Purebred Oberhasli in SW Ohio

I've been remiss about blogging. Just never seem to get to it. However, I'll try harder to post and put pictures up.

Last August I shipped in 8 purebred Oberhasli kids from Texas. Many thanks to Laura Rivard. She wants pictures but I've been remiss there, also. I promise to try to get those up soon. I love pictures, too.

These does are yearlings now and each and every one of them is a good looking and healthy young doe. Of course, I have my favorites. Here are the names in case you want to look them up:

Rivard-Farm Zorro's Cashew
Rivard-Farm Lucious Lilly [polled]
Rivard-Farm Wonder Woman
Rivard-Farm Sapphire's Summer [twin to next]
Rivard-Farm Star Sapphire
Rivard-Farm Lime-x Artemis
Rivard-Farm Zorro's Victoria
Rivard-Farm Limex Sweet Dreams

Purebred [PB] Oberhasli are descendents of the Pence Importation of Oberhasli in the '30s.

I have made a big effort to get PB semen in the tank to use. Some of these are:

Destiny Farm Duncan
Y-Knot Time to Dance
Commancheland Rewind
Meadowsong Rewind Yuri
Meadowsong Levi Amos

I'll post it if I get any good AIs settled. If you have any information at all about these does or bucks, I'd love to chat.

Information about American Oberhasli in the herd will be in the next post.

Oberhasli Buck Roll Call 2010-2011

First up, the American Oberhasli buck: *B Heaven's HOllow Pistol Pete. This is Pete's third breeding season with us.

http://www.adgagenetics.org/GoatDetail.aspx?RegNumber=B001436090

Shotsi classified 92EEEE and was the Reserve National Champion in 2008 and National Grand Champion in 2009. She has made the top ten in the past and is slated to make it again in 2010. Shotsi's 2010 buck has been selected for the 2010 Spotlight Sale. This would be full brother to Pete.

We are all pleased with first kids out of Pete. Have no milker yet to show but soon.

2. Robin-Wood Bunda Big Cinsation.

http://www.adgagenetics.org/GoatDetail.aspx?RegNumber=B001532120

"Runaway" is a beautiful, growthy, balanced young American buck. He is the result of an AI breeding to the great *B White-Haven Bundaberg, who happens to be sire to Shotsi as well.

3: The Lindisfarme Red Apache, pending.

This young buck is a Purebred which we purchased to breed to our young Purebred Oberhasli does when they are big enough.

His sire is: Milk-n-More PG Red Apache, owned by Arden Ward.
His dam is: Milk-n-More Miss Bonetti.

We have some other American homebred bucks here:
Lindisfarme Life Insurance, Ludwigs Mohawk Vada's Hansel X Lindisfarm Zeus Annette.
Lindisfarme Oscar, Ludwigs Mohawk Vada's Hansel X Squaw*Mountain Raspberry
Lindisfarme Pete's ...., Heaven's Hollow Pistol Pete X Lindisfarme Hansel's Trouble

All these bucks will be collected and semen available.





S:

Cabbage Leaves! Get out of my way!!

Yes, my small herd of purebred and American Oberhasli goats are getting cabbage leaves and some cull cabbage heads again, just like every year. People are sometimes surprised how much they love them and how many they eat. My goats can hear the old farm truck putting up the road and run to the fence in anticipation. The horses are eating their share as well. All four of the horses are cabbage eaters. My granddaughter swears that the horses hooves are improved due to the cabbage leaves.

While the goats prefer the crunchy leaves, the horses eat the heads like big old apples. And speaking of apples, they are all getting apples as well this time of year. The pen of purebred kids has had their cabbage leaves thrown in but aren't really all that crazy about them. They nibble, but really haven't gotten enthusiastic yet.

So I have a routine that I have evolved. I fill up the feeders with hay. Then I thrown in cabbage leaves or let them go to the pile. Then I give them their grain a couple hours later.

Pumpkins will be coming soon, girls.

Catch up!

I have a new junior herd sire. He is a son of *B White Haven Bundaberg and out of a doe that is linebred on Willow Run Sir Wil Hassida, 3X national champion, 92EEEE and top ten. Her picture is here on the blog. Haven't bred him to any does yet but he's eager to get the chance. He's available for outside breedings. Just let me know.

Last weekend we shipped in 8 purebred Oberhasli doe kids from Rivards Farm in Texas. Along with them came a polled PB buck kid. So I'm in the PB Oberhasli ranks now. Still have the Americans but I'm sure excited about the purebreds. On the way back Bob stopped in Tenn and picked up another PB buck who is out of Milk-n-More lines. He's a big beautiful buck kid and if these little girls get busy and grow we'll hopefully get a few PB kids in the spring.

