Author Topic: not sitting down to chew on cud (Read 2095 times)

langdon · « **on:** October 16, 2010, 06:03:25 pm »

a little bit concernd about molly, ive notice she hasnt been sitting down to chew on the cud in
the past few days.
she does chew on it but doing it standing up, am i right in saying that this may have something to do
with calcium (lack of)

any comments i appreciate.
langdon

Anke · « **Reply #1 on:** October 16, 2010, 08:41:33 pm »

Have you recently mucked out and only have a thin layer of straw in her pen? Might just be a bit cold at the moment then?

langdon · « **Reply #2 on:** October 16, 2010, 10:14:54 pm »

ya keeping on top of mucking out, and where the girls sit down during the day( they seem to have choosen a spot to do this)
only milly now sits down to chew, so im thinking if it would be cold for moly it would be cold for milly

.
their bed of straw is allways lovely and thick, i allways test it by kneeling down on it to see if my knees are touching the concrete floor.
thanks for your reply.
langdon

wytsend · « **Reply #3 on:** October 21, 2010, 06:57:16 am »

I have quite a few that seem happy to cud standing up, so maybe this is her personal preference.

In the the 35 years + that I have kept goats, there have always been some that stand to cud, certaionly I have not heard about calcium deficiency being a cause.

langdon · « **Reply #4 on:** October 21, 2010, 09:09:26 pm »

thank you

molly did sit down when she arrived to us for the first 10mths or so,
milly continues to sit down in the same spot as usual ( molly used to sit down with her ).
i did read that goats who stand to chew on cud because they maybe afraid of the effort to stand again due to the lack of
calcium in bones.
but as you said you have 30+ years on goat keeping.
interesting to know that some prefere standing to sitting.
thanks langdon

ballingall · « **Reply #5 on:** October 21, 2010, 09:29:06 pm »

Not sitting down can be a symptom of calcium deficiency. But the goat would be showing other symptoms as well, such as NOT chewing the cud, looking ill, unwilling to move around a lot. And that would only happen usually after something had happened which was a big drain on calcium- like giving birth, or suddenly producing huge amount of milk.

Molly sounds like she is fine, and just having a change.

Beth

langdon · « **Reply #6 on:** October 21, 2010, 09:58:31 pm »

mind you balinggall ( spelt wrong?

)
it just clicked with me today that she mostly now just stands at the gate not looking to full of energy as she used to be, she is not as active
as milly and they are the same age.
my jeep is coming from garage tomorrow im bringing both of them to vet on monday hopefully so i might get some answers.
i think its a calcium deffiency myself, i belief this is corrected by injection?
thanks for reply

havent talked to you in a while, hope all is well
langdon