It's not very "winter"-like here with no snow but December 13 is pretty far into the year to call anything other than "winter". So here goes the "winter" update:
All the animals are doing well. The cat mysteriously had a large cut behind his ear when I came back from Thanksgiving vacation. It was a clean cut so he must have got his head stuck where there was something sharp sticking out. I thought about super-gluing the cut but decided he should probably get some antibiotics just in case, so we went to the vet. $400 later he had 8 stitches, a pack of antibiotics, and his immunizations for the year. That bill made me cringe big time but seeing as there are very limited options for vets around here, I paid it and went on my way. Tom and I took the stitches out after 10 days. The vet was going to do it for free but his office is two towns over and I didn't have time to drive home from work, grab the cat, and drive all the way back. Luckily Tom has a pair of stitch removal scissors and a pair of forceps (we live in the woods so this is standard issue First Aid kit stuff here). We didn't know how the cat would react to the stitch removal. I trussed him up in an old coat and sat on him while Tom cut and pulled the stitches. The cat purred the whole time and didn't even flinch once. That right there is why I spent $400 on my cat. He's a good boy!
The goats are doing fine. Lucy didn't come back into heat after the second round of breeding. I actually witnessed the buck do his thing that time so I am fairly confident that she is bred. I am going to do a blood pregnancy test next week just to be extra sure. It will be a bittersweet kidding season with only Lucy bred. I'll be happy not to be running around like a chicken with her head cut off but I will be sad to only have 2-3 kids to spent my summer with. The other does are too old or too young to be bred. Of course, I can't help but second guess that decision because Daisy (the yearling Saannen) is a damn huge beast right now. She's twice as big as my other yearling doe so every time she comes into a flaming heat I start imagining the kids she could have next year. There's still time so maybe I will find her a buck soon. Of course, I say that AFTER I gave away my buck and wether, which means any breeding for Daisy will be of the drive-thru kind. We'll see....
Emily and Tom are great! Emily is a crack up and never fails to entertain me with how her little brain works. Tom just finished teaching Timber Harvesting class at Paul Smith's College. The kids loved it and really enjoyed having an instructor with lots of experience owning his own business and cutting trees for profit. Tom had a great time too. He enjoys teaching and has a good personality for dealing with classroom situations.
I am doing well, also. My job has taken an interesting turn with me finding myself in charge of a lot more stuff than I used to be. It's fun and scary, all at the same time. I love the challenge! I have been making lots of goat milk soap this year. I had four craft shows/farmer's markets this fall. I sold a good deal of soap and enjoyed sharing the wonderfulness that is goat milk soap with the world. Yay!
That's the update for now. Happy Winter!
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Life and Death
People have lost touch with death these days. Most people I know who
live in urban areas have no relationship at all with death. They live
their entire lives never knowing death first-hand.
They may experience the loss of a grandparent or a family pet but they
don't have a real connection with death. They are completely abhorred when someone talks about killing animals for food or research. They don't understand that death is a very important part of life. On the other hand, most people
who breed animals for food or science have a very strong knowledge of
death. Farmers and researchers are responsible
for the creation of these animals and thus, they are also intimately
involved in the destruction of them.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is true for birth. The equal and opposite reaction is death. You can't have birth without death. Immortality is impossible because there is always a beginning, so there will always be an end. Death is not something to be feared or demonized when viewed as the equal to birth. Life begins at birth and if I were given a choice, I would prefer existence with a finite timeline to an infinity of non-existence. If you told me today the date of my death, I would not fear it. I would be happy to have lived and existed in this beautiful world. I choose existence over nothingness, even if it means there will be death - my death -- in the end. Unfortunately people who are not accustomed to death do not understand that death is an integral part of life.
People get upset when animals are put to death for food or science. They don't understand that the choice is not between the animal being born and living forever or the animal being born and killed for humans. Those choices are not possible. The choice is actually between the animal being born and killed for humans or not existing at all. If farm animals and laboratory animals were not used for food or science, they would NEVER EXIST. If we can't allow them to die for us, then they will never live for themselves. How can we condemn death if it means we must also condemn life?
Requiring that farm animals or laboratory animals must stay alive and not be used for man's purposes would severely limit the amount of animals that will be allowed to exist at all. It's not like we can just stop processing animals for food or stop euthanizing them for experimental purposes and continue to create new animals. All breeding programs will stop. My lovely baby goats who jump around full of life in the spring sunshine will cease to exist because I will not ever breed another goat if I am not able to send last year's kids to the processor. I don't have enough money and property to continuously breed goats if I do not have an outlet for them. Some of the goats get sold to other people and those people care for them until their natural deaths but a majority of the spring kids get used for meat in the fall. Does the fact that they are born with a set date of death invalidate their existence? Is it better to never exist at all than to live and die?
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is true for birth. The equal and opposite reaction is death. You can't have birth without death. Immortality is impossible because there is always a beginning, so there will always be an end. Death is not something to be feared or demonized when viewed as the equal to birth. Life begins at birth and if I were given a choice, I would prefer existence with a finite timeline to an infinity of non-existence. If you told me today the date of my death, I would not fear it. I would be happy to have lived and existed in this beautiful world. I choose existence over nothingness, even if it means there will be death - my death -- in the end. Unfortunately people who are not accustomed to death do not understand that death is an integral part of life.
People get upset when animals are put to death for food or science. They don't understand that the choice is not between the animal being born and living forever or the animal being born and killed for humans. Those choices are not possible. The choice is actually between the animal being born and killed for humans or not existing at all. If farm animals and laboratory animals were not used for food or science, they would NEVER EXIST. If we can't allow them to die for us, then they will never live for themselves. How can we condemn death if it means we must also condemn life?
Requiring that farm animals or laboratory animals must stay alive and not be used for man's purposes would severely limit the amount of animals that will be allowed to exist at all. It's not like we can just stop processing animals for food or stop euthanizing them for experimental purposes and continue to create new animals. All breeding programs will stop. My lovely baby goats who jump around full of life in the spring sunshine will cease to exist because I will not ever breed another goat if I am not able to send last year's kids to the processor. I don't have enough money and property to continuously breed goats if I do not have an outlet for them. Some of the goats get sold to other people and those people care for them until their natural deaths but a majority of the spring kids get used for meat in the fall. Does the fact that they are born with a set date of death invalidate their existence? Is it better to never exist at all than to live and die?
