Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
We tend to have copper deficiencies in goats in the region, and I know copper and selenium are related in goat physiology
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
It does not surprise me at all that the goat on the walkabout gained weight and looked healthier then her stressed-out, lonely herd mate. Unlike humans, goats still crave what they need and with so much browse, she could likely get exactly what her body wanted.
Parasite load is also suspect in my mind.... The stress of the attack and loss of heard mates would be more than enough to give parasites an opportunity.
I'm not sure that the idea to dry up the goat is the best one, since often goats love being milked and it may add to her emotional stress. She should be able to get enough nutrients to at least maintain if not increase weight. In my own heard I have started feeding sunflower seeds on a regular basis. My thought was to give them the extra fat and it does seem to be working combined with parasite control.
I feel like I'm going on and on, but the other thing that I had thought was about the selenium in the water. Is it possible that it is a type of selenium that the goats have difficulty assimilating? [our main goat guru] would know more about this than me. The selenium pills that I buy for supplementation are actually intended for people and are yeast derived. [our goat guru] could tell you the signs of overdose of selenium so the goat owner could try giving selenium pills and note any slight overdose signs ( I think the signs are runny nose and eyes, but don't quote me)
Surely parasite resistance is at least partially a matter of genetics.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Or they are looking for protein...
I guess there are herbal dewormers, but what's readily available here is the pharmaceutical kind. I have heard they are strong enough to come through in the urine and feces, and kill the soil micro biota, so I am reluctant to use them.
The first time I heard Fred Provenza talk, he cited research done on humans and livestock to try to understand if there was any truth to the idea that they/we have the ability to choose what we need. Animals definitely do, humans as well, but the things that seriously tempt us (salts,sugars and carbs the concoctions we call junk food) need not to be options, as that fouls up our ability to choose based on need, and we choose more as we would in an addicted state.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
K Putnam wrote:
I guess there are herbal dewormers, but what's readily available here is the pharmaceutical kind. I have heard they are strong enough to come through in the urine and feces, and kill the soil micro biota, so I am reluctant to use them.
Generally speaking, on this topic, I think the baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. My comments here are entirely general and not directed to your herd, for which parasites might not even be the issue.![]()
I think there are a lot of valid concerns about the overuse of dewormers, particular in industrial agriculture applications and because the conventional veterinary advice for smaller operations dramatically overused dewormers from the 1960s to ten-ish years ago. Horses used to be rotated through dewormers every six weeks whether they had parasites or not. This was completely unnecessary. Pretty much all major veterinary clinics now recommend evidenced-based deworming practices, which let you figure out if your animal is a high shedder and might require targeted treatment or if your animal has a natural resistance to parasites and may only need a minimal amount of medication.
Now, I'm not saying that the manure or urine couldn't harm biota for a day or two. But, it is one thing to provide an animal target medication, whether that be a dewormer, antibiotics, and so on versus mass-feeding ivermectin to a couple hundred head of cattle and turning them out in a limited space. In the big picture, I don't think a few piles and a couple of pees are something to be overly alarmed about. Now, a person could stable animals for a day or two and separate that bedding and waste from the rest of the compost if this is a high-priority issue, which it very well could be!
I was the board chair of a successful rescue organization and have seen the severe damage done when animals go with an untreated heavy parasite load, so I am a big believer in targeted medication to help an individual animal's health. Helping an individual animal is a separate question of big picture management. How healthy are the animals generally? Are pastures rotated? Is there anything that can be done to minimize parasite load through natural practices? And so on. I think it is OK to treat the individual while working on the big picture issues.
I also think it is important to keep perspective. Digging up an area with an excavator wildly messes with the soil structure and biota the first year or so. The idea is that you'll then be able to have a smaller negative impact on the rest of your land by digging it up once. There's nothing wrong with this approach! I'm just pointing out that deworming an animal is probably going to be a lot less harmful to soil biota than an excavator.
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Just because excavation disrupts soil organisms does not make pharmaceutical type wormers less toxic to the soil micro organisms.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
K Putnam wrote:
Just because excavation disrupts soil organisms does not make pharmaceutical type wormers less toxic to the soil micro organisms.
I went back and looked at what I wrote and realized I didn't quite say what I meant.
What I meant was that there may be a day or two of waste product that would be toxic. That could easily have been read as " the waste will quit being toxic after a day or two." Rather, a day or two of waste could be isolated and prevented from being disposed on important areas of the property under the assumption that it may still harm biota. Does that make more sense?
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
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