*B Heaven's Hollow Pistol Pete is scheduled for collection again in Oct. Then in December he will be collected again. Semen is for sale by contacting me any time. It will probably also be on Come to the Farm Auction for benefit of the OBA in late Oct.

*B Heaven's Hollow Stetson This is Pistol Pete's full brother, born in 2010. He's been selected to be in the Spotlight Sale at the ADGA national convention in October. Their dam Shotsi is milking very well and racking up a great lactation record for this year that will no doubt put her into the top 10 once again.

My friend Katie Morgan is out in California until December and is learning to collect and process semen for A.I. She'll be back in December and then we'll have a lot of practicing to do. I was chatting with Katie on Facebook and it came on the news that there was that huge explosion which leveled 50 houses and killed some people. Katie was not too far away from it. Terrible tragedy.

Well, let's see I think that's all the goat news.

Breeding Season or The Joy of Hormones

I have a pen of 9 sweet little 50# PB does. Right along side is a pen of 3 kid bucks. they're fighting and butting heads and mounting each other, blubbering at the girls. Then my big buck gets out and he's been blubbering around the little girls for 2 days. By that I mean, he was running around the pen on the outside, fighting with the little bucks in their pen throught the fencing and trying desperately to get to the girls. Knowing I was going to drag him back to his own barn, he wasn't about to let me catch him.

I go down yesterday to feed. Horror! Here's the 3 buck kids running amuck! the old buck was so upset and running around the outside, pushing the gate and sticking his head in. He just couldn't get over it. Just couldn't figure a way to get in.

The little girls are running around and around in the doe pen trying to get away from them. But there's no way to get away from 3 horny little bucks. One of the larger ones seems to be in heat but wasn't standing. And a couple of the other little girls had managed to get into the buck side. They were too spooked to let me catch them.

One person can only do so much.

I managed to get the three buck kids back on their side but the does wouldn't cooperate so I had to leave them in on the buck side, too. Poor things. They were jumped and mobbed and molested continuously until someone could go down and help me separate them.

Yeah, it's crazy all right. I don't really think anything got bred, but you know goats! It'll be over in a month or two. TG.

Pistol Pete semen is available at Naitonals.

Since Pete collected particularly well this winter and we are well stocked for 2009 semen we are offering it for sale with delivery to the National Show in Louisville. Please get in touch with me so I can reserve the straws you want. Pete's semen was used this past winter and he has AI kids on the ground.

I have two beautiful buck kids out of Pete. One buck's gr-dam was a once in a lifetime milker. See this blog for an old post about Cherokee. It was our first modern oberhasli and we didn't know that she was special. She milked almost 2 gal 2X a day and even in the fall was over a gallon. That certainly would have put her in the top ten and maybe even a bigger record. We weren't on test. The dau doesn't milk anyway near that but has a beautiful round udder and small teats. Her name is Lindisfarme Fred's Cherry. Price is $350.

Second buck is out of a taller doe. Again very prestigious pedigree. West coast genetics. Great udder, good milker. If I can get her into the show ring should be a winner. Price is $400.

Looking for some young stock to add to my herd. Let me know if you want to trade or sell.

Horses and Goats from YouTube

These aren't my horses or goats but I still enjoyed this. The goats are well behaved and very good looking. Enjoy.

Funny Song-I Kissed a Goat and I liked it

Glycerol to Replace some corn in rations

Some one asked about this very topic today on one of my lists. I can't find the post to reply personally. This research is on dairy cows, but since both dairy cows and goats are ruminants, I feel it is valuable information

************************
Feeding value of glycerol as a replacement for corn grain in rations fed to lactating dairy cows
S. S. Donkin*,1, S. L. Koser*, H. M. White*, P. H. Doane{dagger} and M. J. Cecava{dagger}

* Department of Animal Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907
{dagger} Archer Daniels Midland Company, Decatur, IL 62521

1 Corresponding author: sdonkin@purdue.edu

Growth of the corn ethanol industry has created a need for alternatives to corn for lactating dairy cows. Concurrent expansion in soydiesel production is expected to increase availability and promote favorable pricing for glycerol, a primary co-product material. The objective of this study was to determine the feeding value of glycerol as a replacement for corn in diets fed to lactating dairy cattle. Sixty lactating Holstein cows housed in individual tie stalls were fed a base diet consisting of corn silage, legume forages, corn grain, soyhulls, roasted soybeans, and protein supplements. After a 2-wk acclimation period, cows were fed diets containing 0, 5, 10, or 15% refined glycerol for 56 d. Cows were milked twice daily and weekly milk samples were collected. Milk production was 36.3, 37.2, 37.9, and 36.2 ± 1.6 kg/d and feed intake was 23.8, 24.6, 24.8, and 24.0 ± 0.7 kg/d for 0, 5, 10, and 15% glycerol treatments, respectively, and did not differ except for a modest reduction in feed intake during the first 7 d of the trial for 15% glycerol (treatment x time effect). Milk composition was not altered by glycerol feeding except that milk urea nitrogen was decreased from 12.5 ± 0.4 to 10.2 ± 0.4 mg/dL with glycerol addition. Cows fed diets containing 10 and 15% glycerol gained more weight than those fed rations containing 0 or 5% glycerol but body condition scores did not differ with glycerol feeding. The data indicate that glycerol is a suitable replacement for corn grain in diets for lactating dairy cattle and that it may be included in rations to a level of at least 15% of dry matter without adverse effects on milk production or milk composition.

