Animal Health and Food

Good, bad, or in between, I stay away from as much medication as possible. Same for my goats. They could be someones food or breeding animal one day. I consider what I want in my food, and want nothing less for anyone else.

We do not have a vet come to our goats, because in reality - that does not happen. Maybe in a real herd crisis, but if its one animal, it would be the same as your cat or dog. In the car they go to the vet's office. A big dog crate works great.

We are with our animals every day, see changes, and look more closely accordingly. Sometimes all it takes is reassigning which stall a goat ends up in if they are getting pushed around too much.

As I was learning about sheep and goats in my quest to find the right animal for the farm, I also learned about medications. Parasite control is important for the good health of all animals. One of the first things I heard was that a lot of herds in different parts of the country had internal parasites that were resistant to medications. This was because the medications had been improperly and overly used. That made control of eggs and worms difficult, and therefore made it difficult to keep the animals healthy.

That's where rotational, pastured grazing got my interest. You basically try to stay ahead of the life cycle of the parasites by giving the animals clean fields, on a regular basis, and move them along before they contaminate themselves. Weather and growth conditions have a play in all this, and you need enough space to make it work well. That's why you read about us moving fences and putting the goats in new areas. We keep them going across the fields - water, sheds and all, to stay ahead of the parasite life cycle.

I admit that I am learning everyday, and do not have all the science committed to memory. What I do know is that when we took fecal samples to the vet last fall, which I ridiculously and painstakingly gathered one morning, only one goat - the littlest - needed worming. We treated the animal with the problem, and not the whole herd as industrial farms do. That is only one of the differences between small sustainable farms, and the farms that produce the cheap meat and eggs you buy in many grocery stores.

Today the New York Times printed a short Op Ed regarding this topic.

Farms and Antibiotics (click title to read more)

In an environment where antibiotics are omnipresent, as they are in
industrial agriculture, antibiotic-resistant strains of diseases quickly
develop, reducing the effectiveness of common drugs like penicillin and
tetracycline.

If you care about your health, then care about where your food comes from. Be educated about what you put in your body. Be aware of regulatory news and why its happening. Most of the news about food borne problems have not originated on the small farm but on the "factory" farms as in the article above. Visit you local farms and know your food. Its important.

Monastic Melissa Spirits

Last evening there was an impressive storm, and we had some major rains that washed the garden down.

Since the lemon balm was about as clean as it was going to get, we harvested enough to make half the recipe (see last blog for more information).

Basically you need LOTS of lemon balm leaves - We halved the recipe to 100 grams.... Stuffed them in a jar that can be sealed tightly. Mom is my hand model.

Its a lot of leaves (3 1/2 ounces).
We found pouring part of the brandy, a bit at a time, helped compact the leaves.

Still stuffing.
Pour more brandy as needed to flatten the leaves.

Til there's not a drop left. We actually were a bit short covering the leaves. The pint didn't make two cups that we needed, so we should have used less leaves.
So we shook the jar. Not really. I just liked this "accident" picture.

We did tip the jar a bit to get things all soaked. It is very dense in there.

And closed the jar tightly. After taking the picture, we put it in a darker spot. The recipe didn't say so. We just felt it would preserve the color better.

This is the jar about five hours in. The alcohol does a nice job of keeping the leaves bright green.

See you in ten days.

Lemon Balm Harvest

Today we harvested a good amount of lemon balm to dry for tea.

Next chance, and after we hit the liquor store, we are making Monastic Melissa Spirits. Not sure if it will be drinkable or medicinal. Time will tell.
http://www.herbs2000.com/herbs/herbs_lemon_balm.htm - for recipe

For that we need fresh leaves.

After all this rain they'll be nice and clean.

Lemon balm is one of those plants that actually has some well documented science and research behind its herbal remedies. Its a member of the mint family and has many calming and antiviral uses.

University of Maryland Medical Center
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/lemon-balm-000261.htm

But who could not enjoy that lemon smell anyway. I found it to be a good teaching plant when you want to interest young kids into gardening. And its a great plant to attract the bees to your garden too. It is so refreshing. I go through the garden and grab a bit and just smell its oils and it makes me smile. I'm calmed. It must be those phytochemicals.
http://www.phytochemicals.info/plants/lemon-balm.php

We'll let you know about the Melissa Spirits in a couple weeks. It takes ten days to brew.

Doing Shots

So far the worst part of having a herd of goats is the shots. I have to get myself all psyched up to do them. I think its because the very first one that I gave Uno, she got a huge knot from my nicking her muscle. It lasted for months. She lost her hair there. It was a mess, but now you can't tell it happened. Luckily for the goats, my technique has improved!!

I have learned sub-Q (subcutaneous - under the skin) or intramuscular when conversing with the vet. I also have straightened out in my head the gages of needles - the bigger the number the thinner the needle. Had that backwards for one purchase.

All of them get a CD&T vaccine (Clostridium Perfringes C&D Bactern-Toxoid with the Tetanus- Toxoid) every year, The babies get the vaccine at four to six weeks depending on if the mom got one a month before kidding. Then they get a booster three weeks later.

As of this weekend, the twins are up to date.

In about another month, I will have to give the pregnant girls a shot so that their kids will have the antibodies for the first few weeks until we give them their set of injections.

I get some of my information from the site below, and they do not vaccinate their goats. There is a lot of reference material as to why to vaccinate or not, in case you are interested.

http://fiascofarm.com/goats/medications-2.htm#cdt