We have five dairy goats here on our farm, and my favorite is a little brown Nigerian Dwarf named Artemis. I have loved her from the moment I met her when she licked my face through the fence. She has always been the sweetest and most calm goat……until recently.

A week or so ago I noticed that she wasn’t eating her food as quickly as usual while on the milking stand. She didn’t seem uncomfortable or anything just wasn’t gobbling down her grain. A few days of this and she started not standing as well as she usually does. She kind of scooted off to this side and I would have to move her back and then she stomped her foot here and there. This clued me into the fact that something could be wrong, but at that moment I didn’t see any other signs of anything serious. She ended up acting like she had mastitis or, at least that was my best guess. The last day that I really noticed something I went out into the pasture to check on her and she didn’t want me touching her udder at all. She moaned and groaned and stomped all over the place, basically telling me to leave her alone. So, I got a hot rag and massaged her udder, gave her some Vitamin C, and made sure to gently milk her out. I was going to call the vet the next day but ended up not needing to. I will also say that a tender udder was her only symptom. Her milk was fine, no blood, no lumps, no nothing except a tender udder.

Now, let’s backtrack for one moment. When I got them from the breeder she recommended a product called Sweet Feed from the Homestead brand. That is the grain they all get while on the milking stand. Everyone loved it and gobbled it down as quickly as possible. At some point, we ran out, on the weekend of course when our local Ag store was closed, so I bought regular goat feed from Tractor Supply. No one cared for it much and was happy to have the sweet feed back when I was able to get more. However, we have had to switch back and forth a few times because Tractor Supply is much easier for me to get to and pick feed up. So, at the time of the mastitis scare, I had actually gotten the sweet feed again thinking this was the preferred food. I once again ran out of sweet feed on the weekend and grabbed the Tractor Supply feed for the time being. This time however I started to notice a change in Artemis.

Now, I will never know for sure that this is the case, but I swear that goat threw a hissy fit and basically just refused to be milked because of the food change. She acted like she was in so much pain and almost as soon as the feed changed she was fine again. She has had her preferred food for 4 days now and she’s back to waiting at the fence for her turn, she runs full speed to the barn to get on the stand and chows down while standing perfectly still to be milked. I cannot believe it. So, either this goat had the tiniest case of mastitis ever, a bruised udder somehow, or she’s the biggest drama queen I have ever met. She did end up getting her way though.

The lesson learned. Apparently, we will be using the Tractor Supply food from now on. ( In case you’re curious it’s the Nutrena Brand goat feed in the orange bag)