Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Veterinary Care

“Much of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is offered either as an addition to conventional, science-based treatment or in situations in which conventional therapies are unavailable or ineffective. This doesn’t excuse offering treatments that haven’t been properly tested, and it doesn’t mean such therapies can’t do harm. However, such an approach at least avoids the harm that can come from delaying or rejecting effective treatment. 

However, sometimes CAM providers actually believe their practices are an appropriate and effective substitute for conventional medicine, even in the case of serious disease. This attitude is truly inexcusable when, as is usually the case, there is no sound evidence to support the belief and when irrational and inaccurate denigration of conventional treatments is used to scare people away from medicine that could really help their pets.” – from http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2013/06/there-is-no-natural-or-holistic-heartworm-prevention-or-treatment-proven-to-be-safe-and-effective/

The above paragraphs hit a chord with me in regards to goat care. I know of many people who tend to eschew all conventional preventions and treatments for goat problems, in favor of “natural”, “holistic” or “homeopathic” remedies. As goat owners we must always care for the animals with their best interests in mind. We cannot become so indoctrinated by the CAM ideal that we avoid proven conventional treatments or preventions. I know many people who don’t use chemical dewormers, never use antibiotics, or who won’t vaccinate their goats because they are afraid of the “chemicals” or “toxins” that may be in those things.

Be aware that herbs and homeopathic remedies also have chemicals and toxins in them. Wormwood that is found in many herbal deworming blends can be a serious liver toxin (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5831a3.htm). Belladonna, which is often used as an anti-inflammatory and pain reliever is one of the more extremely toxic plants in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atropa_belladonna). And keep in mind that most “homeopathic” remedies are nothing but water. Homeopathy is the practice of diluting a toxic substance until the substance is no longer toxic and the water “remembers” the substance and is able to “teach” your immune system how to react to it. If you dilute something 30,000 times with water, the end result isn’t magic memory water, it’s just plain water. It’s true that sometimes there could actually be something in your homeopathic remedy other than water, but that’s not usually on purpose and more related to the fact that many homeopathic remedies are manufactured in third world countries using unfiltered and untreated tap water for the dilutions. Your homeopathic remedy probably doesn’t contain any of the original substance it’s supposed to, but it may contain bacteria, toxins, and heavy metals due to the water used (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/11/18/measuring-contaminants-and-concluding-th/).

I understand the tendency to turn to over-the-counter or over-the-internet herbal, holistic, or homemade concoctions to treat a sick goat. When the animal can’t tell you what is wrong, you are desperate to try anything. Also, when a licensed veterinarian is not available or too expensive (like in many of the areas of the North Country), you will turn to cheaper and more accessible alternatives whether proven to work or not. Add to that the fact that many veterinarians are not prepared to deal with goat problems and may not have prescription goat medicines on hand. So even if you do use a vet, they may not be able to help you. Finally, there is the strong myth that “natural”, “holistic” or “homeopathic” remedies are safer that conventional medications. 

When deciding which path to take in order to treat or prevent a goat problem, remember that most CAM therapies and treatments are not scientifically proven. Most of the evidence that they work is purely anecdotal or based solely on individual results. There is very little to no government regulation or oversight for herbal supplements, homeopathic remedies, and holistic concoctions. This means that anyone can mix up a batch of random stuff, call it “Magic Goat Cure”, and start selling it over the internet while claiming it cures everything from mastitis to CAE. To make it a real money maker, all the seller needs is two or three fictional “testimonials” about how some goner goat was magically cured by the stuff. It works even better when the seller makes up a fictional disease and claims that most of the population suffers from it and thus every animal should be on his patented and proprietary magic pills (http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2013/05/plechner-syndrome-and-the-art-of-making-stuff-up/)

On the other hand, conventional therapies and treatments have to go through regulated and reproducible scientific studies. The drug in question has to be statistically proven to treat the problem in a majority of the population. And those findings must be capable of being scientifically reproduced in order for the drug to be approved for sale (http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/ResourcesforYou/AnimalHealthLiteracy/ucm219207.htm). 

