Organic goats and cows/ vaccines

Do cows/goats etc. need to be vaccinated or is there another way to make sure they stay healthy?! because even organic animals get vaccinated, and those toxins get into the milk
and into us humans when we drink it, and into the cows flesh and into us when we eat it!

This is a great question.... and something I've been thinking about for a long time.

So far this is what I've found out:

1.  A balanced and complete mineral content in the soil, plants and/or feed is a huge factor toward maintaining a high health level which can fight off infections and bacteria, allowing an animal to forgo vaccinations.  Minerals - the first piece of the puzzle.

2.  Exposure to other animals and/or land, which functions in a compromised state cannot be allowed.  Just having neighbors with poorly fed or raised animals can affect your animals if they are allowed to get close them and be exposed.  This goes for what they maybe spraying on their land and/or what is running off their land.  A Clean, Protected Environment is another piece.

3.  Elements that build up the animals immunity need to be part of their healthy diet all year long.  Things such as iodine, ACV (apple cider vinegar), garlic, etc. can be added to their water to help them maintain health.  Herbs can be added to their feed or better yet grown in their fields allowing them to self administer.  Diversity in approaches yet another piece.

4.  And treating their environment (land, housing/bedding, skin) using these same natural elements, plus complementing animals in a holistic approach.  For example: using nematodes in the soil to help control fleas, and ducks in their paddocks to do the same for ticks.  Looking at all the factors which touch the animals life and addressing all of them is another piece.

5.  Acceptance of loss.  We are so brain washed into thinking that we should have no losses, disease or set backs, but these are all part of the natural state of things.  So being prepared for a few losses now and then is another piece of this puzzle.

I believe in days gone by, where everything from the air to the soil was more complete and healthier, death from disease did happen and was excepted as just part of the natural way of things.  However, with the modernization of all things since the 50's animals are less and less prepared to deal with normal hardships and so the use of vaccines and supplements has become standard practice.  In addition, we are less prepared to accept less than perfection and optimal increase, which sends us looking for that 'easy fix' that someone is more than happy to provide. 

Plan for loss.........
Run your (vaccine free) herd in two groups, if one group comes down with something you can quarantine them from the others.  This way should the worse happen you won't loose all.  Or produce more than you need and want, sell them off and save the money for replacement stock should the need arise. 

What sort of toxins do you mean?

If you're worried about mercury in the vaccine, I'm sad to say the pasture is likely to result in much greater mercury exposure.

I agree with Jami that good nutrition, conditions, sanitation, and other practices should be the foundation for animal health.  But I think that in most ways, animal health is like human health - there are many diseases that can be easily and inexpensively prevented by vaccine.

While clean living can go a long way to extend the life of a cat, for example, I think vaccines against rabies and feline leukemia virus are good things. I do not know what the requirements or reccomendations are for goats, cows, or other animals.

A vaccine is mostly a bit of dead bacteria or virus - the injection gives the immune system a 'heads-up' and lets it prepare. I would much rather expose my body to a very small dose of a killed virus than have the live virus run amok through my body and cause disease ... in a vaccine that has been properly developed and tested, the risk from the vaccine is 1/1000th the risk of the disease. Not zero risk, but much less risk than not getting the vaccine.

There may be a very small amount of mercury in some vaccines that acts as a preservative, but that has far less of an effect on mercury in the meat than the location of a farm, the water, and the diet that an animal eats. 

Jonathan_Byron wrote:
While clean living can go a long way to extend the life of a cat, for example, I think vaccines against rabies and feline leukemia virus are good things. I do not know what the requirements or recommendations are for goats, cows, or other animals.

I too agree when allowing your cats or dogs to run and thereby encounter other animals vaccines are a necessary move.  However, when you can better control an animals exposure you have more options, even forgoing vaccines. 

Our outdoor cats have been vaccinated once, while our dog - who has never been exposed to other dogs, except for our friends dog raised completely natural herself (including her diet), has not been vaccinated.  If we didn't live in the city I wouldn't have done the cats either   

I believe in the science of vaccines, however I do not believe in how they are made and/or administered in the US - this goes double for people (hoping not to start a firestorm here).  Not what goes into them, Not the schedule of administration, nothing about how they are done sits well with me, this is just me, please don't try and 'convert me'.  While others may poo poo the negative aspects of vaccines, I am an extremist in this regard.