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Bottles vs. Teats
The debate about whether or not to bottle feed baby goats is about as
heated as the breast-fed vs. formula debate with human babies. Many goat
owners get all ruffled up over the idea of baby goats being bottle fed.
They cry that it is not "natural" and that the baby goats won't learn
how to be a goat if they aren't dam-raised. As if nature has all the
answers - Puh-leeze! Nature's ideas for taking care of animals include
disease, starvation, natural disasters, and predators. If you are trying
to raise goats in a farm type setting, then nature really doesn't have
much of a place. The moment you put that goat in captivity and bred it
for your own purposes, you made nature take a back seat. So then relying
on nature to take care of your baby goats is a double-edge sword. You
can't have it both ways.
The argument that baby goats won't learn how to be a goat if they are bottle fed is total crap. Goats don't need to "learn" how to be a goat; they are born KNOWING how to be a goat. That's like saying raising a duck with a bunch of chickens means the duck won't learn how to swim. Throw the duck in a pond and sure enough, he will swim just fine. Nobody needed to teach him how to be a duck. Just like no one needs to teach a goat how to be a goat -- they already know how to be goats. Maybe people that are afraid their goats won't learn to be goats are actually raising sheep and wondering why all their "goats" run around like idiots and make wool.
People like to get their spittle up about how "dangerous" bottle feeding can be. WTF?! Obviously I missed the YouTube tutorial on "How to improperly feed a goat with a bottle" because I have never lost a kid purely due to bottle feeding. Sure, I have lost my fair share of baby goats due to things like coccidiosis and enterotoxemia, but I have never lost one solely due to the dangers of a soda bottle full of milk with a soft rubber nipple on top. That's is crazy talk... Meanwhile, I have heard of kids being killed due to dam-raising. This is a dirty little secret that the teat-lovers don't like to talk about when the bottle vs. teat debate springs up. Want to know the killer secret? --- IT'S CALLED CAE, PEOPLE! Kid goats can die from CAE virus transmission due to being allowed to nurse on mom. You can stop CAE virus transmission by (gasp!) BOTTLE FEEDING! Yep, that's right. The "unnatural", "time-consuming" and "dangerous" practice of bottle feeding can actually save the lives of your little caprine kiddies. Take a newborn kid from a CAE infected mom and bottle feed that kid pasteurized milk -- Viola! = Uninfected kid. How many kids each year are infected by their mommas and sentenced to die due to someone's aversion to bottle feeding? How many adult goats get the axe because they are infected when they could have been saved by someone taking the time to do CAE prevention? It's something to think about, isn't it?
The other argument is that dam-raising is soooooo much easier than bottle feeding. NOT IN MY OPINION! Sure, bottle feeding does require that I commit to being at the farm to feed the kids a couple of times a day, everyday for a few months. But what I lose in time spent bottle feeding, I gain in time not spent chasing half-wild kids around just to trim their hooves or time spent trying to wean them from mom after 8 months. There's nothing like your yearling doe still nursing on mom as she tries to push the next batch of kiddos out her whoo-ha. You can't tell me that situation isn't a huge time-suck when you have to deal with it.
Bottle raised kids are more friendly because they look at humans as a source of food and comfort. Dam-raised kids do not associate humans with those things. They may be "friendly" but that is only because they are tame. They are never going to have the same relationship with a human as they have with their dam. Bottle feeding produces a psychological bond in the kid goat's brain that forever links them with humans. If you want to test this theory just take a bottle fed kid and a dam-raised kid and put them in a pasture together for 4 months and don't let them have contact with humans during that time. Then after 4 months go into the pasture and try to catch them. The bottle baby will come running up to you like you were never gone. Meanwhile the dam-raised kid will be in the opposite corner of the pasture trying to scale the fence to get away from you. Even if both kids were "friendly" when you left them, they both won't be like that when you come back. Bottle raised kids are more friendly towards humans. Period. End of story.
I personally think all those people who claim dam-raised kids are just as nice as bottle raised are not raising dairy goats. Dairy goats are like dairy cows, so over bred for milk production that they are high-strung and crazy. The same genes that control milk overproduction must also control adrenaline overproduction. I have never met a dairy goat that wasn't just a little keyed-up all the time. Meat goats, on the other hand, are like beef cows. Nothing phases them and they just go with the flow. You have to try hard to get a reaction out of a meat goat. Maybe it's all the blobs of fat and meat that clog up their ability to go all cuckoo-bananas when humans come into their pens. Maybe they just know they are big and slow and don't care what it is we are going to try to do to them because they are going to win by brute force and awkwardness every time. I can totally believe a meat goat producer when they say you don't need to bottle feed to make those goats friendly. Meat goats are a normally friendly bunch of animals. But don't get all up in my grill when I say that dairy goats need to be bottle fed in order to make them manageable. There's a big difference between the two types of goats and some people just need to accept that.
So, if you are contemplating bottle feeding your baby goats, please don't let the dam-raised group put you off of the idea. Bottle feeding is a perfectly fine practice that people have been doing for as long as they have been domesticating goats.
The argument that baby goats won't learn how to be a goat if they are bottle fed is total crap. Goats don't need to "learn" how to be a goat; they are born KNOWING how to be a goat. That's like saying raising a duck with a bunch of chickens means the duck won't learn how to swim. Throw the duck in a pond and sure enough, he will swim just fine. Nobody needed to teach him how to be a duck. Just like no one needs to teach a goat how to be a goat -- they already know how to be goats. Maybe people that are afraid their goats won't learn to be goats are actually raising sheep and wondering why all their "goats" run around like idiots and make wool.
People like to get their spittle up about how "dangerous" bottle feeding can be. WTF?! Obviously I missed the YouTube tutorial on "How to improperly feed a goat with a bottle" because I have never lost a kid purely due to bottle feeding. Sure, I have lost my fair share of baby goats due to things like coccidiosis and enterotoxemia, but I have never lost one solely due to the dangers of a soda bottle full of milk with a soft rubber nipple on top. That's is crazy talk... Meanwhile, I have heard of kids being killed due to dam-raising. This is a dirty little secret that the teat-lovers don't like to talk about when the bottle vs. teat debate springs up. Want to know the killer secret? --- IT'S CALLED CAE, PEOPLE! Kid goats can die from CAE virus transmission due to being allowed to nurse on mom. You can stop CAE virus transmission by (gasp!) BOTTLE FEEDING! Yep, that's right. The "unnatural", "time-consuming" and "dangerous" practice of bottle feeding can actually save the lives of your little caprine kiddies. Take a newborn kid from a CAE infected mom and bottle feed that kid pasteurized milk -- Viola! = Uninfected kid. How many kids each year are infected by their mommas and sentenced to die due to someone's aversion to bottle feeding? How many adult goats get the axe because they are infected when they could have been saved by someone taking the time to do CAE prevention? It's something to think about, isn't it?