Some of the bad names that approved conventional drugs get for containing “chemicals” and “toxins” is because they actually do contain those things. Parasites, bacteria, and viruses are dangerous to goats because they are aggressive in their pursuit to grow, reproduce, and infect fresh victims. The biological forces behind these things are very strong, thus it is important to use a strong chemical or toxin to stop their infection and spread. 

Keep in mind that purposeful decisions to not use the appropriate treatments and therapies in your animals due to your personal beliefs is not always in the animal’s best interest. Choosing not to vaccinate for tetanus or use an antibiotic for coccidiosis prevention does not hurt you, it hurts your goat. It is our responsibility to care for the animals, thus it is our responsibility to consider ALL the tools that are available to us to use to keep them healthy. Ignorance is not an excuse for negligence!

Beware of buying raw milk

Everybody knows that farm fresh, local eggs and meat taste the best and are healthier for you. The same goes for local, fresh milk. Also, everyone knows that cooking eggs and meat is a good idea in order to eliminate harmful pathogens. So then why do people get so worked up about pasteurized milk versus raw milk? Pasteurization isn’t evil. It is simply cooking the milk in order to kill any harmful bacteria or viruses that have set up shop in your milk pail. 

Milk is nature’s perfect media for bacterial and viral growth. The reason we can make cheese out of milk is because it grows bacteria so well. Unfortunately, not only does milk grow cheese bacteria really well, it can grow some nasty bacteria easily too. Raw meat and raw eggs are similar in that they have the nutrients and correct environment to grow some really nasty bugs. This is why we cook these things. Heating up eggs, meat or milk to a certain temperature for a certain period of time works to kill the bacteria and viruses that may be lurking.  

I don’t like the idea of people buying raw milk in order to drink it [insert collective gasp!]. I don’t believe that raw milk is this magical substance that is somehow able to fend off growth of bacteria and viruses. There are claims that it doesn’t spoil and that it never makes people sick. Given that milk is actually used in research as a media for growing cell cultures, I feel that there has to be some ability for raw milk to grow harmful things if handled incorrectly. 

If you buy raw milk from someone else’s farm, you have no guarantee that they handled it properly from udder to bottle. Milk in the udder should technically be sterile, unless the animal has an udder infection, AKA: mastitis. Once milk is expressed from the udder and out into the environment, it can pick up all sorts of harmful pathogens. Unless you have taken a tour of the farm and watched the farmer milk the animal before you bought the raw milk, you will have no clue if their barn is filthy or not, if the animals look healthy or not, if the farmer milks with shit on his hands or not, or if he milks into a clean, sterilized pail or a dirty bucket. Is the milk strained and cooled properly before you get it? Did it sit out in the barn for 3 hours with the barn cats drinking out of the bucket before being chilled? Did the goat step in the bucket during milking and the farmer needed to fill your order so he strained out the poop and hair and bottled it anyway? You have no way of knowing. I highly recommend anyone who is thinking of buying raw milk take a thorough tour of the farm and watch the milking process first hand. 

Another problem that raw milk presents to someone who does not live on the farm where it is grown, is that the off-farm buyers of the milk are not inoculated against the particular bacteria and viruses that are endemic to that farm. The people who live on the farm are exposed daily to the microbes of that location. They have close contact with the animals, thus they are somewhat immune to whatever bacteria and viruses the animals naturally carry around. They are also immune to what the soil of the land carries. This is very important because someone who is not from that farm could be sensitive to something that the farmer is immune to. I have heard of people getting very sick from drinking raw milk when traveling. They had not been exposed to the normal microbial fauna of that region so they became ill when they drank milk which contained normally non-pathogenic stuff. The farmer had never been sick but his guests wound up going to the hospital. 

If you are looking into switching from purchasing store-bought, pasteurized milk to farm bought raw milk, be careful! Raw milk is not a magical panacea for all your ills. In fact it can just flat out make you very ill.

