When supplies and Vets are not available for goats?

[diamonds]

I love goats and IMHO they are very beneficial to any homestead...In a shtf situation they would be excellent on a homestead.. They provide milk, soap and cheese.. My concern would be how to keep them healthy...

My question is how can they be raised without modern supplies... Maybe I need to be clearer.. What if you can not get BoSe, antibiotics, dewormers, vacinations and other supplies... Is there other alternatives for us to be able to protect and raise them to supplement our food supply.. Milk and cheese are very important...

I did raise goats till about four years ago and I loved having them around.. They were entertaining and we love their milk... When we moved I had to rehome them with a friend which was excellent... I was able to still see them and spoil them...

I am now looking to buy 38 acres and want goats again but have decided I only want hardy animals in case as an example the Iran situation goes out of control... Does anyone here have suggestions on how we can manage in a worse case scenario?

[Cardinal]

My best suggestion for managing any livestock(and this goes back to my college days, my degree was Animal Science and Farm management) is to have multiple feilds fenced off and rotate, rotate, rotate. There is no substitute for wormers, of course, and when TSHTF we will have to go to natural wormers (herbals). But rotating your pastures goes a long way towards keeping down your parasite problems. I haven't had goats since I left FL, but would love to have them again. Wardogs and I are looking to buy a small farm by year's end, so I may get my wish.
Are you thinking dairy, or meat breeds as well? I had both, but in the future will concentrate on dairy only. I also think that I will invest in electric movable fencing , solar powered.

[summerthyme]

I agree... careful management will go a long way... letting goats go back to their natural feeding methods (browse, not grazing), not overcrowding, and scientific rotation (preferably with other species... most worms are species specific, and if, for example, you can get a couple of cows to graze and pick up the worms the goats deposited, they won't be there for the goats to eat, and they won't affect the cattle) will go a long way.

Also, the old fashioned (expensive, but it can work) method of "only breeding from the ones who can survive without extras" is going to be implemented by most people, albeit unwillingly.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of herbal/natural wormers that are really effective. In fact, for us, that will be one of the main reasons why we'll stick to dairy cattle, rather than goats- cattle are MUCH less susceptible to parasites. Once cows are past their yearling year, they develop a strong natural immunity (horses do this as well) and rarely have any real problems with internal parasites.

The other thing you can do now is buy a place which has had no livestock on it for at least 5 years. Buy your goats or whatever from a reputable breeder, and have them worm them at least 2-3 times in the month before you bring them home. Use ivermectin or one of the other broad spectrum wormers. This SHOULD pretty well "clean them up" before you get them, and if you worm them once more after they've been on your place for around 10 days, you should have essentially a "clean" farm.

Then- and this can be the hard part- KEEP A CLOSED HERD!! Our dairy herd has been completely "closed" (no purchased animals) for 24 years now. We have NONE of the very common cattle diseases- BVD, leukosis, Johnes... It saves us thousands of dollars and more aggravation than you can imagine. We breed AI (something which probably won't be available if TSHTF) which makes keeping a closed herd fairly simple.

Some things will change rather drastically...
Without tetanus vaccinations, for example, we'll have to stop all "non-invasive" castration, etc (using bands or "pinching") and go back to the open surgical way... there are still infection risks, but MUCH lower risk of tetanus. Making silage will either stop, or you'll have to be a LOT more careful so you don't risk feeding moldy/contaminated feed and kill them with clostridial disease.

Some things- treating most illnesses- can actually be done with "alternatives" rather effectively. Colloidal silver treats even really nasty, chronic mastitis better than almost any antibiotic available. CS works on pinkeye, wound infections and other problems, too. I've used essential oils for years to make up a fly spray that works at least as well on the dairy cows as anything we can buy... it has to be sprayed on daily, but it sure keeps them happy (and smelling wonderful!) in the barn. Some of my preps include a fairly large supply ($$$$ ouch!) of those essential oils.

I also make gallons of udder salve a year that works better than any of the commercial salves,

But in the end, the truth is, we WILL lose both people and animals who could have been saved in "the good old days". Part of prepping is trying to become emotionally accepting of that...

Summerthyme

[Cardinal]

Would you mind posting your essentials oils recipe? I am wondering if there is a flea treatment that can be made of essential oils.
And thanks for the info about colloidal silver.

[Wise Owl]

DE works great for fleas and lice. If you want to use it on the dogs, just sprinkle it in their hair and rub into it.
For the chickens, make a hole deep enough to pour in a couple cups of it mixed with sand and let them dust their feathers in it. It will keep mites and lice away.

Make sure it's food grade tho.

As to your yard, treat it now with beneficial nematodes. Get rid of the critters and keep them gone.

I also use a mixture of lavender oil and vinegar with water in a spray bottle for us and the dogs for bug repellent. Not 100% on blackflies but skeeters hate it and it seems to keep the ticks off the dogs. And the ticks are so thick up here (wood ticks) that they are killing off the moose herd......

Nasty things.

[Cardinal]

We don't seem to have the tick problem, but the fleas are murder. I have food grade DE. I have been reluctant to try it because of the warnings I have read about not inhaling it (or letting pets do so).
I will try the rub method and see. THX WO.

[SM10Daisies]

I just recently started with goats and searched threads for info. I thought I'd share that in my online search for taking care of goats I did find a site that talks about caring for the farm with all natural treatments. He uses absolutely NO chemicles. I am learning and do not know much just wanted to share the link:

www.naturalark.com

[summerthyme]

Just remember- the guy who is doing it with "no chemicals" is at 5000 feet in "semi Arid" Colorado... IOW, prime territory for VERY few parasite problems.

Don't expect their methods to work in Missouri or other warm areas with long growing seasons and lots of moisture, plus very little bitter cold weather to break the parasite cycle.

As I've posted before in other places, I have a good friend who is the head of the pathology department at a mid-Southeastern State University. He says that in his 25+ years there, 99% of the dead goats they have autopsied died FROM parasites (not "with" them, but as a direct result of the worms).

That's quite scary, because people (and their vets) don't bother spending the time, effort and money to have post mortem exams done on animals whose cause of death is known. So you figure for every one he saw, hundreds more died from worms, but the owners or their vets knew it.

Goats were great animals for the nomads of Biblical times (and still are, for many areas in Eastern Europe and the Mid East) because the nomadic lifestyle fit so well with keeping them parasite free.

They've been able to be raised on small farms in warmer areas almost exclusively since the development of modern wormers.

Summerthyme