Guest guest Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 So perhaps " naturally " would have been best. There would have been no bottles. Belinda > > Hey - CAE - caprine arthritic encephelitis - is common goat > disease - sheep get a similar one called OPP - ovine progressive > pneumonia. These are both retroviruses similar to AIDS in viral > function. We breeders actually caused this one be become an epidemic > by feeding pooled milk to our kids to make bottle feeding easier. So > if you had one postitive doe in your herd of 50 instead of just her > kids being infected the entire kid crop would be because of the > pooled milk. The disease is generally symptom free except that there > are some very virulent strains that cause crippling arthrits in the > older animals. Can also cause hard milkless udders and a variety of > other symptoms including encephalitis in kids. The predominant > infection route is through the colostrum, then the milk, then blood > products (sharing needles - you should see the goats in the park and > their dirty dirty habits LOL LOL LOL - or placental blood from the > dam side, bashing heads etc) then other types of bodily fluids though > it is very difficult to spread just from common contact. OPP has > some different syptomology - chronic pheumonia types stuff - and has > the same infection routes though because of the coughing and phlem > everywhere there is more contact spread then for CAE. > > If the late 70's breeders started pasturizing to get rid of > micoplasma - causes abortions and there are many types linked to many > diseases - and they found that they werent having trouble with big > knees and congested udders. So folks started pasturizing as a way to > manage the milk transmission problem with CAE. > > There seem to be three camps in the CAE wars (LOL) one that says cull > everything (and I mean cull to the butcher) that tests positive, dont > worry about it at all and cull based on lack of sypmtomology for > disease resistance, and test and separate positives and negatives > feeding only negative milk to kids. > > Its an interesting thing made a bit more complicated by our need to > bottlefeed the kids for handling purposes. > > Aliza > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 Yep I am in the cull(kill and feed to the dogs may be??) camp. My animals are tested before I bought them every year of their lives and were neg. All came from a neg farm and have tested yearly since negative. I have a closed herd and dam raise all my kids. I have super friendly kids and when need to *bottle feed* so to speak, I hike to the barn every hour then every two hours, etc to latch the kid onto a goat. My girls are loved and well cared for but are livestock. They are not pets and disease has no place on this farm. My human kids get fed the milk/meat from the herd and that is priority. Amelia in Montana Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 Hard to hand tame kids in large herds. Kids that are dam raised and not handled can be very wild and hard to manage in a dairy setting. But of course you are right and of course under the best of circumstances we wouldnt have more animals then we can handle:o) Aliza > > So perhaps " naturally " would have been best. There would have been no > bottles. > > Belinda > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 We're in the same camp. I have no problems in culling for a number of reasons- snotty on the milkstand, inferior breed type, poor production, bad conformation, bad mammary, bad mothering instincts, etc...... they GONE!! I have seen the heartbreak of CAE, CL, es and other chronic diseases. It kills the goats and the breaks the heart of the goat's owners. You try explaining to a youngster why his or her goat is dying??? Yes, they are livestock, but if you don't have a close personal relationship with that animal you are milking twice a day??? I do NOT want any of YOUR MILK because you don't have a heart and no passion for what you are doing. YUCK! Friends who have had commercial dairy operations have done the statistical analysis on their positives versus their negatives for CAE and found the positives produced less milk, had fewer kids, more kids born weak or dead, more kidding problems, lived shorter lives, and had more health problems like mastitis and respiratory illness. Someone mentioned loosing a doe at four years old??? That's insane! She is just hitting her prime in milk production! I really wish that American Dairy Goat Association had over the years conducted exit polls on those who got out of goats. I will bet that a vast majority quit after a good dose of CAE, CL, or es wiped them out. At shows I have talked to countless 'I used to be in goats' folks as they come through the barns and too many told me it was chronic diseases that drove them out. Our goats have never by any stretch been a 'show' herd. LOL In a good year, we might get to five shows. Many years we don't go to any. We dam raise and all our home bred animals have always tested negative. But, more than half of all our purchased bucks have ended up being CAE positive. It's out there big time. And, so is CL and so is es. People consuming my milk want HEALTHY animals. They don't want to consume virus or bacteria that are known to cause diseases. Especially with all the press about diseases jumping the species barriers people are VERY aware of this being a danger. I don't care what species of animal's milk it happens to be. I don't want ANY virus or bacteria in there that causes disease in the animal. Over the years I have found there to be two groups of folks, those who don't have chronic disease in their animals and work hard to keep it that way; and those who do have chronic disease problems in their herd and rationalize why that's fine and it's OK to pass those sick animals on to others. Dam raised kids grow off better, have few health problems and are just BETTER looking kids than those raised by any other means. It's unnatural to raise kids on a lambar or a bottle. And, it's backbreaking, time consuming work for the goatkeeper! But, if I am going to take them off their dam, then I would use either pasteurized goat milk or a quality commericial milk replacer. Donna Safehaven Nubians Dandridge, TN > > Yep I am in the cull(kill and feed to the dogs may be??) camp. My animals > are tested before I bought them every year of their lives and were neg. All > came from a neg farm and have tested yearly since negative. I have a closed > herd and dam raise all my kids. I have super friendly kids and when need to > *bottle feed* so to speak, I hike to the barn every hour then every two > hours, etc to latch the kid onto a goat. > > My girls are loved and well cared for but are livestock. They are not pets > and disease has no place on this