My Big Problem With Miniature Animals

I am not a big fan of miniature animals. While I am afraid of a 1600 lb. cow running towards me, I would hesitate to trade that full-sized cow in for a “lowline” or miniature version. The same goes for any miniaturized animals. Small is cute, I get it. But small isn’t always the best. Miniaturizing full-sized animals comes with major costs. 

One problem I have with miniaturizing animals is that small-size can come with big health problems. Miniature horses are prone to have dwarf foals. Dwarfism in horses is just as detrimental to the animal’s health and longevity as dwarfism in humans. There are also other genetic defects seen in miniatures that aren’t seen in full-sized animals. I am not sure if this is a result of the miniaturization or because many smaller sized animals are bred specifically for the pet market where good production genetics can get thrown out the window. 

 Another health problem seen in miniature animals is the inability to produce viable offspring without huge pregnancy complications. Sometimes the females are so small that they aren’t physiologically capable of having babies. Sure, they can get pregnant, but those babies may not be able to get out of mom. This is especially a problem when the miniature female is bred to a larger or full-sized male. The babies can be too big to be born successfully. Some people know that you should never, ever breed a larger male to a smaller female, but some people do not know this (again, this is a rampant issue in the pet market). 

A big problem I personally have with miniaturizing full-sized livestock is that you tend to trade in production ability for small size. To me, this is not a fair trade-off. Why would I raise and feed a mini-cow for two years and get half of the meat off of it than I would a full-sized one? I don’t see the benefit. Either way, it’s still a cow. Either way, you still have to feed it and care for it as if it were a regular cow. It may eat a little less, but it still shits just as much! 

The worst problem in my mind with miniature livestock is the tendency people have to cross breed them with full-sized animals. They think by crossing a Nigerian Dwarf dairy goat with a Nubian dairy goat they are going to get a smaller goat that produces lots of milk. Actually the opposite usually holds true – they get a large-ish goat that produces a crappy amount of milk. And if you cross a Nubian with a lovely roman nose and long ears to a Nigerian with a straight nose and straight ears, you wind up with a really ugly goat with a big nose and stupid looking ears. I really have no love in my heart for so called “mini-Nubians”, can’t you tell?! The same problem works with mini-cows mixed with full-sized. You don’t get a ¾ sized cow, you just get a big cow with teeny, short legs. Yuck. And don’t give me that BS that it is an “F1 hybrid” and that is why it’s as fugly as a port-o-potty. I am not buying it! 

What I really don’t get is that mini-animals are usually more expensive than their full-sized counterparts. Why would I pay twice as much for half as much animal?? It doesn’t make sense. A correlation to this price swap is that some people sell their stunted animals as “minis”. If a goat is underweight and stunted, it’s not a mini, no matter how small it is. IT’S A RUNT! Unless you actually bred one of its parents to an actual mini, it is never going to be a real mini. Sometimes I even see people sell immature full-sized animals as adult minis. They say that the rabbit is a Netherland Dwarf adult when it is actually a baby Californian. Boy, won’t the new owners be surprised when their “Dwarf” grows up to be 20 lbs! 

I do believe that miniature animals that are an actual breed are okay. If they evolved naturally over millions of years to be smaller in size, that’s fine. Shetland ponies and purebred Nigerian Dwarf goats are okay. They evolved to be that size and no humans purposefully bred them to be small. It’s when humans get their hands in the mix that miniaturization becomes a problem. Some animals are meant to be full-size. Some are meant to be smaller. Let’s just leave them be the size they evolved to be.

A Challenge From My Sister

My sister over at unbrave girl has issued a challenge to everyone to stop being self-hating and snarky about their bodies. She's sick and tired of being sick and tired of her own body. I can totally sympathize with her. You see, since she and I share the same parents, we also share the same genes for body problems. While she amazingly dodged the "Kimble-family-endocrine-disorder" gene (I did not, I have Grave's disease), we both have the "Thelen-family-overweight" gene. This gene is a dominant one and very strong in its expression. It's not the typical fat gene where you get fat if you sit on your butt and eat a lot, but get thin if you exercise and eat less. Nope. It's not like that. It's the gene where you get fat and stay fat regardless of eating nothing but salads and air, and you stay fat even though you run 5K marathons for fun and can carry 75 lbs. of goat feed on one shoulder. It's that kind of fat gene. The stubborn kind.