The other argument is that dam-raising is soooooo much easier than bottle feeding. NOT IN MY OPINION! Sure, bottle feeding does require that I commit to being at the farm to feed the kids a couple of times a day, everyday for a few months. But what I lose in time spent bottle feeding, I gain in time not spent chasing half-wild kids around just to trim their hooves or time spent trying to wean them from mom after 8 months. There's nothing like your yearling doe still nursing on mom as she tries to push the next batch of kiddos out her whoo-ha. You can't tell me that situation isn't a huge time-suck when you have to deal with it.
Bottle raised kids are more friendly because they look at humans as a source of food and comfort. Dam-raised kids do not associate humans with those things. They may be "friendly" but that is only because they are tame. They are never going to have the same relationship with a human as they have with their dam. Bottle feeding produces a psychological bond in the kid goat's brain that forever links them with humans. If you want to test this theory just take a bottle fed kid and a dam-raised kid and put them in a pasture together for 4 months and don't let them have contact with humans during that time. Then after 4 months go into the pasture and try to catch them. The bottle baby will come running up to you like you were never gone. Meanwhile the dam-raised kid will be in the opposite corner of the pasture trying to scale the fence to get away from you. Even if both kids were "friendly" when you left them, they both won't be like that when you come back. Bottle raised kids are more friendly towards humans. Period. End of story.
I personally think all those people who claim dam-raised kids are just as nice as bottle raised are not raising dairy goats. Dairy goats are like dairy cows, so over bred for milk production that they are high-strung and crazy. The same genes that control milk overproduction must also control adrenaline overproduction. I have never met a dairy goat that wasn't just a little keyed-up all the time. Meat goats, on the other hand, are like beef cows. Nothing phases them and they just go with the flow. You have to try hard to get a reaction out of a meat goat. Maybe it's all the blobs of fat and meat that clog up their ability to go all cuckoo-bananas when humans come into their pens. Maybe they just know they are big and slow and don't care what it is we are going to try to do to them because they are going to win by brute force and awkwardness every time. I can totally believe a meat goat producer when they say you don't need to bottle feed to make those goats friendly. Meat goats are a normally friendly bunch of animals. But don't get all up in my grill when I say that dairy goats need to be bottle fed in order to make them manageable. There's a big difference between the two types of goats and some people just need to accept that.
So, if you are contemplating bottle feeding your baby goats, please don't let the dam-raised group put you off of the idea. Bottle feeding is a perfectly fine practice that people have been doing for as long as they have been domesticating goats.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Relocating your headache
I hear a lot of people tell me about how they trap raccoons or groundhogs or
foxes or skunks or squirrels in live-traps and then relocate them to a new area
to be let go. The reason for relocation is because they tell me they feel "bad"
for the animal and don't want to kill it but they also don't want it eating
their garbage or chickens or getting into their attics. Well, guess what? That
animal you just relocated from your property is now at someone else's property
causing them the same problems it caused you.
Relocating a raccoon 12 miles down the road does not break its habit of getting into people's garbage cans. It's just going to find new garbage to get into. Then it is going to be live-trapped again and relocated back 12 miles to your property! It's a never ending cycle. That raccoon will have baby coons which it will teach to eat garbage. Those babies will get trapped and relocated to a new place where they will breed and teach their kids to eat garbage. Eventually the whole stinking area is full of raccoons who get into garbage cans because you felt "bad" for the animal and wouldn't shoot it.
If you do not break the cycle by euthanizing the problem varmints, they will continue to be problems. Don't ever assume that just because you drove 12 miles into the "wilderness" on what seems to be an uninhabited road that you aren't just dumping your problem varmints into someone's backyard. They WILL find a way to continue to eat garbage or chickens or get into attics unless you put a permanent end to them. Animals are very smart and once they find an easy meal ticket or a nice place to live, they will try to find that again even if relocated. Once they know the things that human habitation offer, like food and shelter, they will continue to seek out humans and continue to be a nuisance.
This is the reason nuisance bears often get euthanized. Once they learn to cause a problem, they never ever forget it. Bears are a lot harder to trap and relocate, plus they can cause fatal damage to humans, so euthanasia is the only option. Raccoons, skunks, squirrels, foxes and woodchucks, on the other hand, rarely cause fatalities. They do cause property damage, livestock losses, and can hurt people/pets. Is this no less a reason to foist this harmful animal on someone else?
Keep in mind too that all of these animals can carry rabies. Rabies is on the rise with more cases reported in this area each year. It can be fatal to you or your pets to have rabies carrying varmints around your property. Rabies is not a fun disease and is fatal in any animal that contracts it who isn't vaccinated or immediately treated. Treatment is a long process involving several series of shots. Those shots make your whole body ache to the bone. They are not something someone wants to do voluntarily. The vaccine is available for your pets and livestock. It does need to be updated every couple of years. If your pets or livestock come in contact with a rabid animal and you can't prove that they are up to date on their rabies vaccinations then you must put your them down whether or not they actually have rabies. Since rabies is so dangerous, the Health Department does not fool around. All potentially infected animals must be euthanized. My brother's dog was put down because the dog didn't get his rabies booster vaccination on time and then killed a potentially rabid skunk. My brother cleaned up the dead skunk. My brother had to get treated for rabies and the dog had to be euthanized because both of them were potentially exposed to rabies due to the skunk. My only comfort is in hoping that the skunk was a native of that area and not one that had been live-trapped and relocated by someone.
Please don't relocate nuisance animals from your property. If you are going to trap them, please be responsible and euthanize them.