Born in 1960 I have never been vaccinated, my kids have not been vaccinated, and I will not be using vaccines when I get out on land with my animals.  So this thread is something I feel passionate about *grin* and passionate that others should follow their conscious, and do what they feel is right for their families and animals. 

I hope we don't get off of the topic and start up the old debate of pros and cons of vaccines.  But this topic of how can one limit or avoid vaccines for their animals is good, and one I hope others with ideas will jump in on and share what they know!

Permies - what a great place to practice our freedoms and share our different perspectives 

Here is some information about vaccines that really got me thinking if I wanted it, even in the slightest amount, in my body! and how much was I willing to sacrifice for it?!                                                                                                                                                                     
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6351515212287981735#

In any case I was wondering if stuff like: MMS ( you can find information about it here: http://www.themiraclemineralsupplement.com/ ) or Silver Hydrosol, Hydrogen Peroxide.... if stuff like this can be sort of an exchange for vaccines in humans and animals?!
                                                                                                                                                       

Jami McBride wrote:
5.  Acceptance of loss.  We are so brain washed into thinking that we should have no losses, disease or set backs, but these are all part of the natural state of things.  So being prepared for a few losses now and then is another piece of this puzzle.

I think this is key.  if you cull animals that don't thrive, your animals should become better adapted to your specific conditions and more disease resistant with each generation.  that is obviously an oversimplification, as there are many variables involved in breeding and genetics, but I believe that it holds true generally if animals are husbanded wisely.

vaccination, on the other hand, may prevent disease in the current generation of animals, but it will not allow you to breed for improved disease resistance in the future.  vaccination leads to more vaccination.  if you have only a few animals and do not breed them, vaccination probably makes sense sometimes.  a loss of one animal is a pretty big deal if it was your only animal.  in that case, lofty ideas about avoiding vaccines probably won't have done much good.

Chamutal wrote:
In any case I was wondering if stuff like: MMS ( you can find information about it here: http://www.themiraclemineralsupplement.com/ ) or Silver Hydrosol, Hydrogen Peroxide.... if stuff like this can be sort of an exchange for vaccines in humans and animals?!

I don't know much about those.  my instinct is that if you're looking for something to take the place of vaccination, you're going to run into some of the same problems you would with vaccines.  interventions like that seem to cause dependence on more interventions.

for use in humans, I think medical interventions might be more easily justified.  if I die because I didn't want to weaken the human gene pool and avoided addressing a health issue, I most likely won't have done anybody any good.

in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that this is largely academic speculation for me at this point.  I've kept a small variety of livestock, but breeding them hasn't been a part of my practice as of yet.

there is a "minor" problem involved with at least the vaccination of cows and goats, where their bodies manifest a mineral buildup where they received a vaccine. Seems to me to be a pretty strong indicator that something in that injection is not safe for the body of your animal.

I have heard a lot of stories of people being F'd up by vaccines.

I would probably feel obliged to give my kid POLIO and TETNIS vaccines, but I really don't know much on the subject. I feel strongly that the immunizations that we receive from living with dairy animals are stronger than any slew of vaccines could be. If one disease isn't gonna getcha, won't another one just come along to take it's shoes?

I got most of the vaccines kids got in the 80's and early 90's, though I skipped a couple, honestly can't remember which ones and I don't think my mum can either.
I was sick as a dog all of the time.

Until I started working at an organic farm and never really healthy until I started regularly drinking raw milk. The more I drink the better I feel it seems. Working at a dairy with mostly Jersey cows is kind of a high time in my life right now!


My strongest case against Vaccination is that we will be lucky to have access to them within a generation or two. The sooner we start weening ourselves off of them the better.

I think for animals it is even more true with humans, you might prevent one disease, but if they were going to catch that one, they will probably catch another.