http://jds.fass.org/cgi/content/abstract/92/10/5111?etoc

Key Words: glycerol • energy • biofuel

Oh No!! Don't Go into the Woods today!

Without tucking your pants in your socks, that is. Just what we need, another tick-bourne disease!


Researchers have found that up to 15% of ticks collected carry Anaplasma phagocytophilum part of the same group of bacterium that cause Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Fifty cases have been identified in humans in the past three years. Ticks in the western part of the United States, yes, the same ones who carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, the deer tick is the culprit.

There are antibody tests in place to diagnose Anaplasmosis.The antibiotic doxycycline is the treatment. Use precautions against tick bites that are in place for prevention of Lyme’s disease.


Read more at: http://www.examiner.com/x-7707-Infectious-Disease-Examiner~y2009m9d12-An-emerging-tickborne-disease-seen-in-parts-of-the-United-States-What-is-anaplasmosis?cid=examiner-email

SGCH Heaven's Hollow Shotsi 5*M 92EEEE is the 2009 ADGA National Champion

Congratulations to Shotsi and Jill. Last year Shotsi was Reserve Grand Champion in Louisville. This year she strutted her stuff and won the 2009 championship in heavy California competition.

We are thrilled with this because we have her 2008 son Heaven's Hollow Pistol Pete here. He is a fine young buck and sired five does for us this year. Looking forward to the next crop. He was collected last fall and we got 24 straws. We donated 5 straws to a charity auction where it went for over $200!! I have a waiting list for this year but if everything goes all right should have more semen to sell and/or donate this year.

Great Info on Goat Forage - Turnips, rye and alfalfa

This is another great article that Noah Goddard found and put on his lists. I got really excited when I read about sewing turnips for winter forage. I'm going to try it if I can find some turnip seeds. If you do this, please, please, please publish the results somewhere and let us know in a comment about your experience.

----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce E Anderson
To: HAYFORAGE@listserv.unl.edu
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 1:36 PM
Subject: Hay & Forage Minutes for July 20 through 24 -- turnips, alfalfa pasture, fly into corn

69. PLANT TURNIPS FOR WINTER GRAZING
Interested in a high quality pasture for late fall and winter grazing? Then plant turnips into wheat or oat stubble this year. Stay tuned for more.

You need all the grazing you can get this year. One way to get more grazing is to extend your grazing season into fall and winter using turnips. Turnips provide good grazing beginning in October and often lasts into the new year. Also, turnips are cheap to plant since seed can cost less than ten dollars per acre. And late July to early August is the time to plant turnips for fall grazing.
Seedbed preparation and planting can be done several ways. Some turnip growers work soil like a fully prepared alfalfa seedbed. Others heavily disk their ground, but leave it fairly rough before broadcasting seed. And a few growers spray glyphosate or Gramoxone on wheat or oat stubble to kill weeds and then plant no-till.
Whatever method you choose, good early weed control is essential. Turnips do poorly if weeds get ahead of them, but once started, turnips compete very well. Since no herbicides are labeled for turnips, weeds must be controlled either by tillage or by using contact herbicides like glyphosate or Gramoxone before planting. Then plant quickly to get the turnips off and running.
Plant only 2 to 4 pounds of turnip seed per acre. Turnip seed is very small, so barely cover it. If you drill your seed, just scratch the surface with your openers. Simply broadcasting seed onto tilled soils works well for many growers, especially on rough seedbeds where rainfall or irrigation washes soil onto the seeds for soil coverage.
Then wait. With a few timely rains you will have excellent green feed for late October, November, and December.

70. ALFALFA FOR SUMMER PASTURE
When pastures are short and low quality during summer, what can you graze to maintain animal performance? Maybe alfalfa is your answer. Stick around.

