8244_HolisticGoatCare

PA R T I

Starting Out Right

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CONT ENT S I nt r od u c t i on: My Pat h t o Goats and the H o listic Appro ach

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A Foundation in Health and Healing • About This Book • Holistic Goat Care in Practice

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Starting Out Right C h a pt e r 1: Und e r standing Go ats

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The World’s First Farm Animal • The Development of Diversity • Goats Gone Wild • The Goat Psyche • The Job Demands of Working Goats

C h a pt e r 2: Bu i ld i ng a Stro ng H erd

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Making a Case for Organic and Extensive • Evaluating Your Land and Resources • Managing Herd Dynamics • Starting with Healthy Animals • Choosing and Working with Breeders • Evaluating a Goat’s Job Suitability • More Ways to Evaluate Herd Quality

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On the Farm C h a pt e r 3 : Fa r m Manag ement

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Goat Handling • Fencing • Paddocks and Pastures • Barns and Shelters • Flooring and Bedding • Feeders • Water and Mineral Stations • Identification Options • Protection from Predators • Manure Management • Mortality Management

C h a pt e r 4: Und e r standing Nutritio nal Needs

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Understanding the Ruminant • Energy: The Primary Nutritional Need • The Importance of Minerals • Vitamins • Water

C h a pt e r 5: F e e d C ho ices fo r H ealth and Vitality

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Dining Out • Dining In • Putting It All Together

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Managing Herd Health C h a pt e r 6: F u nd a mental Sk ills and Knowledg e for Goat C a r e

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Top Priority: Finding a Good Veterinarian • A Primer on Complementary Therapies • Reading the Signs • The Remedy and Treatment Cabinet • Basic Medical Skills • Treatment Suggestions • Maintenance Practices • Biosecurity and Zoonoses

C h a pt e r 7 : A dva nc ed Skills, Pro cedures, a nd Ma na ge me nt

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Fecal Testing • Drawing Blood • Calculating Medication Dosages Accurately • Pain Management • Rumen Transfaunation • Scur or Horn Control • Euthanasia • Field Necropsy and Liver Sampling

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The Productive Herd—Making Babies and Milk C h a pt e r 8: Br e e d i ng, Preg nancy, and Delivery

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Deciding When to Breed • Selecting the Right Match • Preparing the Buck and Doe for Breeding • Understanding Mating • Verifying Pregnancy • Caring for the Pregnant Doe • Dealing with Abortion • Delivery Time • Postpartum Baby Care • Postpartum Doe Care • Training a Doe to Be Milked

C h a pt e r 9: Offspr ing M anag ement

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Kid-Rearing Realities and Philosophies • Kid ID and Tracking • Disbudding and Dehorning • Castration • Vaccination • Feeding Kids—Newborn to Weaning • Feeding After Weaning

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Solving Goat Health Problems C h a pt e r 10: T h e D ig estive and M etabo lic Systems

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Acidosis • Bloat • Blue Tongue • Choke • Coccidiosis • Cryptosporidiosis • Enterotoxemia (Overeating Disease, Pulpy Kidney) • Floppy Kid Syndrome • Gastrointestinal Parasites • Hypocalcemia (Milk Fever) • Intestinal Torsion (Colic) • Ketosis (Toxemia) • Liver Flukes • Paratuberculosis (Johne’s Disease) • Salmonellosis

C h a pt e r 11: T h e R e spirato ry System

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Parasitic Pneumonia (Lungworms) • Pneumonia • Upper Respiratory Infection (Rhinitis, Runny Nose)

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C h a pt e r 12: T h e C ardiovascular and Lymph Systems

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Caseous Lymphadenitis (CL) • Heart Failure • Heart Murmur

C h a pt e r 13 : T h e Mus culo s keletal System and Sk in

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Bacterial Foot Infections (Foot Scald, Foot Rot, Foot Abscess) • Bacterial Polyarthritis (Joint Ill, Navel Ill) • Bacterial Skin Problems • CAE Arthritis • Contagious Ecthyma (Contagious Pustular Dermatitis, Soremouth, Orf ) • Epiphysitis • External Parasites • Foot and Mouth • Laminitis (Founder) • Mycoplasma Arthritis • Nutritional Muscular Dystrophy (White Muscle Disease) • Nutrition-Related Skin Problems • Rickets • Ringworm • Wattle Cyst

C h a pt e r 14: T h e Vis io n and Nervo us Systems

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Anencephaly • Botulism • Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis (CAE) • Conjunctivitis (Pink Eye) • Copper Deficiency in Kids (Swayback, Enzootic Ataxia) • Listeriosis Encephalitis • Polioencephalomalacia (PEM, Goat Polio, Stargazing) • Rabies • Scrapie • Tetanus (Lockjaw)