Chamutal wrote:
                                                                                                                                                 
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6351515212287981735#

In any case I was wondering if stuff like: MMS ( you can find information about it here: http://www.themiraclemineralsupplement.com/ ) or Silver Hydrosol, Hydrogen Peroxide.... if stuff like this can be sort of an exchange for vaccines in humans and animals?!
                                                                                                                                                       

I do not have a lot of experiences with these things you mention for animals (yet).  However I know a friend of mine who keeps goats was having a lot of birthing problems this spring with her pregnant does.  I did some research and passed it on to her, mostly concerning minerals.  She uses mineral drops in her Kefir brewing and starting adding these to the goats water - the rest of the labors and births had no more problems/deaths.

Moving from animals to humans, where I have some experience -
I am planning on trying a hydrogen peroxide vapor treatments for some family ailments here soon, we already use it in our ears when fighting off colds and infections with success.

I have read about MMS, but found it a bit hyped up for my comfort level (to good to be true kind of thing).  However, we do take fermented cod liver oil, MSN, and drink raw milk for the minerals and vit-D.  So I believe minerals, in a natural easy to assimilate form, are very important for us all as mentioned above.

Back to Topic:  Here are some links on this subject of maintaining animal health naturally -

http://fiascofarm.com/herbs/
http://wolfcreekranch1.tripod.com/ ; - Experience and research has taught us that traditional methods of feeding, worming, vaccinating, and medicating do not bring optimum health to ourselves or the animals. 

Feeding Animals Hydrogen Peroxide - more info here: http://drinkh2o2.com/

In the 1950's, Dr. Reginald Holeman gave cancerous mice hydrogen peroxide in their drinking water. 60 days later their tumors had disappeared. The mice who received hydrogen peroxide in their drinking water, grew much larger and lived twice as long. In the 1980's, Winifred Wirth repeated Dr. Holeman's experiment twice with the same results. Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz, healed birds using sodium perborate. Sodium perborate combined with water creates hydrogen peroxide.

Adding 30 parts per million of hydrogen peroxide to drinking water on farms causes chickens to not get avian flu, egg production goes up, chickens taste better, turkeys weigh more on less feed, turkeys have lower mortality rates, hog meat is leaner and of a higher grade, reduces or eliminates need for antibiotics, increases milk production and butterfat content, decreased bacteria count, less mastitis, etc.

In 1985, a dairy farmer began putting hydrogen peroxide in the water for his entire farm. The water on his farm was polluted and mastitis was a problem with his cows. After using hydrogen peroxide for some time, the farmer noticed the improved health of his cows. In April 1988, the butterfat content of his Holstein cows was up 5.3%. Another farmer weighed the milk from every cow after milking, and seen his milk production increase from 6 to 8 pounds, per cow, per milking. Others farmers have reported that bacteria counts have gone down to less than 2,000 per cubic centimeter.

When hydrogen peroxide has been used for cattle, an increase in milk production and an increase in butterfat content have been reported. Farmers have also reported less mastitis in their herds. Hog farmers have reported their hogs using less feed and a shorter growing time (as much as 30 days less). Turkey and chicken growers reported increased weight per bird using less feed. A man in Wisconsin said he has had the best reproduction rate of his buffalo by using hydrogen peroxide in their drinking water.

Some animal research indicates that when hydrogen peroxide is given orally, it combines with iron and small amounts of vitamin C in the stomach and creates hydroxyl radicals. The rule of thumb is adding 8 oz. to 10 oz. of 35% hydrogen peroxide to 1000 gallons water. Chickens and cows have remained healthy by using 8 ounces of 35% Food Grade hydrogen peroxide in 1,000 gallons of drinking water @ 30 ppm. Hydrogen peroxide application into well water, or city water can best be accomplished by a metering device / injector, which keeps the application more constant and thorough, although manual application works just as well. If you do not have an metering device, start out by using 1 teaspoon of 35% hydrogen peroxide in the animal's drinking water. This same ratio is used for all farm animals: cows, pigs, poultry, sheep, goats, rabbits, birds, etc.

Silver hydrosol, aka colloidal silver, aka silver nanoparticles, has an important and limited place in the treatment of disease.

Heavy metals require care and informed thought. I would be slightly more willing to use silver-based medicine in my body, than lead-based pesticide on my garden, but I would give it the same sort of consideration: it seems like a measure to take only as a last resort, and definitely not frequently.

