Herbal Dewormer Recipes For Goats (Natural Farming)

You can deworm your goats with herbs easily by using these simple steps in this post. Finding a good herbal dewormer is such an important part of goat keeping that not many goat owners are aware of. Deworming your goats with herbs is the best way to keep your herd healthy and happy during seasonal changes and stress. In this post, we’ll show you how to incorporate herbal deworming into your routine! You can also check out part 2 of this post about deworming with essential oils. Jump To Recipe

What is Herbal Deworming?

Herbal deworming is the practice of ridding your goats body of internal parasites with a variety of anti-parasitic herbs. Clove, garlic, ginger, black walnut, worm wood, and slippery elm are just a few herbs that are great for goats and can even keep them from getting digestive upsets. When we first started raising goats a few years ago, we had absolutely no idea about deworming. All we knew was that we wanted to raise goats naturally without chemicals. We also wanted to have great quality raw milk for our family. We very quickly learned that a heavy worm load in goats can affect their health greatly. After losing a few goats to those pesky parasites we learned our lesson the hard way. Now we know to deworm our goats with herbs frequently to prevent heartaches from happening. My hope for this blog post is to teach goat owners that it is possible to raise your goat herd naturally with the right tools and to help keep your goats in good health.

Why Deworm Goats Naturally?

With much research, we have found it is best to try traditional herbs before jumping to chemical deworming methods. The problem many goat farmers are seeing is dewormer resistance to chemical dewormers on the market today. This is because that chemical wormer has been used improperly and overly used. With herbal wormers, your goats cannot grow resistant to the herbs or essential oils that are given because they are natural substances that are actually good for them. It is also completely safe for you and your children to be around, if you have them running around the farm like we do. I feel more comfortable having mostly natural dewormers around my children instead of medication because my youngest is a very curious little girl. If she samples some herbs it will actually benefit her. These herbs are even recommended for human consumption, this is a great money saving option for our farm and our supplement budget.

How Do I Know If Herbal Deworming is Right For My Herd?

Good news! If you have goats, it is right for you! I can honestly say, every time we purchase a new goat and switch them over to herbal deworming we notice a dramatic difference in the appearance of the animal. Their coats lay flatter and begin to turn shiny. This is ideal when you are talking about a goat’s coat. Even if you choose to deworm once or twice a year with medication, you can still do maintenance with herbal deworming to keep your goats healthy and their immune system strong. You may find that your animals won’t have as many parasite problems when incorporating this new system. In my personal experience with my own goats, I have seen less health problems and happier animals just by incorporating this. It really is such a wonderful thing to be able to use a safe dewormer.

It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing approach with herbal deworming. That is a misconception a lot of times when people want to start to deworm their goats with herbs. We have used dewormer from the store when it was necessary for our goats. Thankfully, we use herbs 95% of the time. I have been super thankful to have these herbs on hand to maintain our goat’s health.

How Do I Know Which Herbal Dewormer to Use?

This is my favorite part, I’m such a nerd when it comes to herbs! If you are wanting to deworm your goats with herbs, we personally use herbal blends from two different companies, Fir Meadow and Land Of Havilah. They are both excellent companies and I have seen both of their products work great for our animals. They both have herbal dewormers, Land Of Havilah’s is called Parasite Formula and Fir Meadow’s is called “DWA“. We usually alternate between the two depending on when we are needing to order from each company. Also another great herbal powder that I have never used but have seen many people use is molly’s herbals worm formula. If you use them and have success against intestinal worms let me know in the comments below.

We really enjoy Fir Meadow’s GI Soother because it has multiple uses. I like to put a pinch of it in babies mouths when they are a few days old to help with prevention of coccidia and worms. At a couple days old you won’t see a flare of coccidia but I do this to help give their GI tract extra support as they are developing. I also add Gi Soother to my recipe when I’m giving my goats their herbal deworming drench. I’ve found the best results when using both of those together since they both provide anti-parasitic herbs. These are all good for other farm animals such as chickens and cows. We also use them with our pregnant does on a regular basis with no issues. You really get the most out of your money when buying herbs since they have a variety of uses.

