Ivomec Dosage for Goats

My standard disclaimer: I am not a vet. Anything I say here is based on my hours of research reading other people's posts online, articles written by seasoned goat keepers, etc. I'm hoping to save a few of you the trouble of spending an evening on your couch researching. What I am about to recommend has worked for me and my goats, but I make no promises about anyone else's.

First, I give my goats Ivomec/Ivermectin subcutaneously (SQ). Several people online recommend and seem to have had success giving it orally. I decided against this when I found a few posts from vets and seasoned goat keepers explaining the dangers of this technique: While giving Ivomec orally does kill worms, it can kill them too quickly. When this happens, all the worms let go of the stomach lining where they've attached. So if a goat is very wormy and they receive Ivomec orally, instead of worms they will suddenly have many small holes, making them bleed out internally. The professionals put this much more eloquently than I have, but you get the idea.

So, the SQ injection I have given my goats is 1 cc per 30 lbs. I was afraid I'd have to guess their weights and end up getting the dosage wrong, but then I found this handy guide at Tractor Supply to determining their weights. The formula is

(girth x girth x length) / 300

Using that formula, Val and Winnie were both pretty close at around 45 lbs and Checkers was a whopping 94 lbs (so clearly not a true Nigerian Dwarf.) I'm glad I didn't just eyeball it. I would have guessed less than the formula gave me, and the dose I gave them may not have been effective.

I follow the 10-10-10 schedule for deworming (give the dose described above 3 times, 10 days apart to interrupt the worms' life cycle). I have never tried any other schedule, but I had fecals done on all my goats about 2 months after the last dose, and all but 1 were worm-free (and the one who did have worms had a very low count).

I saw dead worms in the goats' pellets after giving the first round of shots, so I know it was effective at this dosage. Note: my wether reacted very badly to the injection and seemed to lose control of his legs for about a minute. (Check out my other blog post "Checkers HATES Shots" for details of his reaction and how to keep it from happening.) As far as I can tell, this is an uncommon reaction for goats to have and he's been fine since then.