Relocating a raccoon 12 miles down the road does not break its habit of getting into people's garbage cans. It's just going to find new garbage to get into. Then it is going to be live-trapped again and relocated back 12 miles to your property! It's a never ending cycle. That raccoon will have baby coons which it will teach to eat garbage. Those babies will get trapped and relocated to a new place where they will breed and teach their kids to eat garbage. Eventually the whole stinking area is full of raccoons who get into garbage cans because you felt "bad" for the animal and wouldn't shoot it.
If you do not break the cycle by euthanizing the problem varmints, they will continue to be problems. Don't ever assume that just because you drove 12 miles into the "wilderness" on what seems to be an uninhabited road that you aren't just dumping your problem varmints into someone's backyard. They WILL find a way to continue to eat garbage or chickens or get into attics unless you put a permanent end to them. Animals are very smart and once they find an easy meal ticket or a nice place to live, they will try to find that again even if relocated. Once they know the things that human habitation offer, like food and shelter, they will continue to seek out humans and continue to be a nuisance.
This is the reason nuisance bears often get euthanized. Once they learn to cause a problem, they never ever forget it. Bears are a lot harder to trap and relocate, plus they can cause fatal damage to humans, so euthanasia is the only option. Raccoons, skunks, squirrels, foxes and woodchucks, on the other hand, rarely cause fatalities. They do cause property damage, livestock losses, and can hurt people/pets. Is this no less a reason to foist this harmful animal on someone else?
Keep in mind too that all of these animals can carry rabies. Rabies is on the rise with more cases reported in this area each year. It can be fatal to you or your pets to have rabies carrying varmints around your property. Rabies is not a fun disease and is fatal in any animal that contracts it who isn't vaccinated or immediately treated. Treatment is a long process involving several series of shots. Those shots make your whole body ache to the bone. They are not something someone wants to do voluntarily. The vaccine is available for your pets and livestock. It does need to be updated every couple of years. If your pets or livestock come in contact with a rabid animal and you can't prove that they are up to date on their rabies vaccinations then you must put your them down whether or not they actually have rabies. Since rabies is so dangerous, the Health Department does not fool around. All potentially infected animals must be euthanized. My brother's dog was put down because the dog didn't get his rabies booster vaccination on time and then killed a potentially rabid skunk. My brother cleaned up the dead skunk. My brother had to get treated for rabies and the dog had to be euthanized because both of them were potentially exposed to rabies due to the skunk. My only comfort is in hoping that the skunk was a native of that area and not one that had been live-trapped and relocated by someone.
Please don't relocate nuisance animals from your property. If you are going to trap them, please be responsible and euthanize them.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Fall on a Goat Farm
The air is crisp and cold
Frost is on the ground
Every leave and blade of grass has crystals reflecting light
Fall is coming
The kid goats are fat and growing bigger
The milk does will give the same amount of milk from now until infinity
Only one night of frost makes the bucks stink
Fall is coming
Fresh apples from the tree
A whine of a doe in heat
The lurking scent of male goat on the wind
All make me feel that
Fall is coming
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Start Your Own Goat Club!
I love clubs and associations and societies and organizations and
what-not. I love getting together with like-minded people who share the
same interests to yack about those interests.
I have been involved in my professional society through my job at both
the local and national levels for years. Professional societies for
occupations are a great way to keep up the learning and to motivate
yourself when your job gets blah.
My passion for clubs started in high school. One of my friends encouraged me to join the Eco-Club when I was a sophomore. Up until this point I had never been involved in anything extra-curricular at school. All it took was one Eco-Club meeting and I was hooked! By the end of sophomore year I was in three different clubs and having a blast.
I still have a passion for clubs. When I heard there was St. Lawrence Valley Dairy Goat Association, I drove an hour and a half to the meeting and had a wonderful time meeting new people who also raised dairy goats. Unfortunately the SLVDGA was centered around Potsdam/Canton which pretty far away from my house. I can't make it to many of the meetings due to the travel time.
Last year I decided to remedy the lack of a local goat club and start my own. The Adirondack Goat Club was created as a group where local goat owners and potential goat owners could get together in order to share information, education, resources and goats. The area goat community is small but vibrant. In order not to exclude anyone, I decided that the ADK Goat Club should accept all types and breeds of goats. There is a lot of cross-over around here between meat, fiber, and dairy goat breeders. Most people have more than one breed of goat and more than one type. Due to lack of variety and a desire to consolidate resources, many dairy goat breeders will crossbreed their goats with meat goats and many fiber goat owners crossbreed with dairy goats or meat goats. There's very few "purebred" breeders who won't crossbreed when needed.
To start the club all I did was post a couple of meeting announcements on Craigslist, send in a meeting announcement to the local paper, and alert the surrounding goat clubs to my intent. People were very supportive and I had about 20 goat owners show up to the first meeting. Some of them were old friends that I had worked with their goats before, some of them were new people who I had not known had goats. Many awesome connections were made that day.
Other meetings since have been well-attended. We have meetings every other month. The meetings are on the weekends and are a potluck lunch. Meeting locations rotate between the farms of the members. This way no one person gets burnt out hosting all the meetings. Also rotating locations allows a variety of people to attend based on where they live.
The club is free to join. There's not a lot of expenses for the club so I didn't want to charge membership dues and have to track people down each year to get them to pay up. Contacts and updates for the club are run through email and a blog. I maintain an email list of all the club members. I send out periodic email updates with meeting announcements, articles of interest, goats for sale, equipment for sale, and goat events. The blog is free to maintain and open to the public. I update it with much of the same information that goes out through the emails. The blog allows new people to check out the club and allows members to keep updated with what is going on just be checking it on the web.
If your area is lacking a goat club, I recommend starting one today! It's a great way to meet like-minded people and to have a lot of fun enjoying goats. In the future I hope the ADK Goat Club can host events for the public around the area, get involved in the local fairs and farmer's markets, and continue to spread education to all about the wonderful world of goats!
My passion for clubs started in high school. One of my friends encouraged me to join the Eco-Club when I was a sophomore. Up until this point I had never been involved in anything extra-curricular at school. All it took was one Eco-Club meeting and I was hooked! By the end of sophomore year I was in three different clubs and having a blast.
I still have a passion for clubs. When I heard there was St. Lawrence Valley Dairy Goat Association, I drove an hour and a half to the meeting and had a wonderful time meeting new people who also raised dairy goats. Unfortunately the SLVDGA was centered around Potsdam/Canton which pretty far away from my house. I can't make it to many of the meetings due to the travel time.
