Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Living with Parasites

The Second edition of my goat production manual will finally be available sometime during the summer. Since the publication of the first edition in 1998 somethings have changed but many things remain the same. Parasite control and treatment has changed significantly,but still there are no deworming medications approved for goats in Canada.

Steps to Internal Parasite Control:

1)Identify the worm burden present in your goats:

This can be done by taking random fresh fecal samples from the various groups that you maintain. These fecal samples should be taken just prior to moving the goats from one area to new area as the old area may be contaminated but the a new area may notbe

The second edition outlines the procedures you can follow to do your own parasite identification and burden

2) Strategically Deworm

Once you establish the parasite burden in each group of goats than you can strategically dewormed them. Remember it is necessary for goats to have a small population of worms to maintain their immunity. Overzealous use or underdosing of deworming medications can lead too a population of parasites that are resistant to the dewormer.

Recommended reading:

PennState - Goat Parasites

The Biology of the Goat-Internal Parasites

University of Florida - External Parasites

Goat-Link - The Parasite


Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The beginning

The goat featured on this blog is Carolina Brown. She is descended from the Blucher gray, a pioneer goat of the Western Canadian prairies. Unfortunately, being hornless and brown Carolina Brown did not meet the breed standards which, obviously, required horns and a gray color.

Dr. Roy Crawford professor emeritus and geneticist from the University of Saskatchewan developed the Blucher gray breed.