Yay... Fat genes....

I have been having trouble with my weight since... birth. I don't ever remember being under 180 lbs. at all until college. I was that big kid in grade school who looked like she was held back a few grades because I towered over the boys and had to buy my clothes in the women's department starting in 5th grade. I did lose a few pounds during college by being poor and living off of Triscuits and grape soda while working at a job that was a 1 mile walk uphill to get to. Even then my lowest weight was 172 lbs.

This is me.

For the last four years I have been stalled at 210 lbs. I recently resurrected the good ol' food journal and saw that while I hadn't gained any weight since 2010 (F--- yeah!), I also haven't lost any (WTF?!). I even had a baby between then and now. I only gained 10 lbs. during pregnancy and pretty much dumped that out on the day the kid was born. That's how stubborn my fat gene is. My weight didn't even move during pregnancy -- how many people can say that!? My body is apparently VERY comfortable at 210.

This is me at 210 lbs.

And so in conclusion, I accept my sister's challenge to stop being mean to my body by thinking ill of it. But I raise a challenge of my own -- GET OFF THE 210 MARK! (And not in the heavier way!). The time is now. I need to work with what I have and who I am to be healthier and lose some weight. I don't want to be over 200 lbs. any more. It's not good for me. I don't care if I still have bags under my eyes or if I still have giant flabby upper arms or if I still can't wear shorts because of my "thees" (like cankles, but where you thigh ends below your knee) -----that is all body-snark and it ends TODAY!--- I really just want to get that scale to move. It's my personal challenge to myself*. I am going to stop bashing my body and I am also going to try to improve it. I am going to work with it, not against it.

*Well, not so personal since I am currently in the "Biggest Loser" contest being held where I work. It started on May 31st and runs through August 31st.

Writing the Perfect Craigslist Ad

I have always had pretty good luck with selling goats on Craigslist. There are a couple of things that help when writing an ad to post:

1. Be descriptive - I am always leary of an ad that simply says "purebread nanny goat for sale". I kind of get the feeling that maybe the seller isn't very up to date on their goat information. I worry about the quality of animal that comes from an ad with such a lack of description. If the seller didn't have time to write a little bit more about the animal in order to sell it, did they have time at all to care for it? I find it always makes a goat more appealing if the ad has a good description of the animal. Things like age, exact breed, registration, disease status, general health, and any breeding/kidding info are always helpful.

2. Don't be too descriptive - While I like to get a good snapshot of the animal from the information in the ad, I get a little weirded out if the ad is too descriptive. A Craigslist ad is not the place for a thesis on proper goat management. A super long ad makes me feel that perhaps the seller will be very picky about who they are selling to and give you the third degree if you call.

3. Use good pictures - Nothing hurts an ad more than a blurry, dark cellphone picture. If you don't have a good, in focus picture of the animal to post, don't post a picture! Take a good picture with proper lighting of the whole animal. Also be sure to crop it so it only shows the animal for sale. Try to never take a picture in the barn because the barn usually has poor lighting and a dirty barn is a terrible background to use. Take the picture outside during the day with someone holding the animal or at least the animal looking at the camera (no butt shots please!).

4. Tell the truth - Be sure to give a reason why you are selling the animal. It helps to give a small hint of why you are not keeping it.

5. Don't tell the whole truth - You can omit some stuff and save it for after the buyer contacts you. If the goat is a jerk and doesn't like to be milked then maybe it's best to just say in the ad that it "would make a good companion animal".

6. Don't harass the buyers - It's not necessary to put in the ad that it needs to go to a "good home only". That is pretty much implied, duh. Also never say "Be sure to put "blah blah blah" in the subject so I know it isn't spam". You are going to get spam anyways so just freaking get over it!