I believe that silver is not passed out of the body through mammary glands (or by any other mechanism), and so it might be appropriate for diary animals, but I would not advocate its use in meat animals.

Some people who have over-dosed over the course of their lifetime, have developed blue skin. This is somewhere between a full-body tattoo, and an exposed photographic emulsion. I suspect there are also less-superficial effects from high doses.

Most of the increase in human lifespan is due to improved sanitation, vaccines, and antibiotics. Is it possible to misuse the latter two? Sure.

The use of antibiotics for every sniffle is a big mistake, as is the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed. That clearly can cause more problems than it solves, while breeding bacteria that are resistant to the antibiotics.

Is every vaccine is good and necessary? Not at all. We once took our dog to a vet-in-the-box service and they offered a host of vaccines, and we took their recommendation. The dog experienced swelling that night and needed an expensive trip to the doggy ER. Turns out one of the vaccines is known for generating allergic events, and the disease it protects against is unknown in my state!

Polio, tetanus, and smallpox used to be big problems. Now, smallpox has been eliminated from the human species. Essentially no one in the west is killed or crippled by polio any more, although it remains an issue in parts of the world where vaccination has not been carried out. Rabies? Not a problem from domestic animals except when people decide not to vaccinate their animals.

Many types of influenza jump from animal populations to humans - this is especially and issue with pigs and birds. There are many ways to deal with this, starting with changes in the way that animals are reared, bred, and so on. But even birds that are raised in a humane, free-range situation with ideal conditions are subject to avian influenza. The normal movement of wild birds can spread it to any flock. The vaccine for birds protects a flock when other management factors cannot - and it also protects humans.

The rational approach to vaccines and antibiotics is not whether we will use these tools, but when. As part of a comprehensive approach to animal health they are quite valuable.

Jonathan_Byron wrote:Essentially no one in the west is killed or crippled by polio any more, although it remains an issue in parts of the world where vaccination has not been carried out...The rational approach to vaccines and antibiotics is not whether we will use these tools, but when.

In the sense that an economist would use the term "rational," I might disagree. Some leaders find it worthwhile to maintain power over others by preventing the use of vaccines.

In Nigeria, for example, leaders have spread rumors that the substance being offered will not protect against Polio, but rather is intended to spread HIV or to cause infertility. Because the health of children is of no immediate benefit to current political leaders, and because international agencies have such a strong interest in the matter, this can be an excellent position from which to bargain.

Well, by that use of the word 'rational' it might sometimes be 'right' to spread lies, steal, vandalize and kill as that might promotes the self-interest of a few people... but I am using these words from the standpoint of the general good of a society...  where I think that such actions are 'irrational' and 'wrong' and possibly 'evil.' 

Also, in terms of morality, it is interesting to note that regardless of whether someone opposes a proven policy of vaccination for selfish reasons or altruistic ones, the result (increased disease and suffering) is the same.

I only brought it up because I think it's important to guard against conditions where self-interested actions end up being globally harmful: while I, too, would say that exposing children to a debilitating disease unnecessarily to further one's own political career is evil, I think that makes it doubly important to distinguish anti-vaccination decisions founded in an informed decision or cold political calculation, from decisions founded in ignorance or superstition.

You seemed ready to lump all such decisions together, and I think dividing them offers a more productive path forward.

And like you mentioned, I'm also sure there are cases where vaccination is not worth the cost or risk, locally or globally.

I don't really want to get involved in an argument over vaccination, but when somebody throws out unqualified statements about most anything, it gets my hackles up.

the example of polio was brought up.  poliovirus, along with a great many other pathogens, is spread primarily through the fecal-oral route and only infects humans.  weak immune systems and malnutrition increase the risk of transmission.  that means that good sanitation practices along with good nutrition could have eradicated that problem without vaccination.  while it is certainly nice that the risk of poliomyelitis is much diminished, vaccination did not address the conditions that allowed its proliferation.  namely: bad shit-handling practices in densely populated places where folks weren't terribly healthy to begin with.  personally, I would have preferred that those clever folks who raced to find a vaccine instead put their talents toward reforming some of the ridiculous things folks did that caused the problem to begin with.  so it seems to me that vaccines sometimes allow unwise practices to continue even as it appears that they're saving lives.

