# Bloat Help needed!



## Whitehedge Farm (May 21, 2009)

I have a 2 yr old Nubian doe that has 2 week old kids on her and the last 24 hrs she has started to bloat. Yesterday she was out and getting into more plants that she should, and I have been upping her grain lately to get more weight on her which I hope has not caused the problem!

Anyway- last night I have her a teaspoon of baking soda-
today about 4 oz of oil, and baking soda about 6 hrs later. Been massaging her belly. yesterday her poop was not normal- more cow patty like- tonight her poop is back to regular goat size but she is still bloated!
Other than that she is fine- walking around, eating , drinking. All normal except for her big belly!

Anything else I should be doing? Do you cut their hard feed all together during this?
She did get some alfalfa tonight (she has been on alfalfa for about a month now)

Thanks!!
Anne


----------



## mpete (Mar 4, 2008)

Its ok to give goats gas x.... I gave a buck 2 pills 3 times a day, and he got over it quick. But sometimes we do too much trying to make something better. I've got does that their bellies grew after kidding, maybe this is normal for her... does she seem uncomfortable?


----------



## BackfourtyMI. (Sep 3, 2007)

I have a doe that will pig out on the fresh green weeds & grass too. I have given her Gas X or Mylanta Gas crushed up in some yogurt & that helps alot. 
Some goats are just more prone to it I think on the fresh stuff especially, at least my one doe is. She has always been like that but not any of the others here.


----------



## Starsmom (Nov 7, 2004)

Is she huge on both sides or just one. If it is both sides, it probably isn't bloat, more likely excellent rumen function. I have some goats, does and bucks, that when they get into the green grass and stuff, they get huge. They look like they swallowed a watermelon sideways. I look at them and think, wow, how can they even lie down. For these guys it is perfectly normal. It worried me at first, then I realized what it was.


----------



## Idahoe (Feb 4, 2006)

She's probably fine . . . just beeeeeeeeeeg  in the belly. I had a similar thing happen when all my (new) goats came in from browsing, I'd had them for several days. It was June in north Idaho, and the green stuff was really getting underway up in the mountains. I had a herd of goats as wide as they were tall. Just fine, eating and drinking, just huge.

A goat sick with bloat will not eat. She just stands there and stares with her tail down. She obviously doesn't feel good, and she may or may not have a huge rumen.

I made a STUPID mistake and overgrained my doe on the milk stand the other day so I could clip her hooves and have her semi cooperate. Then, I'd just moved the kennel panels to a brand new patch of browse that day as well.

She's chewing cud and on her feet, doing much better but she was obviously sick and there was no question that she was. Next morning, there were a few diarrhea poos in their barn. 

I'm going to withhold grain until I see normal goat poo.

A sick goat and a goat who's spent a day eating lots of browse is a different animal, and again I got the reminder 

I think your girls are fine.


----------



## DQ (Aug 4, 2006)

Whitehedge Farm said:


> more weight on her which I hope has not caused the problem!
> 
> 
> Other than that she is fine- walking around, eating , drinking. All normal except for her big belly!
> ...



bloat is very painful and can be deadly. if she is feeling fine she is not bloated. she just filled up her rumen! a big rumen is a _good_ thing. the cow patty poo was probably just a result of too much browse too fast when she wasn't used to it.


----------