Most pastures have difficulty providing abundant, high quality grazing throughout the summer, regardless of whether they are drought stressed or not. Yearlings and calves can really use better pasture at this time. Both drought-stunted alfalfa and well-growing alfalfa might fill that role of a better quality temporary pasture.
But, how do you get started and how do you avoid problems with bloat? Begin by dividing fields so animals graze no longer than 5 days at a time on any one area. One rule of thumb is that one ton of standing alfalfa hay will provide about 45 cow days of grazing. If you estimate your alfalfa would yield one ton of hay if you cut it right now, then one acre should feed 45 cows for one day. And if possible, limit the size of paddocks to 10 acres or less to get more uniform grazing. After grazing a paddock, plan grazing and haying so at least 35 days of regrowth will occur before harvesting the same area again.
To reduce bloat, begin grazing alfalfa after it begins to bloom. Short, drought-stunted, yet blooming alfalfa should be pretty safe. Also, be sure animals are full before first turning onto alfalfa and never let animals get hungry. In addition, begin grazing mid-afternoon and do not turn them onto fresh alfalfa that is moist with dew, rain, or irrigation. Yearlings tend to bloat less than cows, but feeding supplements like poloxalene, rumensin, and oxytetracycline can help reduce bloat for all classes of cattle.
These precautions and management practices can help you use alfalfa for pasture and overcome the late summer pasture slump.

71. FLYING TURNIPS OR RYE INTO CORN
Crop residues like corn stalks provide good winter feed. Adding turnips or cereal rye to them can sometimes make them even better. Stay tuned for tips and risks.

Corn stalks are one of the better and least expensive winter feeds we have. But once cattle finish eating the grain and husks, what remains isn’t all that good.
Some growers have improved both the amount and quality of corn stalk grazing by flying turnip or rye seed onto standing corn in early August. When successful, turnip or rye plants provide more grazing days and extra protein when corn stalks become poor quality.
Let me emphasize the words ‘when successful’. It’s not all that easy to get a good stand of either turnips or rye to become productive in a growing corn field.
Several factors limit success rates. Moisture easily can be limiting in dryland corn, but also can be difficult to manage in surface irrigated fields. Even under pivots, providing water for rye or turnips without slowing corn harvest takes planning.
Another problem is the density of the corn canopy. Irrigated fields can be especially thick, acting like weeds to prevent adequate light from reaching new seedlings. Chopping corn for silage or combining high moisture grain early helps.
And speaking of weeds, herbicide carryover also causes problems. Turnips are very sensitive, but rye also is affected.
Lastly is wheel traffic at harvest. Turnips are damaged more than rye, but both lose stand if fields get muddy.
I do like improving corn stalks with rye or turnips. But be aware there are challenges, and try to find ways to overcome them.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Bruce Anderson
Extension Forage Specialist
Department of Agronomy and Horticulture
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE 68583-0951

voice: 402/472-6237
fax: 402/472-7904

Prison's Cheesemakers in Colo.

An interesting article going around Yahoo lists.

Prison's goats fuel industry
By Douglas Brown
DENVER POST
Sunday, Jul. 19 2009
CANON CITY, Colo. - The men wearing green uniforms and tall rubber boots spread
out across the compound, herding goats into pens, pouring grain into feeding
troughs and serving as nursemaids to those giving birth.

Many of them, all inmates at Skyline Correctional Center in Canon City, had
never touched a goat or heard one bleat before becoming involved with Colorado
Correctional Industries, a division of the state Department of Corrections.
It's likely, too, that few of the prisoners had ever tasted goat cheese.

But that's what happens to nearly every drop of milk the prisoners draw from
the animals, most of which goes to Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy in Longmont in
northern Colorado. Cheesemakers there transform thousands of gallons of milk
from the Canon City goats into chevre logs, cubes of feta, pungent rounds of
raw milk cheese and more.

And then a shopper at a Costco or a cheese connoisseur at a gourmet boutique in
Philadelphia, or a diner at a fancy restaurant in San Diego will buy the
cheese. The diner will chew the slice of Red Cloud and marvel over its
evocative flavor.

How does milk from a prison complex in remote central Colorado end up in a
high-end restaurant?

It begins in the pen.

Tall, muscular, tattooed and in prison for cocaine distribution, Thomas R.
Major III seems an unlikely nurturer of goats.

But a year into his seven-days-a-week apprenticeship, he's a leader of the
goat-milk operation.

"It's human nature. You get attached to something the more you hang out with
it," said Major, 31, as 56 goats standing on a pair of concrete platforms on
either side of him ate grain as they were milked. Between the goats' staccato
cries and the rhythmic shushing sound of the milking machines, he had to nearly
shout to make himself heard.

It takes about two minutes to milk a goat, and when they all are finished,
prisoners herd them out through one door and usher in the next group of goats
for milking.

Major and the other 29 men who tend the animals give them vaccinations, trim
their hooves, move around hay, build barns, clean the milking machines and do
everything else it takes to run a goat farm.