Last year I decided to remedy the lack of a local goat club and start my own. The Adirondack Goat Club was created as a group where local goat owners and potential goat owners could get together in order to share information, education, resources and goats. The area goat community is small but vibrant. In order not to exclude anyone, I decided that the ADK Goat Club should accept all types and breeds of goats. There is a lot of cross-over around here between meat, fiber, and dairy goat breeders. Most people have more than one breed of goat and more than one type. Due to lack of variety and a desire to consolidate resources, many dairy goat breeders will crossbreed their goats with meat goats and many fiber goat owners crossbreed with dairy goats or meat goats. There's very few "purebred" breeders who won't crossbreed when needed.
To start the club all I did was post a couple of meeting announcements on Craigslist, send in a meeting announcement to the local paper, and alert the surrounding goat clubs to my intent. People were very supportive and I had about 20 goat owners show up to the first meeting. Some of them were old friends that I had worked with their goats before, some of them were new people who I had not known had goats. Many awesome connections were made that day.
Other meetings since have been well-attended. We have meetings every other month. The meetings are on the weekends and are a potluck lunch. Meeting locations rotate between the farms of the members. This way no one person gets burnt out hosting all the meetings. Also rotating locations allows a variety of people to attend based on where they live.
The club is free to join. There's not a lot of expenses for the club so I didn't want to charge membership dues and have to track people down each year to get them to pay up. Contacts and updates for the club are run through email and a blog. I maintain an email list of all the club members. I send out periodic email updates with meeting announcements, articles of interest, goats for sale, equipment for sale, and goat events. The blog is free to maintain and open to the public. I update it with much of the same information that goes out through the emails. The blog allows new people to check out the club and allows members to keep updated with what is going on just be checking it on the web.
If your area is lacking a goat club, I recommend starting one today! It's a great way to meet like-minded people and to have a lot of fun enjoying goats. In the future I hope the ADK Goat Club can host events for the public around the area, get involved in the local fairs and farmer's markets, and continue to spread education to all about the wonderful world of goats!
Friday, August 10, 2012
Goat Parasites
Lots of people ask me about goat parasites and what to do about them. Well, here is what I have to say about that:
All goats can have internal and external parasites. Most goats become infected at birth by whatever parasites happen to be living on their dam or in her feces or in the soil. Internal and external parasites have a knack for being able to survive outside of the goat for a long period of time so they can simply be living in the soil and on the pasture waiting for a goat to come along. There's no way to avoid infection from parasites in goats. The only thing we can do is manage the infection so the parasites do not negatively impact the goat's health.
When a goat is born, they don't have any internal parasites. Their first exposure to the outside world is when they pick up things like coccidia, tapeworms, barberpole worm and other internal nasties. These parasites have a lifespan of a couple of weeks from when they enter the baby goat as an egg or dormant cyst. In these weeks the parasite hatches, morphs into an adult while using nutrients from the goat to do so, and then starts to reproduce. The eggs that are produced by the adult parasite either stay in the goat and become adults or are shed from the goat through its feces. Another goat picks these eggs up from the soil, pen or pasture and the cycle starts all over again.
Coccidia have a 3 week life cycle from cyst to adult. This is why you see kid goats get diarrhea around the 3-4 week old phase. The coccidia infected the goat at birth and at 3 weeks old, there's enough of them reproducing and living within the kid to cause intestinal damage, thus the diarrhea. It is very important to try to prevent coccidiosis by treating all kid goats who are 3 weeks old with a broad spectrum antibioitic that kills coccidia. There are several on the market, like Sulmet 12.5% drinking water solution, Corid powder, and Di-Methox 40% solution. These medicines kill adult forms of coccidia only so you must treat kids at 3 weeks old and then every 3 weeks after that until they are 15 weeks old. After 15 weeks they should be somewhat immune to coccidiosis. Adult goats rarely suffer from coccidiosis.
I currently prefer to use Corid. Corid kills adult coccidia by inhibiting their absorption of thiamine (vitamin B1). Some people feel this could cause thiamine loss in the goats too, so it is recommended to supplement any goat taking Corid with thiamine and other B vitamins. This can be done by giving the goats Fortified B Complex (it's "fortified" with extra thiamine) or thiamine/B vitamin gel. Since all of the coccidiosis medications are antibiotics, I also recommend giving any goats on them supplemental probiotics to replace any of the good gut bacteria that got killed by the medicine. I use Probios probiotic gel. I usually give the Corid to the kids in the morning, and then in the evening give them thiamine and Probios each day during treatment and for 1 week after. The thiamine and Probios will not hurt the goats in any way, so it is better to give lots of this and be safe.
Tapeworms are another internal parasite to worry about in kid goats. Goats over 6 months old tend to have less problems with tapeworms than kid goats for some reason. Kid goats who have lots of tapeworms will get a pot-bellied look and be smaller and slower growing than uninfected kids. It is recommended to preventatively treat kids for tapeworms and other stomach worms by giving them Valbazen dewormer at 1cc per 10 lbs weight, starting at 3 weeks old and repeated every 10 days for 30 days. Valbazen is okay to use in kid goats and non-pregnant adults but should NEVER be used in pregnant goats (or potentially pregnant ones) because it can cause birth defects and abortions. Repeat the Valbazen every 10 days for 30 days because it is only effective against adult tapeworms. The first deworming will kill all of the current adults but leave eggs and cysts in the goats to hatch and reinfect. The second deworming takes care of all the internal eggs that hatched after the first. The third deworming takes care of all of the eggs and cysts that were picked up by the goat from the environment and hatched into adults. The 30 day cycle is very important to use every time you deworm, regardless of dewormer chosen. This is the most effective way to deworm.
So now you have your kids on preventative coccidiosis medication and preventative dewormer. What about the adults?
The best way to manage parasites in adult goats is to monitor their condition frequently and only treat for worms when warranted. I never recommend to use a strict deworming schedule on your entire herd. Always deworm only the goats that have the worms! I have my own 4 step monitoring system for parasites.
1. Body condition - I want my goats to look sleek and shiny with just the right amount of weight. I don't want my goats to be too fat nor too thin. Parasites rob nutrients from the goats and cause them to be thinner than they should be. If I see one of my goats eating well but not gaining weight, I check for parasites.
