North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Sarah Kehler Ewing <skkewing@yahoo.com>]

Hi Naomi and others,

I do love to recycle and also not to have to drive to town when I need 
something although the milk jugs are a problem now since my milk goes into 
1/2 gallon glass jars!  I love my goat milk and cheese too!  I can take or 
leave the meat though, its fine, its just not something I would pay the 
$2.00/lb live weight I can sell my extra kids for.

My goats are French Alpines.  I love their ears (not so much Lamanchas and 
Nubians) and have a child-like enjoyment of seeing what colour they will be 
when they are born (unlike Saanens and Toggenbergs)!  I've had Alpines off 
and on since I was about 2.

The zinc wasn't the whole solution.  I gave Star vitamin E along with her 
antibiotics, but although Liquamycin cleared it up, it wouldn't stay gone 
(Biomycin and Excenel didn't even slow it down).  I tried zinc alone and 
nothing happened.  The final collection of herbs and vitamin E also cleared 
it up, but it came back.  Only when I gave her the herbs, the E and the zinc 
did the Rainscald clear up and stay gone.  She also got Ivomeced three times 
during this whole fiasco by the vets recommendation and that also did nothing.

I've cornered every small ruminant breeder I could find as well as my vet to 
try and figure out why she had this persistent problem to no avail.  The vet 
had never seen Rainscald in goats (pig and cows, yes), but that is definitely 
what Star had.  Dr. Radostits thought it was nutritional too, but we went 
over what I feed and he couldn't find anything wrong with my herd management.

I feed a locally produced vitamin, mineral, rolled grain and pellet Goat 
Dairy Ration when I milk or once a day when they are dry or growing, dry 
clean Dairy quality alfalfa mix hay twice a day in this fabulous feeder my 
husband designed for me and they have free choice at all times: three 
different trace mineral salt blocks, loose Free Range Cattle mineral, loose 
Horse Mineral, and a 24% mollasified protein and mineral lick.  They also 
have free access during the day (coyotes mean they get penned up at night) to 
5 acres of pasture which consists of 2 acres of mixed grass and legumes for 
grazing as well as 3 acres of mixed brush for browzing: poplars, saskatoons, 
chokecherries, hazelnuts, rose bushes, pea vine, vetch, etc, etc.  I have 
been Ivomecing the whole herd once a year (I need to use an alternative this 
year to prevent parasite resistance) and they get Selenium/Vitamin E shots 
(our soil is fatally short in this mineral) once a year and Se/E
 orally a few more times than that.

Got any suggestions?  My herd has been clean for coming up on 2 years now (I 
may have misquoted 1 earlier) so I don't currently have any skin problems..

Sarah

> My personal bet on the cure of your goat
> was your use of Zinc.  It
> is often a zinc deficiency that leads to skin
> problems.  Also Selenium
> needs E to work but selenium is not typically linked to
> skin issues. A
> situation as persistent as you describe often has
> nutritional causes.