Herbal Dewormer Recipe

You will need:

Goat drench

Land Of Havilah’s Parasite Formula or Fir Meadow’s DWA

Fir Meadow’s GI Soother

Mason Jar (I put 32 oz, you can use any size that pertains to your herd)

Herbal Dewormer Variations

Drenching: There are many ways to add variety to this dewormer recipe. When we first started, we would add molasses to the mixture just to make it taste better for our goats. Once we have our mixture we would then drench it in their mouth. We found that they really enjoy when we do put molasses because as you know herbs can be strong tasting. On those days they don’t like us too much and try to jump all the way on top of their goat platforms to get away. That is OK, we deworm them because we love them. You will have to hold the head still, then put the metal tip in the back corner of the goats mouth and push the herbal mixture in the goats mouth/throat.

Peanut butter herbal dosage balls: Some people like to incorporate their herbal dewormer with food since goats are food driven. I have personally found, my goats don’t eat the food. (Why are my goats so picky?). I’ve seen people make peanut butter balls and roll the herbs in it. You can even roll the herbal dosage ball in pumpkin seeds or oats. Some people mash a banana and mix the herbs in the mash for the goats to lick.

Mixing in food: I have also tried incorporating the herbs in the goats food mixed with a little molasses to help the herbs to stick to the food. But my goats got smart and stopped eating the mix the herbs in it, (did I mention my goats were picky?).

The Best Way To Make Goat Herbal Dosage Balls

Update: We recently found an excellent recipe from oak hill homestead. They have a herbal dewormer dosage ball recipe with molasses, flour, and herbal dewormer. You measure the amount of herbs you need for all of your goats in a bowl. (All of ours get 1 tsp per goat) Pour molasses on top of the herbs, just enough to stir in. It does not take much at all, be careful not to add too much. You’ll want it to stick together but don’t want it to be a sloppy mess. We added a little bit of flour to our herbal and molasses mix to make a dough ball. From there you can take the molasses ball and coat it in extra flour, kind of like powdered sugar. To our surprise, our goats LOVE them!

Herbal Dewormer Drench Instructions

1. Check your goats weight to get an estimate of how much each animal weighs.
2. Choose your herbal mix of choice.
3. Grab your mason jar and put the amount listed on the bag in the mason jar according to your animals weight. The bag will tell you how much powder to add according to your goat’s weight.
4. Add your proper amount of powder and add just enough water to where it makes it slightly watery. you don’t want it to thick because it will be hard to push out. We do 1 tsp for 1 goat 100-200 pounds and add 15 cc’s of water per tsp. You can double or quadruple this if you have a large herd.
5. Shake it all up and drench in your goats mouth. If you want to add molasses, you will have to mix it in warm water before putting the herbs in the mason jar.
6. Grab your drench and fill it with your mixture, you can dial the metal on the drench to give each goat the required amount of liquid. We currently have 7 goats. So if you are giving 15 cc’s of liquid to each, you can fill the syringe with 30 cc’s of the mixture and dial the metal ring to 15 and give it to one goat and the last 15 cc’s to the second goat.

How Often to Deworm Your Goats with Herbs

When you first start, you will want to do it twice a day for 3-6 days. This is to help really kill off intestinal parasites. You will follow up the next week with once a day for 3-6 days. For maintenance you can do 2x a week. We find that giving the herbal mixture to goats younger than a year more frequently (3x a week) helps to prevent parasite blooms, especially during seasonal changes or hot and humid times.

A quick disclaimer: There is a time and place for medication when you are raising goats. We have also learned this lesson very quickly, it is okay to treat your animals in order to save their life. The purpose of using natural remedies for goats is to help build their immune systems naturally without the overuse of medication. . You can learn which worms your goat is dealing with by doing a fecal test at your local vet. They will give you fecal egg counts on your goats and then they can recommend the appropriate goat dewormer, if necessary. All of this to say, herbal deworming is a great option if you are trying to beat the typical “deworm your animals every 6 months” crowd. We should never deworm with medication blindly just because that’s what everyone else is doing. This herbal deworming method is completely safe and if it is done properly, works great!

As you can see, it’s super easy to deworm your goats with herbs! It will also make you feel great knowing you are giving your goats the best possible support their bodies need to fight off parasites.

Have you tried herbal deworming? What are some creative ways you like to give your herbal dewormer to your goats? Let me know in the comments!