rachels.haven's Journal

[rachels.haven]

With the finer quality of the hay, the probe may not have gotten as good a sample... getting the stiffer stuff that would be more likely to get caught instead of "sliding alongside" the finer hay...

Yeah, I had issues with the probe getting tied up with hay wound around it. I think I botched the sample. I'll hold off letting the does have a month of hay party to use it all up all gone for now.


Lol, they're going to be sad. Today was fun.

 

[Ridgetop]

Honestly, 5% protein is pretty low for any hay unless it is way over mature or water/rain damaged. I cannot imagine any good late cutting grass/orchard grass hay testing that low... Most grass hay will average in the 8-12 % protein if it is made right and not way over mature...

The does seem to be eating the 5% protein grass hay for entertainment. Idk why they are enjoying it so much. Their alfalfa feeders are kept full because i don't want to supplement with grain.

I would resample the grass hay. Even at the lowest quality, 5% doesn't sound right. Did you pull the samle out of the middle or off the outside?

 

[rachels.haven]

I would resample the grass hay. Even at the lowest quality, 5% doesn't sound right. Did you pull the samle out of the middle or off the outside?

I put a hay probe through the middle of several bales around the stack. I wonder if it didn't cut right and only collected drier brittle dead matter that it didn't push aside. I had to stick it in quite a few times to get a decent sized sample and kept having to stop and pull it out and pull wound up grass off the probe. This afternoon I pulled a sample from the middle of a few bales by hand and hand diced it with scissors and I'll mail it in tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing if there's a difference. Goats should not enjoy eating hay with a protein content of 5% when they have alfalfa in front of them as well. Based on my experience, that just does not happen. So I suspect it will come back higher (I hope).

 

[Ridgetop]

Our goats used to eat the tender alfalfa leaves and leave any stalks. The feeders still looked full, but the goats turned up their picky noses at eating the stalks that were left. This stalky hay is what I collected out of the feeders (huge armloads) and used for our calves. The horses also ate it with n problem. I was able to get hay one time (I was driving to the grower at the time) that was chopped to order and then the buyer didn't take it. The goats and sheep ate every tiny piece of it. It is the only time we had NO WASTE! Couldn't get any more. If the goats are eating the grass hay it is palatable. They do need the roughage for their rumens to work properly.

If the grass hay is 7-8% protein, that is all you need to maintain bucks and does that are not lactating or pregnant. After you get the new protein results on the grass hay you can supplement to reach that % if it is necessary.

 

[rachels.haven]

Wow! That makes me want to look up hay choppers and dream big. That's amazing.

 

[rachels.haven]

Ugh. Warning:brief venting.
I'd like to bring in a mini lamancha buck for use on ff or older does. Might even go MDGA all the way if ADGA annoys me enough and they are close. Found a nice herd not too far away that looks like it's made an effort to bring in and keep nice stock out of their own breedings. I asked about testing. They test and are negative for CAE and Johnes and are a mostly closed herd. I missed that they didn't include CL and ask for a reservation on a yet to be bred doe. A month passes. Doe is now bred. I think about our exchange and note my mistake after helping an acquaintance of mine send off samples from a possible positive doe. I message them last night. They do not test for CL "as per their vet" because the CL test is innacurate and assure me they have strict bio-security measures and don't have an abscess problem. I become uncomfortable. I'm still trying to keep CL out of our raw milk dairy goat herd in a place where CL is rampant and most vets just have the attitude that goats=CL. Any potential bucklings would have to be quarantined anyway from their herd because of age vs my coming goat kids but not that far due to smaller rural property and CL can be spread via fly bites and this area is thick with little filth flies and they bite...The blood serum test isn't accurate enough to determine the positive/negative status of individual animals but is useful to tell you if you have a herd wide problem so...

Now I'm beating my head against the wall because they bred a doe for a reservation I put down and I'm stressing about not wanting to deal with this area's CL issues and attitude if they do have it. We've been testing for CL for years now and the only suspect came from a young doe that was in her first strong standing heat when blood was drawn and retested normally in a month out of heat. I have no issues with the test and feel I understand its limitations. (and I have tested abscesses as well as blood)

Sat awake last night recalling all the other goats I've brought in from local sources in the last two years.
1 doe (and her daughter) that became our herd punching bag and tested positive for CL and both does were sent back regardless of if it was from stress or real
2 CAE positive does


Everything else has been non-local and tested fine.
I'm about to back out on a reservation and ruin someone's day because I don't want to potentially deal with both CAE and CL prevention. CL in raw milk is no joke.

Main points:

1) I'm an idiot.
2) Local attitudes frustrate me.
3)Don't dream. And most of all
4)DON'T BRING IN LOCAL GOATS. Don't even think about it.

BACK To MY HIDING HOLE

I don't even think my husband would "let" me bring in goats from non-testing herd like that if I asked him ("let" as in, be very impressed with me or happy about funding the venture and he's my better, smarter half, and it's smart to keep that half of me happy with me).

I guess I should tell myself I need to AI for that mini pipe dream OR call upon one of my dwarf friends that I feel like if I wound up with a positive from them they'd freak out and get testing and cry too.

My husband wants me to (if I have to) be a jerk and protect my family and herd. I guess here we go.

This would be so much easier if I didn't care and was coming at this from a terminal animal/meat producing perspective and had their attitude and not a raw milk and beloved pets perspective.

 

[rachels.haven]

To focus on what we/I can do I asked if I could come and get a sample from the dam (or dams if I opt to get a second buckling) to run a full panel on before pickup. Two samples is better than one. If I can't I'll back out.

 

[Baymule]

Hopefully the blood tests will come back , no CL. If they do, then cancel. These people have dairy goats and CL is no big deal? If they refuse you taking blood tests, then there’s your answer.

Sending you a big hug and lots of love.

 

[rachels.haven]

They declined letting me pay for a CL test or two even if I did all the legwork and came and got it and sent it in myself, all on my dollar. Bullet dodged, I guess. This herd is staying closed. They could be fine, but they could not be and I don't want to find out.

The general overt attitude here is that because the cl test for goats will sometimes give false suspect results and won't catch every case that it should not be used at all. There are vets that push for that as well. I'm not sure how they benefit from that. In reality that attitude creates a lot of spread and a lot of CL. It's more common here with all the sheep and meat goats. One vet I talked to early on here had the opinion that you should not test for CL because all goats have CL (I guess that's the case if you make it that way?). I opted not to use him.

The attitude other places is that it's a whole herd test and you should test "often" and goats that pop up with results other than negative should be retested and positives that remain positive even if you don't want them to be positive should be considered positive and then you decide what to do from there. It's an eyes wide open/informed decisions thing. I feel like there are enough unknowns that I'd rather not bury my head in the sand and make new unknowns by choice.

 

[Baymule]

They refused? Their reality is that they just don’t want to know.
Keeping your flock safe is truly a challenge. How far do you have to go to get a goat from a tested herd?