7. The Price Is Right! - Research what the going price is for a similar animal in your area. Ask around, look at similar ads, keep your ear to the ground. It does no good to ask $400 if the going rate is $100. You aren't going to be able to sell the animal for $400 EVER. Get. Over. It. And lower your price.

8. Don't repost or renew the ad without changing it - I surf Craigslist often so I know when I have seen the same ad 5 weeks in a row. If you haven't had any bites on an ad in 3 weeks, change something and try posting again. Don't repost every day! Also if you animal isn't selling you may need to look closely at the main deciding factor in your ad ---- THE PRICE! Lots of times I see the same ad over and over and think to myself, "Should I email them and let them know that the reason they haven't sold the goat is because they are asking a ridiculous amount for that animal?".

9. Know your audience - Craigslist is a great place to dump an animal quickly and cheaply. It's not the place for a fancy animal that would only be in the price range of very high-end buyers. It's fine to post a high quality (AKA: high price) animal once to see if anyone bites. But don't be shocked if no one goes for it. If you have a really fancy animal for sale then you will need to branch out from Craigslist and go to the place where more expensive buyers will be looking. There's lots of special groups on Facebook and other place on the internet for selling specialty animals.

10. Be picky about your buyers - You don't have to sell your goat to anyone. Create a relationship with the buyer and make sure they are someone you feel comfortable with. Ask them questions and give them lots of information on the animal they are looking to buy. Don't be afraid to turn someone down. They will get over it.

CAE is a real disease!

I am always shocked when I hear people talk about how Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis (CAE) isn't a big deal. Even though they have never tested, they claim that their goats "look healthy" and have never had a problem and that they must be "CAE-free". I'm sorry, but as soon as I hear "CAE-free" I tend to shudder with horror. I really don't believe there is such a thing. Your goats are either CAE negative or they are positive. They can never be truly "free" of it. If you have never tested your herd or you don't do CAE prevention, then you have no right to claim that your herd is "CAE-free".

One of the current estimates on prevalence of CAE infection in the goat world is that up to 80% of goats carry and transmit the virus to others. I have argued with people before about how they don't believe this number because they feel it is too high. They insist that since they test or use prevention and since they know others who do too, that the general population is also aware of the disease and takes action against it. I don't believe that at all. Just talk to any random goat owner and about half of them will go "Huh?" when you mention CAE. They don't know what it is and have never heard of it. You can bet hard cash that their goats are positive. The other half of goat owners will give you the "my goats look healthy so they don't have CAE" line when you question them about it. You can also bet hard cash that all their animals are positive. Don't even bother asking a meat goat breeder about CAE. I have yet to find anyone with Boers or Kikos who regularly tests. Yep, get your wallet out again -- all of their goats are positive too. So if you add the uninformed, the noobs, and the meat goat producers into the equation, you are probably approaching the 80% mark pretty quickly. 

CAE is a highly subclinical disease which means that only 10% of the animals who carry and transmit the virus will actually show the "classical" symptoms -- ie: swollen knees, hard udders at freshening, or encephalitis. Unfortunately these symptoms often get confused with other common goat ailments so the actual percentage of goats who express direct CAE-related problems may be much higher than 10%. Hard udders at freshening often go undocumented in the meat breeds or get confused with other udder related maladies in the dairy breeds. The same is true for encephalitis. There are several goat diseases that cause sudden paralysis and death, so usually when presented with those symptoms, CAE is at the bottom of the diagnostic list.

Do keep in mind that CAE doesn't only cause those classic symptoms. CAE is an immunodeficient virus that suppresses the goat's immune system and leaves them open to serious complications due to other infections and deficiencies. CAE is often called "Goat AIDS" for good reason. Rarely to people with HIV/AIDS actually die directly from that virus. It's the other diseases, like TB, that ultimately kill a person with the HIV virus because their immune system was compromised by HIV before they got TB. A normal, healthy adult can fight off a TB infection, but someone with HIV is at a huge disadvantage. The same is true for a goat with CAE. Most goats that are CAE negative will be healthier in general than their immunocompromised CAE positive counterparts.

