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Spring is the time of year when animals are shedding out and if they are underweight, it's suddenly easily visible. Dairy animals tend to lose weight during the first 90 days after they give birth while their milk production is steadily increasing until their production plateaus. Even meat animals will drop in weight between giving birth and weaning their offspring, so farmers and producers start asking how to keep weight on their livestock or put weight back on their working animal

People ask all the time about fall breedings or breeding out of season. We have typically bred our sheep all year long. Our original commercial Katahdin gave birth about every 6 months. We didn't want them overworked since they weren't getting any supplementation and our one complaint with those original Katahdin sheep was that the 3-5 lambs they gave us every year were not very large (not surprising since the ewes were 135 pounds at full maturity) and we felt they could grow fa

We rarely have to tube feed anything. We pretty much don't tube fed animals that can swallow on their own. Unfortunately, we've known of a few cases where weak lambs or kids may have been killed by tube feeding, not because the tube was inserted incorrectly, but because the little one was given too much at once.  I was taught by a farmer so they taught me to put the baby on its left side to insert the tube (so g

I have read this breed description so many times and somehow missed the part where horns were being discriminated against starting in the 1930's. This explains why I had seen breed descriptions describing the Nubian breed as being polled in the late 1940's to early 1950's. In any case, there are very few polled Nubian goats left these days. I've identified 3 main lines in the US. We have one of them and lots of polled, milky crosses for those interested in the trait. Our

We have an exciting product review to share! No idea how long they will be available. They've already gone up in price since I made a purchase, but these are very cost effective and everything you need to do a test is included. The same company has a cow pregnancy test that claims they are testing for PAG, which is the same thing the BioPRYN tests test for. I suspect this is a cheap Chinese knock off for the Pregnostx tests

Breeds and species. You need to select traits important to you. 

In the goat world, I've yet to run into anyone who cares about hoof color, but people do ask if it matters now and then. In the sheep world, it's a different matter. Sales are made and lost over the color of an animal's hooves, especially those of rams. These links relate to horses because that's where people put the money into researching the topic, but from what I've been able to gather from breeders, vets and farriers, the same data applies equally, regardless of

Someone asked me about milking their cow and this information in my response applies equally to goats or even dairy sheep.

We make absolutely no secret around here that we raise goats as a food source. Any animal that produces milk can be used as a source of dairy products and any animal that produces offspring can be used to make meat for human consumption. Alo

It’s always baffled me when breeders advise other breeders to sell a dairy doe that doesn’t meet their breeding criterion as a ‘backyard milker’. This would be entirely different if the animal in question is a dog sold as a backyard pet or a wether sold to clear brush, but in the case of a dairy doe, the only way to get milk from the animal is to breed her. Once upon a time I was contempla

This topic comes up often about this time of year. We dealt with a selenium deficiency years ago even though our area is not known for such a problem. Our vet wouldn't believe it even though we our herd was a textbook case until we sent off samples to Texas A&M and the results showed severe selenium deficiency. Meanwhile a friend and colleague of mine from an area known to be selenium deficient was having some of the

I came across this video and this guy lays out the topic of what he's calling 'worming shock' clearly and concisely.  https://youtu.be/Z2Bi3d6pmwo?si=HOwqXgUyqA8e6_7- Herbal deworming options often tend to act to drive down parasite load without eliminating it right away, so we have often used them initially to help an animal with a heavy parasite lo

So while we're waiting on pins and needles for lambing to begin (anticipated within the week), we have twin 50/50 Kiko-Nubian doelings that have put in their appearance. ??

I was asked the other day what we were doing to prepare for the cold snap coming in this week. Animals must be able to stay dry and out of the wind. To assist with keeping them dry, we make sure they have fresh bedding underneath of them and enough walls and roofing to prevent sideways rain or drifting snow from reaching them. 

I'm not sure how many days it'll be before I can put together a video on this topic (I've got a teenager eager to put together videos, but we will see what the new year may bring). This one is exactly what we do as far as the dis

My late grandfather was a large animal veterinarian that worked a lot with canines because there are often working dogs on farms and in the military (yes, he was also a veteran). He is the reason that I can hold an intelligent conversation with medical professionals and veterinarians. He taught me how to think and question, which he told me was more important than the other things one might learn in college. Understanding that his father was an inventor (we lost count at over 120 patent

People are always asking how we raise litters of kids, so I thought I would take this opportunity to share details in a blog format because for once we have a single litter and no more expected right away. On Sunday, we had a beautiful litter of quadruplets born to one of our older, experienced does. The 8 year old doe in question is Sapphire and she had a rather long labor because the first kid was coming out breech. Once that