By the end of the summer, the prisoners will manage about 2,000 goats,
including Alpines, Nubians and Toggenburgs, said Mary Provost, who oversees the
operation.

Most of the minimum-security prisoners shrug when asked whether they will
pursue careers in livestock when they emerge from prison.

Not Vincent Gonzalez, 26, who is in for kidnapping.

"I like milking," said Gonzalez as he cleaned equipment in a small, humid room
full of stainless steel tanks. "When I get out, hopefully, my parents have land
near Calhan. They want me to learn as much as possible so I can open a goat
business."

Gonzalez has studied every aspect of the trade. He even learned how to ferment
cheese, which would make him one of the few prisoners who can imagine what
happens to all of that white liquid after Haystack employee Bill Napier pulls
up in his truck, pumps 9,000 pounds of milk into a refrigerated steel tank, and
drives back to the dairy.

Haystack buys milk from the prison because it is the only nearby farm large
enough to accommodate the dairy's needs, said Haystack's Chuck Hellmer.

In June, Haystack took about 110,000 pounds of Canon City milk.

A day after Napier delivers the milk to Haystack, Wendy Freund puts rennet, a
substance used to coagulate milk, into a vat holding 1,800 pounds of raw goat
milk.

Five minutes later, Freund presses her finger on the milk; it has developed a
skin.

She dips a steel device called a harp into the vat and begins pulling the milk
toward her, breaking the curds into smaller pieces. She raises the temperature
slowly, and switches tools, from the harp, which was sort of like the frame of
a paddle strung with wires, to a rake.

Freund got the gig three years ago, after moving to Longmont from Houston. She
knew nothing about cheese, but was intrigued by the ad for a cheesemaker in the
Longmont newspaper. Now she's passionate about the subject.

"Cheese is a living creature," she said. "It's like a big science project every
day."

After raking the curds, Freund hauls scoops of them from the tank and packs
them into cheesecloth-lined wheels. The rounds of wet curds drain for a day,
and by the time they are placed in a walk-in refrigerator they have gelled and
hardened.

Haystack turns the goat milk harvested by prisoners into a variety of cheeses,
from their best-selling chevre logs, which feature the kind of simple,
pasteurized goat cheese that you can spread like thick hummus, to Sunlight, a
raw-milk cheese that you slice.

Soon, they may be adding a camembert to the list, a project the head
cheesemaker, Jackie Chang, has been working on since January.

"I wanted a mushroomy, lemony taste," said Chang, in red rubber boots and red
shorts one afternoon as a fresh load of milk from the prison arrived. "That's
the part about my job I love, experimenting every day. It's like raising kids.
Lots of caring, lots of love."

The product of at least some of Chang's - and the prisoners' - toil ends up
every week at the Denver restaurant Rioja, where Haystack cheese makes
appearances in a variety of dishes.

Chef and owner Jennifer Jasinski buys so much goat cheese from Haystack that
the company ships it to the restaurant, instead of going through a distributor.

"There are much cheaper ones out there," Jasinski said during a recent lunch
rush. "But the quality is the first answer. I think it's an excellent product.
And I like that it's 40 minutes away."

Elsewhere in the kitchen a cook placed dollops of a Haystack goat-cheese and
artichoke mousse onto squares of fresh pasta, which he then folded into
tortelloni, which are large versions of tortellini.

The dish - the pasta served in an artichoke broth and draped with shavings of
Haystack's Queso de Mano - is the restaurant's signature, said Jasinski.

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Dam of New Junior Herdsire arriving in 2days!!

SGCH California Kalvin's Special K, 90EEEE, #1 top ten milker




According to information available from the American Dairy Goat Association, our little buck’s story started with a doe named White Haven Nasake, an Oberhasli donated to the university by Jean White, Molalla, Oregon. The breeding of this doe to Clovertop's Ecktorsketch Kalvin, a buck donated by Lorrie Echols, Sebastopol, California, herd name SquawMountain, produced the dam of our buck, California Kalvin Special K.

The Clovertop buck behind this breeding was masterminded by a well-known dairy production breeder and ADGA judge, Raymond Vieira, Artois, California. Our buck was the result of an potentially great AI breeding to White-Haven Remus, from semen contributed by Jeannie White. Picture of Remus' dam coming soon, she is a national show champion.

My bucks half sister, the 2009 Spotlight Sale doeling, Kia, was the result of artificial insemination, via donation of semen from the Udderly Crazy herd, Carolyn Hoeker and family, Monroe, Washington.



More about the sire, White-Haven Remus soon.

Home Made Yogurt

via videosift.com

I did two things today. I shopped Amazon for a flip camera and I made yogurt. I haven't gotten my flip camera yet but still wanted to treat you to this video.

