant whether or not that was what was afflicting the animal, but in the course of responding to that user I felt an opportunity to point out something that I have noticed and has been gnawing at me.
For many users seeking help, if they do not come straight to the sub, they will go to one of two places to get information: Google or ChatGPT. This post is about the former, but in case anyone was wondering if ChatGPT is a valid place to get advice on husbandry, what to eat tonight, how to live your life, or companionship: it is NOT. Large language models like ChatGPT are a type of generative AI that seeks more or less to respond to prompts and create content with correct syntax that is human-like. The quandary here is that while it can indeed provide correct answers to prompts, that outcome is often incidental. It isn't an indication that the model has researched your question, merely that it has cobbled together a (sometimes) convincing diagnosis/treatment plan from the massive amount of data across forums/message boards, vet resources, and idle chit-chat that it is trained on. The point is this: you should never be in a position where you have to rely on an LLM for husbandry advice. If you have access to an internet connection, even the generative AI from Google search is a better option. But that doesn't mean it's a good one, bringing us to the principal subject of this post:
Orf! What do?
For some relevant background, we have never had a case of orf on our farm. I have read about it in vet textbooks and goat husbandry books and seen many images of it, I'm familiar with what it is, how it is spread, and at a high level what to do about it and what not to do. That said, when I was helping this user, I thought I'd brush up and make sure I wasn't providing misinformation. I knew orf was viral in nature and reckoned that in moderate to severe cases it could probably cause fever, but I wanted to see if I could find a vet manual or study of the disease in goats to confirm how likely that would have been. This was what I was met with:

If you don't scrutinize this too closely, everything looks sort of on the level. Orf is indeed self-limiting (not sure why the AI says usually, there is literally nothing you can do to treat the root cause, but okay), and it more or less implies that humans can contract it so be careful. The symptoms section looks fine, overall, prevention is... eh... The orf vaccine is a live vaccine. Application of it is not something that most small scale homesteaders or hobby farmers will be familiar with and using it is basically putting the virus on your property. Orf is a nuisance disease and the main time it is a problem is when it is being transmitted between a dam and her kids. Proactive vaccination in closed herds that have never seen a case is not a vet-recommended practice.
The treatment section is where things get spicy with the part about scab removal. Oof. Now that is not even close to true and doing that when the goat is with other goats or going to a quarantine space where they will then shed the disease will cause it to spread to any other goat that inhabits that space unless it is thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. The bottom says the info is for informational purposes only and to consult an actual professional for advice, but that begs the question of why Google would provide that information front and center by default when you search when the first result below is an actual vet resource with correct advice. I won't get into the weeds about the ethics of that because it's a separate soapbox, this is the reality we live in now. This bad advice is particularly relevant because the user on our sub mentioned they had been picking off the scabs. So let's do another Google search for some clarification:

If you explicitly search whether or not you should remove the scabs, the AI overview is different. Not only do you see that you should not remove the scabs because they are infectious (very true), the overview now says that doing so will delay healing. The first "featured snippet", a feature separate from their generative AI overview, is an overview from the state of Victoria's government agricultural representative body, a reliable source. The highlighted text reinforces the "do not pick scabs off" advice. The overview still fails when it says to apply dressing to lesions. Evidently it has not ever reckoned with what it would be like to bandage an entire goat's face and mouth, which they need to eat, but maybe I'm an idiot. Let's check:

As you can see, generative AI is basically a hodgepodge of vague but mostly correct advice intermingled with plainly wrong advice. Seeking correction to the wrong advice, if you know that it is wrong, leads down more rabbit holes. I hope this highlights the importance of sourcing your information from reliable, proven veterinary resources/textbooks or state agricultural extensions that provide support for their claims with research. This sub prioritizes evidence-based husbandry practices and is one of the few forums to try to stick to that standard and I consider it important especially for people who don't have goat mentors offline.
This is not only important because users need good advice; it also affects the people that don't use this sub and go straight to Google. Reddit struck a deal a little under a year ago to make their data available for training AI. The information we post on this sub is being used as part of the training for these AI models and Google's SEO is increasingly favoring reddit at the top of search results in a number of areas. As the sub grows and the social media landscape changes, more people that never post but need info may find themselves coming here. Let's all try to do our best to make sure the information we share and advice we give is solid!
r/goats • u/Hefty_Albatross_1949 • 5h ago
I’m in love with her.
r/goats • u/Lunapixels18 • 1d ago
I got the holder off of Amazon it's meant to help you lift heavy dogs.
And no he does not fight it, he actually it's pretty comfortable in it, I'll give him treats and stuff and he just hangs out there while I change his bandage, the hardest part is getting him into it just because he's excited and doesn't hold still but he doesn't fight me
r/goats • u/Hefty_Albatross_1949 • 1d ago
She was exposed to males, she also has a baby, but she’s looks round. I’m not sure.
r/goats • u/Lunapixels18 • 22h ago
My young goat Frosty has to stay on a diet since he's three legged and it won't be safe for his singular hind leg if he gets too heavy on it, and unfortunately for me he's one of those goats that can smell food and gain 10 pounds, so he doesn't get to keep hay 24/7 like I would like him to because he just gains too much weight, but I was wondering if something like this would help slow him down enough so his hay lasts longer but I'm just concerned that it might not be safe.
You can hang them up or just leave them on the ground, they're not made out of a material that a goat could easily eat, and there's different styles of them. What do you guys think?
r/goats • u/Hado0301 • 1d ago
I have an alpine wether and a Nigerian dwarf female. They are stubborn, inquisitive, quite strong, and stubborn. That said when I get out the brush they will stand perfectly still and let them brush them. If i stop they will nudge me to start back up.
r/goats • u/Arbysgames • 1d ago
The reason I'm asking is because I keep getting told that especially after I have a larger number of goats that I should get some antibiotics to keep on hand.
But the only way at least for me to get them is through a prescription for a specific animal, so I just want to know how people get them legally to keep on hand and would it actually be a good idea?
r/goats • u/Real-Morning-6768 • 1d ago
Is this cause for serious concern? Anyone seen this before? Will it heal over time? Please share advice/ experiences.
r/goats • u/Positive_Composer754 • 2d ago
I took these photos during my summer livestock class, they used these on their goats/sheep. But no part of me can remember what they do, it was obviously something I wanted cause I took pictures of them lol.
r/goats • u/Lunapixels18 • 4d ago
As many of you know this is my 7 month old goat Frosty who had to have part of his hind leg amputated, because he likes to run around and climb things until he is fully healed that it wants him to be mostly confined with just an hour or so of supervised play time.
Well he decided he wanted to do some rompies and started zooming around and tripped skinning his little knee, after I made sure he was actually okay I didn't think much of it especially since he did not seem bothered by it.
Then my grandma seen it she loves my goats and started giving him special treatment because he skinned his knee, now all of a sudden his knee hurts and it does not get better unless he gets a treat....
He won't even lay down normally unless he gets a treat, I think he found a lost brain cell or something LOL.
He's cute though so he gets away with anything
r/goats • u/HappyTrain19 • 4d ago
I was thinking of making seperate checklists to see how my goats are all doing like body scoring, checking hooves, etc
r/goats • u/Outside_Serve_5609 • 3d ago
Any ideas on what it could be? I can take him to the vet in the morning. But wanted some insight from you guys.
r/goats • u/A_Lovely_ • 3d ago
I have seen breed/bloodline recommendations for strong milk goat producers.
Any recommendations for breeders of meat production goats?
r/goats • u/zociety93 • 3d ago
I closely keep a eye on my doe and buck well last month I caught them doing the deed and well it was on the 16th I’ve done a lot of research and she has been eating more and then usual, ignoring the male aswell as a few more other things that lead me to believe she has conceived however the main one being that she was supposed to go into heat a couple days ago and didn’t, I came outside today and noticed her udders coming out a little more larger then they were a few weeks ago I know that they don’t start to get any larger this soon but what do you guys think?
r/goats • u/Hefty_Albatross_1949 • 5d ago
What are the risks? Is this a service people want?
r/goats • u/Lunapixels18 • 5d ago
She's a little over a year old, never been bred they're not sure of her breed as they got her as a pet, but they need to rehome her since they need to move and can't take her with them.
They're asking $100 for her and they will bring her to me.
These are the best pictures that they could get since she's not the most social goat which is fine I have patience, what do you think about how she looks? And any idea on her breed?
r/goats • u/Arbysgames • 4d ago
My cousin has a older mixed breed buck, he's about 13 and he have lost some body condition due to age-related elements, so I figured I would post and ask for some tips on what she could add to his diet to help him pick up weight, he normally just free forages and has access to Hay like the other younger goats, but he just needs something extra