# Babies eating goat manure?



## Ezekiel's Garde (May 10, 2009)

How bad is this? It seems no matter how well I sweep my kitchen floor and vacuum carpets, he keeps finding some goat poop and eating it. I'm at wit's end, since I try to get it all up, and he keeps finding some that I missed and sticking it in his mouth! Anything I should watch for? Worms? Anything else? I'm seriously grossed out and at a complete loss, since I try to keep my house as clean as possible (at least the floors).


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## goatlady (May 31, 2002)

How the heck is it getting IN the house?? I have had goats for 30 years and have never found a pellet IN the house. IF you say it's coming in on boots, just take the boots off OUTSIDE for goodness sake.


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## Ezekiel's Garde (May 10, 2009)

Yes, on shoes. We have no mud room currently, but it is a priority. He has 3 older brothers and a dad who do not check their shoes before they come in. Even if they remember to take their shoes off before they come in, there is still a spot by the door where they put their shoes and it seems maybe that's where he gets the tasty little nuggets. *sigh*

Oh, and the 2 oldest love to go out and visit the girls, numerous times each day.


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## Pink_Carnation (Apr 21, 2006)

Watch for diarrhea, vomiting, fluid loss, fever, and worms. I would get a bench just outside the door for them to sit on and take the shoes off. If there isn't a cover outside to keep the shoes dry a box inside for them to go in would be good. Most the time with exposure he won't catch anything but it only takes once to possibly end up in the hospital or worse.


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## goatlady (May 31, 2002)

Guess I'm not understanding cause I am out in the barn aT LEAST twice daily dong milking and feeding, wearing my black "barn boots" and I have never seen goat pellets sticking to my boots or shoes for that matter, but then I use literally inches and feet of straw bedding in the barn which really keeps the floor clean, dry, and sweet smelling yer round. Do you use any bedding at all? Are your goat's pellets that soft that they mush and/or stick to footwear? Bottom line - those nice wooden folding baby gates across doorways are extremely handy - I still use them to corral the dogs! LOL


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## Amylb999 (Jan 28, 2007)

I must say I'm surprised too. I can't see how you keep getting it in the house. Especially from the goats, their pellets should be too firm to stick to shoes. Now my pigs and chickens are another story, lol.

I have a boot brush that's on our front porch. After tending to any of the animal (or the garden) we brush off our shoes before coming in the house. That way nothing gets brought in. Baby gates are WONDERFUL,,I have them everywhere for my curious 18 month old.

You have to stop everyone from bringing it in,,that's just not good for your home. I'd be locking the front door and not letting anyone in until they checked and cleaned their shoes.


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## Quiver0f10 (Jun 17, 2003)

Can you get those large rubber boots that you could slip your foot, shoe and all, into? Leave them outside the door and just slip them on on the way out to the barn and off before coming back into the house and shoes would be clean when coming into the house.


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## Ezekiel's Garde (May 10, 2009)

Thanks all. He seems okay, and his last two stinky diapers have been well within the realm of "normal," as far as it can be for a still-nursing baby who is just starting solids and loves to Hoover the floors. 

Our goat setup - goats in an 80x80 pasture with a ShelterLogic tent for their shelter. Milking parlor is about 100' away in the garage/barn. I usually wear crocs in the warmer weather, brown rubber boots in the cooler, occasionally my street shoes if I'm in a hurry or milking late. Even going into the goat pen and haying, giving doelings grain, etc., I rarely get goat pellets on my boots. Occasionally, they are soft enough to mush enough to stick on my shoes, but not typically. DH wears cowboy boots, and almost never gets anything on them. I don't know how they are getting on my boys' shoes... I'm getting sick of it, though. I will sweep and mop my kitchen, then turn around and look to find muddy footprints (even on dry days!). I can only guess that maybe when they go into the pasture, they go into the shelter and get poop on their shoes that way? I try to keep the bedding fairly deep there, but the goats don't seem to like laying on the straw - I nearly always find the straw pushed into piles with little "nests" of almost bare dirt laying around - 2 big and 2 little to match our goats. There is a lot of poop around the feeder, and I know they get handfuls of hay to lure the doelings to them so they can pet them and lead them around.

Thanks again!


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Yep, this is why Canadians take off their shoes in the house. It always strikes me as so odd to hear of people wearing their outside (farm!!) shoes indoors, but that's one of those cultural mysteries I am clearly not destined to properly comprehend in this lifetime. 

Glad the baby's ok!

I will mention, as I'm sure you know, that there are a lot of zoonotic illnesses - from us to the critters and them to us. Perhaps if you printed up some of the nastier things you can get from the critters (e coli? worms? coccidia ....) and shared that with your boot-wearing family members they'd mend their ways. And start wearing slippers in the house instead!


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## lenii (Dec 31, 2005)

Rubbermaid bin just outside of the door. No shoes of any kind are allowed in our home. Poor baby doesn't know any better and can get so sick or worse.


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## Johnnyvegas (Nov 15, 2020)

Ezekiel's Garde said:


> How bad is this? It seems no matter how well I sweep my kitchen floor and vacuum carpets, he keeps finding some goat poop and eating it. I'm at wit's end, since I try to get it all up, and he keeps finding some that I missed and sticking it in his mouth! Anything I should watch for? Worms? Anything else? I'm seriously grossed out and at a complete loss, since I try to keep my house as clean as possible (at least the floors).


I ate goat poo as a kid, im good.


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## Northof49 (Mar 3, 2018)

I confess. I still remember being very young and trying a few of the sheep nuggets out in front of the barn over 60 years ago. Mom just told me to spit them out, just growing up in the country. I've never needed a doctor since.

Just consider it God's way of preparing him for any kind of sh** he may have to face in life.


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

I hope the original poster lets us know if the child is ok.


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## RJ2019 (Aug 27, 2019)

That child is now a tween adolescent


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

Yup


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