Another external clue to parasites is the condition of the goat's hair. Their fur should be sleek and shiny. If it is dull and looks like it has split ends, the goat has worms. If the hair is shedding constantly and looks dry, the goat has worms. If when I brush the hair back and there are little bugs moving around, the goat has lice. Mites cause hair to fall out in patches. If the goat's tail is rubbed raw and missing lots of hair from scratching, the goat has pinworms that live around the anus. A goat's coat can tell you a lot about what is going on internally.
2. Mineral supplementation - This is very important to parasite management in goats. Goats need lots of minerals to stay healthy and any goats that are deficient in minerals are very susceptible to parasite problems. I supplement my goats with a loose mineral blend made specifically for goats called Sweetlix Meatmaker 16:8. It is a great all-around mineral that works for all types of goats (not just meat goats). I also supplement my goats with a copper bolus every 4 months. Copper is very important for goats and plays a huge roll in parasite control. Most goats are deficient in copper so they need extra copper even when getting it in their loose minerals. I use Copasure cow copper boluses that have been re-sized for goats. I give 1 gram of copper per 22 lbs of goat. The boluses are little gel caps filled with copper rods. It is important that the goats swallow the boluses without chewing them and on an empty stomach. It is also important to either wad the bolus in wax or shortening or follow bolusing immediately with Vitamin A, D, E gel. The wax, shortening, or gel helps to encapsulate the bolus within the goat's rumen and keep the rods in there for slow absorption. If the goat chews the bolus or eats it on a full stomach or takes it without wax, the copper rods can be flushed from the rumen and not absorbed.
3. FAMACHA - A cheap and dirty way to assess parasite load in goats is to look at the color of their lower eyelid membrane. This helps to tell you if the goat is anemic. Anemia is most often caused by barberpole worm (a very common internal parasite) that is sucking the blood from your goat. Where there is barberpole worm, there are usually other internal parasites so it is good to deworm a goat when they are anemic. The lower eyelid membrane should be dark pink or red in healthy goats. If is it white or light pink, the goat is anemic and needs deworming. Unfortunately FAMACHA does not tell you the type of parasites found but it does give you a good measurement of potential worm infestation. It is best to do FAMACHA on all your goats at least once a month, if not once a week.
4. Fecal samples - Once you have determined through lack of body condition, lack of mineral supplementation, and FAMACHA that your goat has internal parasites, it is important to find out what type of parasite it is and how large of an infestation. Fecal samples can tell you that. They are easy to do and can by done at home by anyone with a decent microscope. Just take a sample of poop from each goat (3-4 berries), process it per fecal sample instructions (found on the Fiasco Farm website), and look at the prepared fecal slide under the microscope. You should see little bits of fecal debris floating around on the slide. You should also be able to clearly see parasite eggs and cysts. Count up the different types seen and the amounts per type. Coccidia oocysts are tiny. Barberpole worm and other stomach worm eggs are larger. Liver fluke eggs have a flat spot on one end. Tapeworm cysts are square. There's lots of pictures on the internet of what parasite eggs in goats look like on a fecal sample.
Once you have figured out what types of worms are in your goats, then you can choose the appropriate treatment. Coccidiosis requires a sulfa-based, broad spectrum antibiotic (NOT A DEWORMER). Tapeworms are killed by Valbazen or Fenbendazole. Barberpole worm and stomach worms are killed by most dewormers, especially Ivermectin and Cydectin. Liver flukes require Ivomec Plus injectable (the "Plus" is actually what kills them so regular Ivomec won't work).
Like I said earlier, always use a 30 day deworming cycle when you deworm. Treat the goats every 10 days for 30 days in order to kill all the adult worms that have hatched. It is not at all effective to deworm once and then not again for 6 months! This does absolutely nothing to help reduce the worm population because the worm eggs that are in the goats and the worm eggs in the environment are still alive to reproduce. You need to treat twice more to kill these.
It is best to give any dewormer on an empty stomach and not give any grain or hay for at least 30 minutes after dosing to allow absorption of the dewormer. Giving dewormers during feeding time is not effective because the dewormers will get flushed out if the system by digestion of hay/pasture and grain. I deworm my goats in the morning before putting them out to pasture or feeding. Then I wait at least 30 minutes and put them out to pasture or give them hay. I do not give them grain after deworming for at least 12 hours because grain is quickly drawn into the digestive tract from the rumen and I don't want the dewormer to be taken out of the rumen faster than necessary. I want it to stay in there and be absorbed or at least be slowly drawn into the rest of the digestive tract.
Most people recommend using one brand and type of dewormer exclusively until it is no longer effective. This helps to cut down on possible worm resistance to dewormers. Worm resistance is a common problem because no dewormer is effective against 100% of the worm population in all goats. There's always going to be a small percentage of worms that are naturally resistant to a particular dewormer. For example (I am making these percentages up just for this example, so don't quote me!!), if you use Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste for deworming, it will kill 98% of the worm population in your goats. The 2% that is left will be the ones that will reproduce the next generation of worms. Now the next time you use Ivermectin, only 70% of the worms will be killed. 30% will be resistant due to genetics and will reproduce the next generation. The next time you deworm with Ivermectin, 40% of the worms will be killed and 60% will be resistant. And so on, and so on until a large majority of the worms are resistant to Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste. This will be when you notice that after you deworm, your goats still have rough coats, anemia and worms on their fecal samples. Time to switch dewormers. Your worms may be resistant to Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste but they won't be resistant to Valbazen because it is a totally different class of chemical. So you start the resistance cycle all over again by switching to a new dewormer and continuing with that one until resistance occurs.
Don't rotate dewormers every time you deworm because you could potentially create a "super worm" that is resistant to all dewormers. For example: You deworm with Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste and it kills 98% of the worm population in your goats. The 2% that is left will be resistant to Ivermectin and will reproduce. Then the next time you rotate to Valbazen and it also kill 98% of the worms. BUT there is a good possibility that the 2% of the worms left this time can be resistant to both Ivermectin and Valbazen, after having lived through the first deworming with Ivermectin and the second with Valbazen. Then you deworm again with Cydectin and kill 98% of those worms. Now there is a possibility that the 2% of worms left are resistant to Ivermectin, Valbazen, and Cydectin! Eventually if you rotate through all the classes of dewormers available often enough, you could create a super worm that is resistant to EVERYTHING!! Only rotate dewormers when the one you are using is no longer effective or your goats have a type of worm that isn't killed by the dewormer you normally use (ie: you use Valbazen but the goats have liver flukes you may have to switch to Ivomec Plus for the liver flukes).