One of the big problems with people and understanding CAE is that the current test for CAE only looks for the antibodies to the virus. This is not a fool-proof test by any means because many times a goat can carry the CAE virus and transmit it but she may not carry the antibodies to it. She may test negative but actually be infected with the virus. Some goats do not produce antibodies normally due to a preexisting immune system dysfunction and some goats have delayed antibody production for one reason or the other. There can also be false positives if the goat was exposed to the antibodies. They can carry the antibodies but not the virus, so technically they are not infected but they will test positive. Do keep in mind though, that false negatives and false positives are extremely rare!  Unfortunately this kind of confusion about the accuracy of the testing causes people to proclaim that the test is completely invalid and a waste of time. They will swear up and down that since the test isn't fool-proof that it must be totally wrong, thus they stopped testing and worrying about CAE.

Another big problem that people have with CAE is that prevention and testing is a huge pain in the ass. If you never test and you assume that your goats are healthy, then you never have to work very hard to claim they are "CAE free". You can just sit in the dark and let your infected goats spread the virus all around to their kids and their kids' kids, and sell those kids to people who also don't have a clue, and everything is just peachy. You can skip the annual testing, you can skip the bottle feeding of pasteurized milk, and you can skip having to change your herd management to eradicate the virus. Being ignorant is so much easier than being informed!

So what is the goat owner to do? TEST, TEST, TEST! It's cheap and it's easy -- about $4 per goat through the mail. Just take a blood sample (which is super easy to do -- no veterinary needed!), and pop it in the mail with payment. Then in about 5 days you will get an email with the test results. If your goats are positive then the hard work begins. You will have to evaluate your herd management and make changes so any new goats you produce are negative. Some goats can live a long time with the infection and continue to produce kids so it isn't necessary to eradicate your positive animals. BUT it is necessary that you take the appropriate steps to be responsible and not spread the virus to new goats.

If all goat owners work together to test their goats and then manage them properly, it is possible to bring that 80% number down to 50% or 20% or even 0%!

Well, I should've known better....

I should've known better when my friend asked if I wanted to buy some fancy breed chickens from a friend of hers. It was a pair -- a rooster and a hen. That right there should have stopped me. I don't need a rooster. I have a rooster. A good rooster. Then she said the rooster has a big straight comb. There's another tip-off that this was a bad idea. I can't keep roosters with big combs because they get frostbite in the winter. My first rooster had a big comb and it froze off every winter, no matter what I did to try to keep it warm. Short of knitting him a little hat, there wasn't anything I could do. I swore I wasn't going to get another big combed chicken again.

In spite of these two big problems, I picked up the chickens on Saturday. I paid a good deal of money for them which really should have stopped me right there. I am not much of a chicken farmer so spending money on chickens for me is kind of a waste. It doesn't really matter what kind of fancy breed they are, I am not up to the caliber of chicken person to really be spending anything on a bird. Well, against my reservations, I paid the lady and took the birds home.

Once home, I should have known to clip their wings. Both of them looked very game-bird-ish and from my experience any light breed, game type birds won't stay in my fencing. They tend to be flighty and fly right over my 5' chicken fence. I decided to wait and see if they would be like that, rather than taking my own advice and just clipping them. I also should have known that they would need a few days of acclimation being locked up with my chickens before being allowed to free-range it in the coop. They just moved here and don't know the neighborhood so a few days in confinement would be ideal. Well, yesterday I got lazy and rather than cleaning their cage, I let them out with the rest of the birds.

Well, you can probably guess what happened next.... When I did chores this morning the new hen was gone and the rooster was sitting forlornly at the back of the chicken run. I looked around and didn't find her anywhere. I am hoping she is just in the woods and will come back before being eaten by a fox. Of course, if she does come back, I have no idea how to catch her. Short of getting lucky and surprising her, I can't imagine being able to get a hold of her.

Well, I should've known better.....