Keeping an eye on your goat’s health is one of the most important parts of caring for them.
Naturally, their diet and how they’re eating are one of the most important things—but how it’s going out the other end is equally important.
If your goats aren’t pooping, then this could indicate some serious problems.
It could also be a lot of minor things.
Either way, you need to establish exactly what the issue is before it gets any worse.
Today, we’re going to look at some of the most common causes for your goats not pooping.
Let’s get started.
Goat is not eating
A goat will naturally have trouble pooping if it is not eating properly.
There are many reasons it might not be eating properly, which you’ll have to diagnose once you establish it is not eating properly.
Firstly, think about what you’re feeding it.
Goats may have a reputation for eating anything, but the reality is they actually need a very particular diet.
The vast majority of what they eat should be hay or forage—more or less all fiber.
If you’ve been treating your goats to a lot of other, more processed foods, then this may be causing them to become constipated.
The food will be sitting undigested in their gut, preventing them from pooping.
This is one possibility to consider.
Goat has urinary tract issues
More often than not, though, goats not pooping actually does not indicate a problem with digestion at all.
Urinary calculi, or kidney stones, are quite common in goats, and they can stop your goat from pooping as well as peeing.
Signs of this are your goat not peeing, or peeing blood.
Kidney stones will block the urinary tract and stop the goat from peeing and pooping.
You’re going to need to observe your goat over a period of time in order to notice these things.
If you think your goat is not pooping, spend a day or so with it to observe its behavior.
Let’s look at another possibility.
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Goat is not drinking
Your goat may not be drinking properly, and this will affect how it is pooping.
Drinking water is just as important to their ability to poop as eating, so you need to keep an eye on this too.
Goats need a good amount of fresh water every day, and I’ll get into exactly how you can help if you think this is the root cause.
Ultimately, your goat will get constipated if it is not hydrated properly.
Goat has an Illness
Finally, if you think you’ve eliminated all the other possibilities, then there could be any number of illnesses that are causing it not to poop.
You can learn to diagnose some things by yourself, but ultimately your best bet is always going to be speaking to a vet.
Look for signs of illness like haggard and slow movement, depression, and low energy.
Any of these things could indicate some kind of illness that is affecting its ability to poop.
If you’ve noticed any of these signs, let’s look at how you can help.
How to help
If you think the problem is that your goat is not eating, then the first thing to consider is whether they’re getting adequate food.
They need plenty of hay, as well as other snacks like fruit and vegetables.
If they still aren’t eating with all that, then your best bet is to speak to a vet.
If you think it could be a urinary tract issue, then try to observe the goat peeing.
If it is not peeing, or is only peeing a small amount, then what you can do is massage its bladder gently to try and encourage it to pee.
Again, if this doesn’t work, you’ll need to take it to the vet.
If the goat is not drinking properly, then think about the water you’re providing it.
Is it fresh and clean every day?
Is it free of any foreign matter?
Goats need lots of fresh drinking water every day, and if they don’t have adequate drinking water, they won’t drink properly.
If they aren’t drinking properly, then they will not be able to poop either.
Water is just as important for breaking down and digesting food as any part of its diet.
Finally, if you’ve eliminated all of these possibilities, your goat could be ill in any number of ways.
Many illnesses can affect your goat’s ability to poop, and some are going to be much harder to detect than others.
You may have more or less knowledge of goat health in order to be able to diagnose it, but either way, if you are at all unsure, you should absolutely speak to a vet.
Many illnesses in goats could get worse and worse as they go untreated and could eventually be fatal if they aren’t attended to quickly enough.
If you’re at all unsure, speak to a vet as soon as you can.
This is always your safest bet.
So, the bottom line is that constipation in goats is really not very common.
A goat not pooping more often than not indicates a problem somewhere else, rather than in its digestive tract.
There are more than a couple of things to check for if you do feel that your goat is not pooping enough, so if you notice this problem with your goats, refer to this guide and your goat should be right as rain in no time.