Herbal dewormers work well as a preventative for both internal and external parasites. They do not treat any outbreaks of parasites but they make the goats' bodies an unwelcome environment where parasites prefer not to live. I use Hoegger's Herbal Dewormer in my goats and have had great results. I still have to use chemical dewormers occasionally but the necessity of these has been lower since starting the herbal. Also my goats seem to have less lice, mites, nasal bots, lungworms, and pinworms than before starting the herbs. The most important part of a herbal deworming regimen is to be consistent in giving each goat a proper dose of the herbs every week, continuously for life. The herbs do not work unless you are giving them consistently because they do not stay in the goats' systems for more than a week. I prefer to mix the dry herbal dewormer with molasses to create a ball. The goats love these little "treats" and will eat them out of my hand which makes a very convenient way to ensure they are getting their individual doses of herbs each week.
All goats can have internal and external parasites. Most goats become infected at birth by whatever parasites happen to be living on their dam or in her feces or in the soil. Internal and external parasites have a knack for being able to survive outside of the goat for a long period of time so they can simply be living in the soil and on the pasture waiting for a goat to come along. There's no way to avoid infection from parasites in goats. The only thing we can do is manage the infection so the parasites do not negatively impact the goat's health.
When a goat is born, they don't have any internal parasites. Their first exposure to the outside world is when they pick up things like coccidia, tapeworms, barberpole worm and other internal nasties. These parasites have a lifespan of a couple of weeks from when they enter the baby goat as an egg or dormant cyst. In these weeks the parasite hatches, morphs into an adult while using nutrients from the goat to do so, and then starts to reproduce. The eggs that are produced by the adult parasite either stay in the goat and become adults or are shed from the goat through its feces. Another goat picks these eggs up from the soil, pen or pasture and the cycle starts all over again.
Coccidia have a 3 week life cycle from cyst to adult. This is why you see kid goats get diarrhea around the 3-4 week old phase. The coccidia infected the goat at birth and at 3 weeks old, there's enough of them reproducing and living within the kid to cause intestinal damage, thus the diarrhea. It is very important to try to prevent coccidiosis by treating all kid goats who are 3 weeks old with a broad spectrum antibioitic that kills coccidia. There are several on the market, like Sulmet 12.5% drinking water solution, Corid powder, and Di-Methox 40% solution. These medicines kill adult forms of coccidia only so you must treat kids at 3 weeks old and then every 3 weeks after that until they are 15 weeks old. After 15 weeks they should be somewhat immune to coccidiosis. Adult goats rarely suffer from coccidiosis.
I currently prefer to use Corid. Corid kills adult coccidia by inhibiting their absorption of thiamine (vitamin B1). Some people feel this could cause thiamine loss in the goats too, so it is recommended to supplement any goat taking Corid with thiamine and other B vitamins. This can be done by giving the goats Fortified B Complex (it's "fortified" with extra thiamine) or thiamine/B vitamin gel. Since all of the coccidiosis medications are antibiotics, I also recommend giving any goats on them supplemental probiotics to replace any of the good gut bacteria that got killed by the medicine. I use Probios probiotic gel. I usually give the Corid to the kids in the morning, and then in the evening give them thiamine and Probios each day during treatment and for 1 week after. The thiamine and Probios will not hurt the goats in any way, so it is better to give lots of this and be safe.
Tapeworms are another internal parasite to worry about in kid goats. Goats over 6 months old tend to have less problems with tapeworms than kid goats for some reason. Kid goats who have lots of tapeworms will get a pot-bellied look and be smaller and slower growing than uninfected kids. It is recommended to preventatively treat kids for tapeworms and other stomach worms by giving them Valbazen dewormer at 1cc per 10 lbs weight, starting at 3 weeks old and repeated every 10 days for 30 days. Valbazen is okay to use in kid goats and non-pregnant adults but should NEVER be used in pregnant goats (or potentially pregnant ones) because it can cause birth defects and abortions. Repeat the Valbazen every 10 days for 30 days because it is only effective against adult tapeworms. The first deworming will kill all of the current adults but leave eggs and cysts in the goats to hatch and reinfect. The second deworming takes care of all the internal eggs that hatched after the first. The third deworming takes care of all of the eggs and cysts that were picked up by the goat from the environment and hatched into adults. The 30 day cycle is very important to use every time you deworm, regardless of dewormer chosen. This is the most effective way to deworm.
So now you have your kids on preventative coccidiosis medication and preventative dewormer. What about the adults?
The best way to manage parasites in adult goats is to monitor their condition frequently and only treat for worms when warranted. I never recommend to use a strict deworming schedule on your entire herd. Always deworm only the goats that have the worms! I have my own 4 step monitoring system for parasites.
1. Body condition - I want my goats to look sleek and shiny with just the right amount of weight. I don't want my goats to be too fat nor too thin. Parasites rob nutrients from the goats and cause them to be thinner than they should be. If I see one of my goats eating well but not gaining weight, I check for parasites.
Another external clue to parasites is the condition of the goat's hair. Their fur should be sleek and shiny. If it is dull and looks like it has split ends, the goat has worms. If the hair is shedding constantly and looks dry, the goat has worms. If when I brush the hair back and there are little bugs moving around, the goat has lice. Mites cause hair to fall out in patches. If the goat's tail is rubbed raw and missing lots of hair from scratching, the goat has pinworms that live around the anus. A goat's coat can tell you a lot about what is going on internally.
2. Mineral supplementation - This is very important to parasite management in goats. Goats need lots of minerals to stay healthy and any goats that are deficient in minerals are very susceptible to parasite problems. I supplement my goats with a loose mineral blend made specifically for goats called Sweetlix Meatmaker 16:8. It is a great all-around mineral that works for all types of goats (not just meat goats). I also supplement my goats with a copper bolus every 4 months. Copper is very important for goats and plays a huge roll in parasite control. Most goats are deficient in copper so they need extra copper even when getting it in their loose minerals. I use Copasure cow copper boluses that have been re-sized for goats. I give 1 gram of copper per 22 lbs of goat. The boluses are little gel caps filled with copper rods. It is important that the goats swallow the boluses without chewing them and on an empty stomach. It is also important to either wad the bolus in wax or shortening or follow bolusing immediately with Vitamin A, D, E gel. The wax, shortening, or gel helps to encapsulate the bolus within the goat's rumen and keep the rods in there for slow absorption. If the goat chews the bolus or eats it on a full stomach or takes it without wax, the copper rods can be flushed from the rumen and not absorbed.