New 2009 Junior Herdsire

This little guy is getting on a plane and flying from UC Davis in California to Dayton Inernational Airport sometime within this next week, probably Sunday. We can't wait to get him.

His dam is the lovely SGCH California Kalvin Special K and AI sire is White-Haven Remus, son of National GCH White Haven Misty. Special K is multiple top ten doe. She has classified 90EEEE and was #2 in her class in the 2005 National show. The ETA of this buck and his two brothers is 99/44 which should put him on the Elite Young Sire list.

Oberhasli Doe Giving Birth

This is video of an pretty Oberhasli doe giving birth to a large half boer buck. The doe yells a lot for a couple minutes, but if you stick with it you will see her afterwards taking care of the baby and obviously very proud of her little one.

Confusion Clears: Vaccines and how they work

Vaccines and how they work, generally but particularly as related to CL

This is a guest post from Bob Glass,Pan American Vet Labs
Hutto, TX
www.pavlab.com

I have posted on this before but this is a clear and easy to understand explanations. It is hard for me to achieve this, being trained in biology. I want to go into biochemistry and cell biology. This is called this and that is called that.

So I hope you understand this. If not, please comment here and I'll try to help. Or I'm sure Dr. Glass wouldn't mind you emailing him directly. This is his stock and trade.

************************

For the sake of simplicity I will use the term "vaccine" as a generic term
here. Actually the term vaccine is correctly used to described a
preparation which stimulates a protective immune response against a virus.
The term for the same type of product against bacteria is "bacterin" and
against toxins is "toxoid"

Vaccines are intended to "simulate" an actually infection in order to induce
the animal's immune system to react as if infected. In many (not all) cases
this will provide protection against future infections. This is the same
logic and mechanism which is employed with human vaccines.

If the same strain of a disease which causes disease were used, the vaccine
caused disease would be just as harmful as any "wild/natural" infection.
There are two strategies to overcome this problem. In some cases the
"vaccine" consists of a live but attenuated (greatly weakened) organism
which is not able to set up a persistent or disease causing infection.
Although weaker and less harmful than a natural infection this "vaccine"
infection will induce a protective immune response. A good example of this
is type of vaccine is sore mouth.

In other cases a killed vaccine is used. In this case the organism which
causes the disease is killed during the vaccine manufacturing process so
that no actual infection occurs. However the vaccine contains a large
number of these killed organisms which are able to stimulate the patient's
immune system. Often when a killed vaccine is used multiple doses are
required to sufficiently stimulate the patient's immune system. In both
these cases the goal of the vaccine is to stimulate an immune response that
kills the organism causing the infection.

In other cases a purified or semi purified vaccines is produced. A good
example of this is vaccines against toxins. Toxins are protein/carbohydrate
molecules produced by various organisms which have a pathologic effect on
the patient. Botulism is an organism which produces toxin. In these cases
it is not enough to kill the organism because the toxin will still be
present and cause life threatening illness. To combat this the toxins are
purified from the organism and "denatured" by various means
(heat/ph/chemicals) to make the toxin non harmful. This denatured toxin is
then injected into the patient who develops an immune response which
neutralizes the toxin. The antibody produced in the scenario is a
"anti-toxin". This is the same as the anti toxin you can buy and give to
animals that have not been vaccinated and become ill due to a toxin
producing bacteria. Anti Toxins are purified and concentrated antibodies
made by vaccinating animals with toxoids.

I have not read the article by Dr. Sparks, but I expect he referred to
introducing the disease organism into the goat (not the disease). In the
case of CL the organism is killed so the actual disease will not occur. In
some cases the patient may have a local immune response at the injection
site. In fact this is the body responding to the dead CL organism as if they
were "alive, thus the abscess, but in this case the CL is dead and the
abscess is "sterile".

I hope this helps;

Bob Glass
Pan American Vet Labs
Hutto, TX

Liver Fluke in Goats

LIVER FLUKE
(an often-misidentified worm that's lethal if not treated for properly)
Update 2/08 by Sue Reith.


SYMPTOMS:

Liver fluke damage is generally rather slow in appearing in mature goats... In a reasonably healthy goat, it can take years of gradual decline before the owner is even aware that Liver fluke is present. Symptoms are some, if not always all, of the following: Gradual increase in unthriftiness (dry coat, guard hairs sticking up, ribbiness, pale eye membranes (indicating anemia caused by the worm's activity), a swelling under the jaw (that has erroneously been considered among the veterinary community to be symptomatic of resistance to treatment for haemonchus contortus), and, eventually, a possibly sub-normal temp (less than 102 degrees), a distended belly (symptomatic of last-stage liver disease), and fecal pellets that are almost black in color and shriveled up with pointy ends on them.