C h a pt e r 15: T h e M ammary System

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Blocked Teat • Edema • Gynecomastia • Mastitis • Milkstones • Precocious Udder • Warts • Weeping Teat and Teat Wall Cysts • Witch’s Milk

C h a pt e r 16: T h e R epro ductive System

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Abortion • Cryptorchidism • Intersex • Retained Placenta • Uterine Prolapse • Uterine Torsion (Twisted Uterus) • Vaginal Prolapse

C h a pt e r 17 : T h e Urinary System

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Caprine Herpes Virus • Cystitis (Bladder Infection) • Posthitis (Pizzle Rot) • Urine Scald • Urolithiasis (Urinary Stones)

Ac know le d gme nts

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A ppe nd i x A ppe nd i x A ppe nd i x A ppe nd i x

32 7 330 3 32 3 33

A: B: C: D:

Not e s Glossa ry I nd ex

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Sa mpl e Pedig rees 150- Day G o at G estatio n Chart Ki d T racking Charts R e sources

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O n t h e Fa r m

systems consisting of four compartments, but the systems work somewhat differently because they are designed for different types of diets. Goats are the most versatile. I call them “growsers” (grazers/ browsers) because they consume a variety of plant material, including browse, roughage, and grass.

They are considered an intermediate type between cows and sheep in one group and animals such as deer and elk in the other. Let’s start by taking a chamber-­ by-chamber look at the upper digestive tract in order to understand how goats use their feed to meet their nutritional requirements.

Mouth A goat’s muzzle and mouth are structured perfectly to selectively choose leaves, stems, and seeds and nip them from a plant. Compared with the muzzle of a sheep, the goat’s is more pointed, just for that purpose. Cows and sheep press their muzzles parallel to the ground and tear off grasses. All ruminants lack top front teeth; instead they have a thick, tough area called a dental pad, which is designed to protect the gums from the sharp lower front teeth as they bite, as shown in figure 4.2. Scissor-like molars at the back of the mouth make the tough cuts and are also important for chewing. Goats use their sensitive lips to select the desired forage and then work the plant material back toward the molars. More tender nibbles are cut off the plant using the sharp lower front teeth. As the goat ages, its teeth show increasing wear and spacing, as shown in figures 4.2 through 4.6.

Once food is inside the mouth, a goat chews rapidly, but only partially, and then swallows. You can think of the first ingestion as the goat simply collecting, compressing, and storing the feed for processing later. This allows it to quickly collect feed when the opportunity arises. In fact, it is this proficiency that leads many to believe that goats can process poorer-quality feed more efficiently than do sheep—it’s really about efficient foraging. A goat that doesn’t have a properly formed muzzle—for example, one that is too narrow or too broad—or properly placed and healthy teeth will be less than successful as a competitive browser.

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Figure 4.2. Between the ages of one and two, a goat’s first two permanent incisors appear, replacing the small, sharp baby teeth.

Figure 4.3. By age two, four permanent incisors are present (note the difference in depth where they emerge from the gums compared with the others).

Figure 4.4. By age four, all eight permanent incisors are present.

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Und e r sta n d i ng Nut r i t i o na l N e e d s

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The Rumen, the Reticulum, and Rumination

Figure 4.5. This 11-year-old doe has two broken incisors, which makes foraging more difficult.

Figure 4.6. This 14-year-old doe has kept all of her incisors. Note the wear and spacing of the teeth.

The first two compartments of the goat’s upper digestive system are the rumen and the reticulum, more properly called the reticulorumen, because the two compartments are only partially separated and work together as a unit. They differ in the texture of their lining. The rumen has little finger-like protrusions called papillae, which have a great capacity to absorb nutrients, and the reticulum has a distinctive honeycomb pattern and serves to gather reticulum contents and help push them upward, either to be chewed as cud or to move on to the omasum.

The reticulorumen occupies almost the full left half of the abdominal cavity in the adult. Newborn goats, on the other hand, have a very small, non-functioning reticulorumen. Milk bypasses the non-functioning organ thanks to a reflex, stimulated by suckling and by contact with milk proteins, that forms a tube-like diversion called the esophageal fold or groove, which lets the milk flow directly into the fourth compartment, the abomasum. By about 3 weeks of age, the rumen begins functioning, and by 12 weeks it will have reached close to full proportions and functionality. (For more about the development of a young goat’s rumen and its special feeding needs, see chapter 9.)

The reticulorumen is essentially a large, continuously functioning fermentation container. Inside, a vast microbial population, which includes bacteria,

Figure 4.7. A goat’s muzzle (left) is narrower and more pointed than a sheep’s muzzle (right), which is designed more for eating grasses than leafy browse.

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