Cirrhosis_of_Liver
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2024
Vague but not too vague background on me: I run a meat goat farm in Central Texas with hundreds of animals. I've been at this for over a decade. I am well past the Dunning Kruger stage. I know a fair bit, and I am happy to give advice, but I know well that there's a lot I don't know, and I'm sure other people have information and perspectives that can be valuable.
I see lots of stuff on youtube about "don't homestead with goats, they're too hard," and IRL I've had many a cowboy tell me "a goat is just an animal looking for a place to die." I believe you may file that under "posting their Ls."
In reality, goats are hardy, self-sufficient, productive animals, if you realize they're not minicows. There *IS* a lot to learn, but smart people can learn a lot before they haul off and buy 100 head of Fullblood Noble Boers and leave them to die on a 10 acre bermuda pasture with no trees.
I could write a book about what goats need, but thankfully, there's already books available. I recommend the Storey Guide to Raising Meat goats, a very good if by now somewhat dated resource. I just want to knock off some bullet points that I always hammer home with customers who are new to goats.
1. FAMACHA. Learn it. Go to the class and get the card. Do it all the time. Eventually you'll just *know* what the inside of a goat's eyelid should look like. It is a VITAL skill.
2. Minerals. Your forage may be lacking this, that, or another thing goats need. Wild Ibex roamed very widely, such that they'd be bound to come across all their micronutrients. Your "five acres and freedom" homestead probably isn't perfectly balanced to perfectly support goats. That's not an insult or anything. That's how geology do. So buy goat mineral supplement. Yes, it's worth it to get goat mineral supplement, and not just a salt lick for cattle. In my own experience, goats like loose mineral that they can eat like salty pixie stix, but you might have good results with a block. Just don't cheap out, that's like not getting an oil change to save money. It's not nearly as big an expenditure as it feels like.
3. Parasites. Goats have an incredible array of parasites to worry about, not that they do, and luckily, you shouldn't have to think too hard. Make a control policy, follow it, observe, and RECORD YOUR OBSERVATIONS. I'll break them into general classes based on what you do about them.
3a) Worms. Nematodes, Cestodes, Trematodes. Annelids not so much.
Your Big Bad in most of the Southern US or Australia is going to be Haemonchus contortus, the barberpole worm, a.k.a. motherfucker son of a bitch fuck you die why won't you diieeeee!! The biggest worry is dewormer resistance. Some people say to rotate dewormers. I prefer to shotgun approach and deworm sick goats with "all three," moxidectin, levamisole, and albendazole. I think either approach is legitimate.
How do you know which goats are sick from barberpole worms? FAMACHA! Learn it. Go to the class from your extension agent. Get the card. Do it all the time. This is THE lesson I want to hammer into your head. Observe, record, ACT. None of this waytansea bullshit. Goats are small animals that go down fast. They've got water cooled Rolls Royce engines. When a goat is sick, you have to do something right away. Uh. Anyway. Famacha. It's critical.
A question I get a lot, and an answer. Is there something you can spray on the pasture to kill Haemonchus? Yes, napalm. Otherwise, reducing worm load (all types of parasitic worms) is about pasture rotation, culling susceptible stock, and avoiding dewormer resistance.
EDIT: Take care with levamisole. It can be touchy stuff. Too much can put a goat into shock or even kill her. Getting good weights allows you to get gokd doses. If you can't weigh or estimate accurately, maybe leave it on the shelf. Moxidectin and Albendazole are much less dangerous.
One sure way to waste your money and make your goats sick is to buy those stupid fenbendazole pellets. Fenbendazole is good for a lot of veterinary applications, but barberpole worms in the US all consider it a spice. Worse, with pellets, unless you're measuring a portion out to an individual goat, you really can't control dosage. Worse still, pellets don't release the drugs they contain all at once. A "quick shock" actually matters. It's not hard to dose goats with a drench syringe. I've done it thousands of times. Less these days, because I've had a lot of success with prevention and breeding towards more immune stock. But starting out, it's likely to be THE problem, not just a large concern as it is for me on my farm now.
Other nematodes: at least in Texas, aside from Nematodirus and Brown Stomach worm, they won't be as much of a concern. There's strongyles, too. These all live in the digestive system and can cause diarrhea, loss of thrift, and depression. Treatment for these is the same as with barberpole, but you won't know about them from famacha, because haemonchus drinks blood. Seriously fuck that organism. I'm not saying don't concern yourself about these others, but controlling haemonchus controls them, and haemonchus kills much more quickly.