that's just one example, though, and I won't extrapolate from there to every other pathogen.  I'm perfectly willing to admit that there could well be pathogens that can only be controlled through vaccination, though I don't know enough to say one way or the other.

now, I won't pretend that a few anti-social nutters can eradicate the causes of livestock and human diseases without resorting to vaccination.  we can, however, use better practices on our own places that will ensure that we, our families, and our livestock will be healthy with strong immune systems.  we can make decisions that empower other people to do the same.  in this way, we can work toward a future where vaccinations are obsolete and we won't have to have silly arguments about them.

Ditto tel - and my point for staying on topic....

Jami McBride wrote:
Ditto tel - and my point for staying on topic....

if only I could have such self-control...

Chamutal wrote:
Do cows/goats etc. need to be vaccinated or is there another way to make sure they stay healthy?! because even organic animals get vaccinated, and those toxins get into the milk
and into us humans when we drink it, and into the cows flesh and into us when we eat it!

Yeah you need to be more specific about what you mean by toxins. Most of what's in a vaccine is cleared by the liver as bile and the kidneys as urine. The only part that sticks around is the information (i.e. antibodies that match the pathogens) and sometimes a scar. If the vaccines had anything overly toxic to the animals (mostly fellow mammals) that would hurt production in the big factory farms which is a big no-no. So why would those benign vaccines prove toxic to us humans after they have been mostly excreted and diluted in the body of an animal.
arguably the most toxic portion of the vaccine is the pathogen, which is a) destroyed by the animal and if it weren't (say you ate the animal minutes after injecting it) they would b) get broken down in your stomach for the most part. but even those that got through (polio can make it through) would c) not be able to affect you because you aren't a cow.

ok let me pose this question of the vaccines available what of the things vaccinated against is FATAL ..
like my vaccinations i wouldnt of liked getting measles but its hardly fatal as for the chicken pox vaccine .. wtf it was uncomfortable but not fatal

One thing to factor in deciding whether to vaccinate or not is what contact you expect your animals to have with potential sources of disease.

We do not vaccinate our goats.

Our goats have zero contact with outside goats. We have a herd of roughly 20 goats that we keep for milk and meat. None of our goats ever leave our land. The only time an outside goat will enter the herd is when we bring in a new buck every five years or so. When we do bring a new buck in we are very careful to ensure to buy from a reputable breeder and that he has been vaccinated and is free from disease so that he poses no risk to our herd.

If your herd is isolated like ours is, I see no reason to vaccinate.

They can't be totally benign - occasionally an animal will drop dead after being vaccinated. Not normal or common but it happens. Happened to someone I knew so I looked it up to see if it could have been the vaccine and I found other cases of it happening. There's a syndrome called "VAS" - for Vaccine Associated Sarcoma - basically a deadly, fast-growing cancer that cats get at the site of injections. I had a cat that died from that one and it was awful.

That said, I'm pretty sure I'll vaccinate my animals against black leg. It's just too awful a disease to NOT vaccinate against it, and common in my area. Tho Pat Colbey says high doses of Vitamin C IV will cure it. I don't know how to give a cow a vitamin C IV. Some of the other things that are annoying more than deadly I'll probably pass on - like the new pinkeye vaccine.

I think the big dairies use them because the diseases are much more of a problem in their animals which are stressed and in poor health, comparatively. So it costs them more to be dealing with all the health problems all the time than the loss of an occasional animal.

Of course, I can't really be an organic operator because when there's a choice between using medications to cure an animal that's sick or not using them and making it suffer, I'll use whatever is at my disposal and seems like it will work the fastest/best. I'd like to think the organic producers are the same and just don't sell that animal or its products (milk, eggs) as organic any more. We had a goat go down, didn't know why, and we used everything the vet recommended. After 2 weeks of being down he's finally starting to be able to walk again. Of course, he's just a pet, but with production animals there's still an attachment and they have their personalities. You don't want to see them suffer.