Often the victim goat is one that has been wormed routinely, and yet still continues its gradual decline. The problem is that there's only one wormer on the market that will wipe out Liver fluke properly, Ivomec PLUS, (the PLUS part being clorsulon, specifically for eradication of Liver fluke) and many owners don't even know this wormer exists! Sadly, even when the owner finally learns about it and starts treatment, by that time there has often already been too much damage to the goat's liver for it to be saved even after proper worming.

BTW: While Liver fluke damage is often found in otherwise well-managed mature goats that despite good care continue to decline in appearance, in my experience this sudden appearance of anemia and weakness with either normal, or subnormal, temp (and sometimes swelling under the jaw as well) is not at all unusual to discover in young ruminants within the first few months of life as well. At that age it commonly shows up when they're heavily exposed to it in pastures containing wet areas, before their immune systems can get up and going to protect them. In fact, it's not uncommon for these young victims to die so fast they hardly have time to be sick.¹ This is especially true if there are any clostridial (Entero) organisms present in them, since they multiply and secrete their toxins fast in the already damaged, poorly oxygenated liver tissue .¹

TREATMENT:

I'm not one to quit without at least doing my best to save the goat...So if a goat of mine were affected with Liver Fluke I'd start it immediately on Ivomec Plus, using the appropriate worming approach as follows: All wormer packages note on the packaging that the product kills off ONLY the adult stages. So in order to get the worm load in the host down to a low enough level so that the immune system can take over and keep the problem under control, you need to worm 3X, with 10 days between wormings. The first dose will wipe out the adults already in there, the second dose will wipe out the larvae as they become adults (but before they can start laying eggs of their own), and the third dose kills off those eggs that were already in there when you started the worming, after they've passed thru the larval stage, when they, too, have become adults.. That leaves just a very low level of the parasites still in the host, the ones that from sheer timing
(good luck?) missed being wiped out by the worming onslaught... And that's just enough for the immune system to keep under control from then on. Having begun the repair process by giving the first dose of Ivomec Plus, the next step would be to immediatelystart it on subcutaneous injections of Ferrodex 200 (each 1 ml dose of which delivers 200 mg of elemental iron), to restorethe liver's red cells, the loss of which was the cause ofthe anemia and the blackened, shriveled, pointy-ended fecal pellets.And at this very critical time, as adjunct (supportive) therapy, I'd give it subcutaneous doses daily of 'Fortified' B-complex' (a combination of B vitamins needed for proper body function that has everything but B-12), essential because every time the patient urinates, it's losing all of those vitamins that are needed to maintenance of its body functions, and BoSe (to support his stressed immune system so that the goat can help itself to get well from
inside, while I work on it from the outside), and Banamine (to reduce the goat's pain and cut the inflammation caused by the worm damage) which, once given, will encourage the goat to want to eat once again! And last but not least, I'd give the goat a preventative doe of C&D antitoxin (to prevent entero from taking this opportunity to sneak in and finish the poor victim off because while it's down its stomach is not digesting food and moving it out of its body as it should.)


BACKGROUND:

Liver fluke is found in most of the US, but it's especially common in the Southern states due to the lack of good frosts to wipe out eggs and larvae in winter. We see it often up here in the Northern states as well, but because we have colder winters, the numbers, fortunately, are somewhat lower. However during the rainy season, no matter what part of the country the goat lives in, the Liver Fluke problem becomes particularly pervasive each year!

Today, by far the most difficult problem that we as owners face with Liver fluke treatment/control is that the veterinary community in general isn't even aware that it's there. As a result, they're unable to recommend proper treatment for it. This is because the egg of the Liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica)² looks so similar to that of the Barberpole worm (Haemonchus contortus)² that when it shows up on the slide in the Vet's office it's routinely misidentified to BE that of the Haemonchus contortus (or perhaps by some general term like strongyles, stomach worms, et al).

Until just a few years ago the veterinarian, seeing what was thought to be Haemonchus contortus eggs on the slide, would recommend Ivomec to the owner as the wormer of choice to eradicate it. And rightly so, because the moment Ivomec appeared on the scene back in the early 1980's, it was recognized as the most effective general wormer to show up ever! And frankly it remains, in my view, still the best and most efficacious general wormer on the market today.