Cestodes: I've been told by nunerous vets that tapeworms don't matter in goats. In my experience, they do matter. When I see little "rice seeds" aka proglottids in manure, I give a dose of albendazole. Albendazole, by the way, can be more.effective with multiple doses. That's another way to prevent dewormer resistance if you have the time. Anyway. "White wormers" are what you need for tapeworms. Levamisole and moxidectin won't phase them. Fenbendazole I think works fine on tapeworms, but I don't bother keeping it on hand since it's ineffectual against haemonchus. Ivermectin will keep the tapeworms from getting covid, Donald Trump said so.
Trematodes: I've never had a problem with them, but they're super horrifying. Flukes have very convoluted life cycles, but in the definitive host (the goat) they swim around through the liver or lungs like a razor blade made of foreskin. If you have lots of marshy land, you might have a problem with these. If anybody reads this stream of consciousness and has first hand experience, please share.
3b) Protozoans. Eimeria (coccidia) and Cryptosporidia. I've not had to deal with crypto, thank fuck. It can be really bad, and it's zoonotic, so yaaaay. Coccidia is a kid killer. Mucking out pens before kidding, and a 3, 6, and 9 week doses of Toltrazuril for the little ones is my plan for this year. Some people like putting corid in their water. Corid is super inexpensive, so at least take that step. I haven't got this licked yet. Very much open to ideas. Tolt is more expensive, but when you consider how much weight the goats otherwise don't gain, I think it's a bargain. It's more labor intensive, of course.
3c) Ectoparasites. Flies, ticks, lice. Flies suck. There's many kinds, but doing your best to clean up areas they like to breed, and giving the goats a dose of pour on insecticide when they get really obnoxious is really all I have to offer. Ticks are fucking awful and I hate them. They also like to hang out in exactly the kind of brushy areas goats love best. If you've got time to pull them out with tweezers, that might help. Don't burn them to make them drop off. Ticks vomit when stressed. They vomit tick puke into your goat. Goat blood out is better than tick puke in. I hate ticks so much, but I have never lost a goat to them. Coccidia, pneumonia, haemonchus, and milk fever have been my nemeses.
So let me stop this stream of consciousness with some good news. Lice. Lice are highly species-specific, and spend their entire life cycle on the host. Treat your entire herd with pour on insecticide labeled for lice. Two to three weeks later, do it again. Now, if you follow good biosecurity and quarantine new goats for two weeks with treatment, you should not see them again. Lice aren't a big issue with meat goats, but they are a soluble one.
And in farming, any time you can actually fix something and not just.patch it up for a few months, that's a wonderful feeling
Please, goat people and caprine-curious, let us talk about these wonderful barbecuable friends.
I see lots of stuff on youtube about "don't homestead with goats, they're too hard," and IRL I've had many a cowboy tell me "a goat is just an animal looking for a place to die." I believe you may file that under "posting their Ls."
In reality, goats are hardy, self-sufficient, productive animals, if you realize they're not minicows. There *IS* a lot to learn, but smart people can learn a lot before they haul off and buy 100 head of Fullblood Noble Boers and leave them to die on a 10 acre bermuda pasture with no trees.
I could write a book about what goats need, but thankfully, there's already books available. I recommend the Storey Guide to Raising Meat goats, a very good if by now somewhat dated resource. I just want to knock off some bullet points that I always hammer home with customers who are new to goats.
1. FAMACHA. Learn it. Go to the class and get the card. Do it all the time. Eventually you'll just *know* what the inside of a goat's eyelid should look like. It is a VITAL skill.
2. Minerals. Your forage may be lacking this, that, or another thing goats need. Wild Ibex roamed very widely, such that they'd be bound to come across all their micronutrients. Your "five acres and freedom" homestead probably isn't perfectly balanced to perfectly support goats. That's not an insult or anything. That's how geology do. So buy goat mineral supplement. Yes, it's worth it to get goat mineral supplement, and not just a salt lick for cattle. In my own experience, goats like loose mineral that they can eat like salty pixie stix, but you might have good results with a block. Just don't cheap out, that's like not getting an oil change to save money. It's not nearly as big an expenditure as it feels like.
3. Parasites. Goats have an incredible array of parasites to worry about, not that they do, and luckily, you shouldn't have to think too hard. Make a control policy, follow it, observe, and RECORD YOUR OBSERVATIONS. I'll break them into general classes based on what you do about them.
3a) Worms. Nematodes, Cestodes, Trematodes. Annelids not so much.
Your Big Bad in most of the Southern US or Australia is going to be Haemonchus contortus, the barberpole worm, a.k.a. motherfucker son of a bitch fuck you die why won't you diieeeee!! The biggest worry is dewormer resistance. Some people say to rotate dewormers. I prefer to shotgun approach and deworm sick goats with "all three," moxidectin, levamisole, and albendazole. I think either approach is legitimate.