3. FAMACHA - A cheap and dirty way to assess parasite load in goats is to look at the color of their lower eyelid membrane. This helps to tell you if the goat is anemic. Anemia is most often caused by barberpole worm (a very common internal parasite) that is sucking the blood from your goat. Where there is barberpole worm, there are usually other internal parasites so it is good to deworm a goat when they are anemic. The lower eyelid membrane should be dark pink or red in healthy goats. If is it white or light pink, the goat is anemic and needs deworming. Unfortunately FAMACHA does not tell you the type of parasites found but it does give you a good measurement of potential worm infestation. It is best to do FAMACHA on all your goats at least once a month, if not once a week.
4. Fecal samples - Once you have determined through lack of body condition, lack of mineral supplementation, and FAMACHA that your goat has internal parasites, it is important to find out what type of parasite it is and how large of an infestation. Fecal samples can tell you that. They are easy to do and can by done at home by anyone with a decent microscope. Just take a sample of poop from each goat (3-4 berries), process it per fecal sample instructions (found on the Fiasco Farm website), and look at the prepared fecal slide under the microscope. You should see little bits of fecal debris floating around on the slide. You should also be able to clearly see parasite eggs and cysts. Count up the different types seen and the amounts per type. Coccidia oocysts are tiny. Barberpole worm and other stomach worm eggs are larger. Liver fluke eggs have a flat spot on one end. Tapeworm cysts are square. There's lots of pictures on the internet of what parasite eggs in goats look like on a fecal sample.
Once you have figured out what types of worms are in your goats, then you can choose the appropriate treatment. Coccidiosis requires a sulfa-based, broad spectrum antibiotic (NOT A DEWORMER). Tapeworms are killed by Valbazen or Fenbendazole. Barberpole worm and stomach worms are killed by most dewormers, especially Ivermectin and Cydectin. Liver flukes require Ivomec Plus injectable (the "Plus" is actually what kills them so regular Ivomec won't work).
Like I said earlier, always use a 30 day deworming cycle when you deworm. Treat the goats every 10 days for 30 days in order to kill all the adult worms that have hatched. It is not at all effective to deworm once and then not again for 6 months! This does absolutely nothing to help reduce the worm population because the worm eggs that are in the goats and the worm eggs in the environment are still alive to reproduce. You need to treat twice more to kill these.
It is best to give any dewormer on an empty stomach and not give any grain or hay for at least 30 minutes after dosing to allow absorption of the dewormer. Giving dewormers during feeding time is not effective because the dewormers will get flushed out if the system by digestion of hay/pasture and grain. I deworm my goats in the morning before putting them out to pasture or feeding. Then I wait at least 30 minutes and put them out to pasture or give them hay. I do not give them grain after deworming for at least 12 hours because grain is quickly drawn into the digestive tract from the rumen and I don't want the dewormer to be taken out of the rumen faster than necessary. I want it to stay in there and be absorbed or at least be slowly drawn into the rest of the digestive tract.
Most people recommend using one brand and type of dewormer exclusively until it is no longer effective. This helps to cut down on possible worm resistance to dewormers. Worm resistance is a common problem because no dewormer is effective against 100% of the worm population in all goats. There's always going to be a small percentage of worms that are naturally resistant to a particular dewormer. For example (I am making these percentages up just for this example, so don't quote me!!), if you use Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste for deworming, it will kill 98% of the worm population in your goats. The 2% that is left will be the ones that will reproduce the next generation of worms. Now the next time you use Ivermectin, only 70% of the worms will be killed. 30% will be resistant due to genetics and will reproduce the next generation. The next time you deworm with Ivermectin, 40% of the worms will be killed and 60% will be resistant. And so on, and so on until a large majority of the worms are resistant to Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste. This will be when you notice that after you deworm, your goats still have rough coats, anemia and worms on their fecal samples. Time to switch dewormers. Your worms may be resistant to Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste but they won't be resistant to Valbazen because it is a totally different class of chemical. So you start the resistance cycle all over again by switching to a new dewormer and continuing with that one until resistance occurs.
Don't rotate dewormers every time you deworm because you could potentially create a "super worm" that is resistant to all dewormers. For example: You deworm with Ivermectin 1.87% horse paste and it kills 98% of the worm population in your goats. The 2% that is left will be resistant to Ivermectin and will reproduce. Then the next time you rotate to Valbazen and it also kill 98% of the worms. BUT there is a good possibility that the 2% of the worms left this time can be resistant to both Ivermectin and Valbazen, after having lived through the first deworming with Ivermectin and the second with Valbazen. Then you deworm again with Cydectin and kill 98% of those worms. Now there is a possibility that the 2% of worms left are resistant to Ivermectin, Valbazen, and Cydectin! Eventually if you rotate through all the classes of dewormers available often enough, you could create a super worm that is resistant to EVERYTHING!! Only rotate dewormers when the one you are using is no longer effective or your goats have a type of worm that isn't killed by the dewormer you normally use (ie: you use Valbazen but the goats have liver flukes you may have to switch to Ivomec Plus for the liver flukes).
Herbal dewormers work well as a preventative for both internal and external parasites. They do not treat any outbreaks of parasites but they make the goats' bodies an unwelcome environment where parasites prefer not to live. I use Hoegger's Herbal Dewormer in my goats and have had great results. I still have to use chemical dewormers occasionally but the necessity of these has been lower since starting the herbal. Also my goats seem to have less lice, mites, nasal bots, lungworms, and pinworms than before starting the herbs. The most important part of a herbal deworming regimen is to be consistent in giving each goat a proper dose of the herbs every week, continuously for life. The herbs do not work unless you are giving them consistently because they do not stay in the goats' systems for more than a week. I prefer to mix the dry herbal dewormer with molasses to create a ball. The goats love these little "treats" and will eat them out of my hand which makes a very convenient way to ensure they are getting their individual doses of herbs each week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)