farm. My human kids get fed the milk/meat > from the herd and that is priority. > > Amelia in Montana > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 Hmmmm - I find my does that nurse their kids have much more milk then the ones that are milked twice a day. I make sure that I milk out some colostrum right as the doe is cleaning her kids and then they let me milk them out just like I am one of their kids:o) I have an 8 year old doe that kidded a month ago. She is milking around 12 pounds a day. If I leave her twins on her I get about a quart and a half of milk but I can also just put the kids up for 6 hours and get the same quart and a half. I feed a half gallon a day to my bottle kids so getting almost a half gallon from her her two doelings are getting just a little more then 2 quarts a day each but I dont have to feed them. Of course if they were a pair of bucks they would consume nearly a gallon a day each LOL. I start at 2-4 weeks taking the kids away for 3 or 4 hours to assess how much milk the doe is giving and then from there decided if I can take some milk from the kids.Are you saying that because you let the kids nurse the teats and udder is too small? I havent found this to be a problem as when the kids are weaned they still have to fill the udder and be milked for another 4 - 14 months or more.And not all goats require large amounts of imputs to milk well and hold their lactations. Some are just better at making milk out of forage:o)AlizaYes that would have been best............but, if we are to have milk for us and animals that are bonded to us when they grow up, Bottle feeding is a very helpful tool. We have several does that kept their kids on them last year because we didn't need the milk. We are now paying the price. They are producing very little because their udder did not develop the capacity that it would have if we had milked twice a day and teats that are tiny (very hard to milk) because they were never full because kids kept them empty. If we really want a totally natural situation for goats or cows..............we would get no milk! So we have altered them that we may harvest some of the bounty. That changes everything in the system to a certain degree so we have to work with those changes that have been introduced ie. bottle feeding, unnaturally long lactations, unnaturally large udders, a unnatural drain on the goats system to produce the extra milk etc. etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 I'm sure that there are does that will produce as you have said. However up here we have to deal with what we have. Its not like we can just drive to the next state over and find the genetics we are looking for. It is illegal to bring them through Canada........so the other two options are the barge from the west coast (I doubt they would make it!) or flying them up (add $400 to purchase price for kids, way more for adult maybe $750+) It all adds up to we have to start with the best we can find here and do alot of selective breeding. That all takes time!!!! Meanwhile we need milk and we have found very consistantly that our goats that we leave the kids on to be raised have smaller, and often lopsided udders even when we milk them to even it out. We have found it to be difficult to deal with when we leave kids on. I'm sure there are situations and genetics that would work great under that system, but here this is what we have found to be the way it works. Matt Wasilla Alaska Re: CAE/shawn Hmmmm - I find my does that nurse their kids have much more milk then the ones that are milked twice a day. I make sure that I milk out some colostrum right as the doe is cleaning her kids and then they let me milk them out just like I am one of their kids:o) I have an 8 year old doe that kidded a month ago. She is milking around 12 pounds a day. If I leave her twins on her I get about a quart and a half of milk but I can also just put the kids up for 6 hours and get the same quart and a half. I feed a half gallon a day to my bottle kids so getting almost a half gallon from her her two doelings are getting just a little more then 2 quarts a day each but I dont have to feed them. Of course if they were a pair of bucks they would consume nearly a gallon a day each LOL. I start at 2-4 weeks taking the kids away for 3 or 4 hours to assess how much milk the doe is giving and then from there decided if I can take some milk from the kids. Are you saying that because you let the kids nurse the teats and udder is too small? I havent found this to be a problem as when the kids are weaned they still have to fill the udder and be milked for another 4 - 14 months or more. And not all goats require large amounts of imputs to milk well and hold their lactations. Some are just better at making milk out of forage:o) Aliza Yes that would have been best............but, if we are to have milk for us and animals that are bonded to us when they grow up, Bottle feeding is a very helpful tool. We have several does that kept their kids on them last year because we didn't need the milk. We are now paying the price. They are producing very little because their udder did not develop the capacity that it would have if we had milked twice a day and teats that are tiny (very hard to milk) because they were never full because kids kept them empty. If we really want a totally natural situation for goats or cows..............we would get no milk! So we have altered them that we may harvest some of the bounty. That changes everything in the system to a certain degree so we have to work with those changes that have been introduced ie. bottle feeding, unnaturally long lactations, unnaturally large udders, a unnatural drain on the goats system to produce the extra milk etc. etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 We use Jersey milk for bottle kids. Raw whole Jersey milk. They do very well on it and I don't have to worry about health issues. I don't have es in the cows and they don't get CAE. Debbie Chikousky Manitoba, Canada gdchik@... http://www.winnipegbeach.com/chikouskyfarms/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 We really like cows, but after having a great and lovely Holstein here, we decided to stay with goats. She just ate too much and did not produce what we felt was enouhg milk to justify her geat feed bill! Besides we did not like cow milk! It is very hard to find cows up here as well! Rhonda in Alaska Re: Re: CAE/shawn We use Jersey milk for bottle kids. Raw whole Jersey milk. They do very well on it and I don't have to worry about health issues. I don't have es in the cows and they don't get CAE.Debbie ChikouskyManitoba, Canadagdchik@...http://www.winnipegbeach.com/chikouskyfarms/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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