How do you know which goats are sick from barberpole worms? FAMACHA! Learn it. Go to the class from your extension agent. Get the card. Do it all the time. This is THE lesson I want to hammer into your head. Observe, record, ACT. None of this waytansea bullshit. Goats are small animals that go down fast. They've got water cooled Rolls Royce engines. When a goat is sick, you have to do something right away. Uh. Anyway. Famacha. It's critical.
A question I get a lot, and an answer. Is there something you can spray on the pasture to kill Haemonchus? Yes, napalm. Otherwise, reducing worm load (all types of parasitic worms) is about pasture rotation, culling susceptible stock, and avoiding dewormer resistance.
EDIT: Take care with levamisole. It can be touchy stuff. Too much can put a goat into shock or even kill her. Getting good weights allows you to get gokd doses. If you can't weigh or estimate accurately, maybe leave it on the shelf. Moxidectin and Albendazole are much less dangerous.
One sure way to waste your money and make your goats sick is to buy those stupid fenbendazole pellets. Fenbendazole is good for a lot of veterinary applications, but barberpole worms in the US all consider it a spice. Worse, with pellets, unless you're measuring a portion out to an individual goat, you really can't control dosage. Worse still, pellets don't release the drugs they contain all at once. A "quick shock" actually matters. It's not hard to dose goats with a drench syringe. I've done it thousands of times. Less these days, because I've had a lot of success with prevention and breeding towards more immune stock. But starting out, it's likely to be THE problem, not just a large concern as it is for me on my farm now.
Other nematodes: at least in Texas, aside from Nematodirus and Brown Stomach worm, they won't be as much of a concern. There's strongyles, too. These all live in the digestive system and can cause diarrhea, loss of thrift, and depression. Treatment for these is the same as with barberpole, but you won't know about them from famacha, because haemonchus drinks blood. Seriously fuck that organism. I'm not saying don't concern yourself about these others, but controlling haemonchus controls them, and haemonchus kills much more quickly.
Cestodes: I've been told by nunerous vets that tapeworms don't matter in goats. In my experience, they do matter. When I see little "rice seeds" aka proglottids in manure, I give a dose of albendazole. Albendazole, by the way, can be more.effective with multiple doses. That's another way to prevent dewormer resistance if you have the time. Anyway. "White wormers" are what you need for tapeworms. Levamisole and moxidectin won't phase them. Fenbendazole I think works fine on tapeworms, but I don't bother keeping it on hand since it's ineffectual against haemonchus. Ivermectin will keep the tapeworms from getting covid, Donald Trump said so.
Trematodes: I've never had a problem with them, but they're super horrifying. Flukes have very convoluted life cycles, but in the definitive host (the goat) they swim around through the liver or lungs like a razor blade made of foreskin. If you have lots of marshy land, you might have a problem with these. If anybody reads this stream of consciousness and has first hand experience, please share.
3b) Protozoans. Eimeria (coccidia) and Cryptosporidia. I've not had to deal with crypto, thank fuck. It can be really bad, and it's zoonotic, so yaaaay. Coccidia is a kid killer. Mucking out pens before kidding, and a 3, 6, and 9 week doses of Toltrazuril for the little ones is my plan for this year. Some people like putting corid in their water. Corid is super inexpensive, so at least take that step. I haven't got this licked yet. Very much open to ideas. Tolt is more expensive, but when you consider how much weight the goats otherwise don't gain, I think it's a bargain. It's more labor intensive, of course.
3c) Ectoparasites. Flies, ticks, lice. Flies suck. There's many kinds, but doing your best to clean up areas they like to breed, and giving the goats a dose of pour on insecticide when they get really obnoxious is really all I have to offer. Ticks are fucking awful and I hate them. They also like to hang out in exactly the kind of brushy areas goats love best. If you've got time to pull them out with tweezers, that might help. Don't burn them to make them drop off. Ticks vomit when stressed. They vomit tick puke into your goat. Goat blood out is better than tick puke in. I hate ticks so much, but I have never lost a goat to them. Coccidia, pneumonia, haemonchus, and milk fever have been my nemeses.
So let me stop this stream of consciousness with some good news. Lice. Lice are highly species-specific, and spend their entire life cycle on the host. Treat your entire herd with pour on insecticide labeled for lice. Two to three weeks later, do it again. Now, if you follow good biosecurity and quarantine new goats for two weeks with treatment, you should not see them again. Lice aren't a big issue with meat goats, but they are a soluble one.
And in farming, any time you can actually fix something and not just.patch it up for a few months, that's a wonderful feeling
Please, goat people and caprine-curious, let us talk about these wonderful barbecuable friends.
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