And largely because the real Haemonchus contortus has always responded very well to Ivomec, veterinarians, misidentifying Liver fluke eggs as those of Haemonchus contortus, quite logically continued recommending Ivomec for treatment. When the Liver fluke failed to respond to the Ivomec treatment, unfortunately the loss of the animal in question was assumed to be a sign of the Haemonchus contortus having developed 'resistance' to the Ivomec! This notion has now become so pervasive that the veterinary community in general believes these days that the worms affecting livestock have developed a resistance to Ivomec, the result being a recommendation to their clients that they (1) increase the doses, and (2) turn to other wormers. Neither approach has even slowed down the deaths being caused, in fact, by Liver fluke. Since neither of those suggestions are working, the most recent approach has been to set up Famacha classes to
instruct owners and veterinarians alike in how to check the eyelids of the downed animals to see if they're anemic. If the animals have pale eyelids, indicating they're anemic, owners are sometimes advised to destroy the victim, fearing that if it lives, the 'resistance to wormers' will spread even further.

Sadly, neither plain Ivomec, nor Panacur, nor any of the other general wormers on the market today, are effective against Liver fluke. The fact is, this parasite can ONLY be eradicated efficiently by using a product called Ivomec Plus . It's not the Ivomec itself, but the PLUS part of the combined wormer, which is actually 'clorsulon' , that effectively wipes out Liver fluke. And (very critically) since it only kills the ADULT of the species, clorsulon (just as all wormers) has to be used at regular doses, 3 X in a row, 10 days apart, to kill it off completely. ¹

And it will no doubt be of particular interest for those owners who are worried about using milk from does being treated with Ivomec Plus that the Pharmaceutical companies have now run the required tests on those two products that officially clears them for use in lactating ruminants!

So in my view, these days (particularly if the reader is having a hard time controlling internal parasites in his/her animals) Ivomec Plus (instead of plain Ivomec) should ALWAYS be used for general worming, 'just in case'! Just like regular Ivomec, it can be given orally although it's actually an injectable. But since right now Ivomec itself is less readily being used by people (most of whom have never even heard of Liver fluke, and many of whom have their vets ID their goats' fecal samples as well) Ivomec Plus, while its importance is gradually growing among goat owners, may not yet be available in your local feed store... However it is readily available in livestock catalogs, and online as well, at about the same price as Ivomec.


END

¹ Georgi's Parasitology for Veterinarians, Dwight Bowman, 7th Ed. P116.

² Veterinary Clinical Parasitology, Sloss & Kemp, 5th Ed. P.41, Fasciola hepatica eggs; P.46, Haemonchus contortus eggs

Sue Reith
C Carmelita Toggs
Bainbridge Island WA


(While I urge you to share this information with other individual goat owners, please do not reproduce the article for publication without my specific permission. Thank you. Sue Reith.)

NAIS and the Family Farm

NAIS ~~~ And the Family
From the National Assn. of Farm Animal Welfare, 4.22.09


Life is precious, even more so when a little life is hanging by a thread. Here at Dickinson Cattle Company Inc., near Barnesville, Ohio, USA, every life is priority, the people and the livestock. When every breath of oxygen and ounce of colostrum is life or death, tender love, and on the spot management is drastically important.
Unbounded Symbol Family Unbounded Symbol Little Girl with Baby Calf

Herd health doesn’t come out of a bottle, or because of a federal law. It certainly is not about ear tags, or about Humane Society animal rights theory. It comes from devoted livestock management by the people who appreciate and respect livestock the most, the owners. Herd health is not a fourth of July rally. It goes all year long with generous amounts of clean hay, water and minerals during cold winter days.

Ranchers know their stock. Genetics are planned with special traits for many generations. Not only do producers know every herd animal, they often know their planned mating genealogies for 20 to 50 years deep back into historic pedigrees. The mind of a true stockman evaluates every trait of every animal. The herd sires receive multiple scrutiny. Frozen semen is a special tool for breed improvement. Check DCCI sires available at http://www.texaslonghorn.com/inventory/semen/index.cfm

Over 1000 livestock producing families per month go broke or terminate their businesses. This is caused by excessive enforcements, taxes, regulations of governments beyond reason, and the cost of labor having to compete against union salaries and the government's high paying jobs. Each day Congress and the Senate pass more laws to increase cost of agriculture production. Look close at these American families and realize they are a vanishing species. They work day and night to excel. The elderly fear the future; youth innocently dream of the grandeur to come. As children prepare for the cattle shows of this coming Summer, Washington regulators prepare to force mandatory NAIS compliance to strap livestock owners with one more hard financial blow.

You may have called your elected federal officials hundreds of times and robotically treated like a borrowed mule, never receiving the dignity of a returned call. Try another hundred emails, letters, fax and phone calls. Call your state veterinarians who have all taken massive bribes (cooperative agreements) from the USDA to promote NAIS. As the elected and employed ones vote themselves increases of salary, insurance and retirements annually, thousands of food producers in the USA depart. Please try a few more times to contact your enforcers. Someday, one may listen to the people affected by their onerous legislations and do the right thing. Please say --- NO to NAIS.

For more info www.naisSTINKS.com, or e-mail Ag.Ed@NAFAW.org