Ultrasound for Kids

We have a Nigerian dwarf goat (named Honey) that a friend loaned us to use as a family milker.  Her milk is so rich and creamy that we find ourselves hiding it from each other in our fridge.  It’s 6% butterfat.  It has no goaty flavor and no smell… just delicious!  Grayson does all the milking himself, two times a day.  He’s learning some serious skillz.  Honey loves all the special attention and treats she gets from being milked.  Whenever she sees Grayson she jumps up on her milk stand and waits for him.

We were told there was a chance that Honey could be pregnant.  We decided to take her down to the Verandah Pet Hospital to find out with an ultrasound.  Dr. Piper is a small animal vet and doesn’t treat goats (ruminants).  He made an exception for us… for the kids.  Goats are considered livestock and treated by large animal veterinarians.  Dr. Piper can’t deny that it turned out to be a fun experience though.  The children loved it! 

Grayson walking Honey outside Verandah Pet Hospital.

Waiting for their ultrasound.

Loring and Dr. Piper discussing where the baby goats come from.

The ultrasound didn’t find any baby goats.  That’s the ultrasound machine in the background in the above photo.  If she were pregnant, the ultrasound  would find the babies on her left side under the rumen.  Oh well, maybe next time.  Now we can milk her longer. 

Here’s a link to a YouTube of an ultrasound being done on a goat.  It can be difficult to tell if a goat is pregnant.  This is a link from Fiasco Farms (my absolute favorite online site for goat information) for more information about goat pregnancy.

Dr. Smith works at Verandah Pet Hospital part time. Isn't she beautiful?

Come grow with us!

Future Scientists

Goat husbandry is new to us, but we plan to learn all we can.  We decided to take a poop sample from our two goats to our veterinarian to check for parasites.  Goats are very susceptible to parasites, especially in Florida. 

Our Nigerian dwarf goats playing on a cart.

Our Nigerian dwarf goats live on our tennis court now.  The court needs re-surfacing and we decided that keeping our goats on it would be a better use for the court than tennis.  Nobody has stepped foot on the court for many years and now it’s the most popular spot in our yard.  The goats have lots of toys, two playgrounds, shade and their barn.  We always bring them treats such as branches of Brazilian pepper trees.  The Brazilian pepper tree is an invasive species in Florida so we have it in abundance.  It’s a natural wormer for the goats.

Brazilian pepper tree branch. The goats go crazy for it and it's good for them.

Chloe & Loring playing "parade".

Loring helped collect the poop samples from our goats to look at under a microscope. That's chocolate milk on her face.

Grayson & Loring are learning how to prepare the poop sample to look at under the microscope.

She’s only 4-years-old, but she’s very interested. Chloe is her goat.

Our veterinarian used the centrifugation method with a saline solution to prepare the poop sample.  He gave the kids an awesome lesson on how to use a microscope . We found about six eggs for a common stomach worm in goats called Haemonchus contortus.  

The best website I’ve ever found for goat information is Fiasco Farms.  I refer to this website regularly. They have some great photos of goat parasites.  The photo below was taken with my camera and is one of the actual parasite eggs we found. 

 

The oval parasite egg is in the middle of the photo. The black spots are air bubbles.

 

Our veterinarian, Dr. Douglas Piper, doesn’t treat goats.  He makes an exception with ours because he’s my dad.  He also happens to be a blogger.  Click here to check out his blog on veterinary medicine.

Grayson & Michael... future scientists.

Come grow with us!