mettagoat

 For those of you tracking the decline of frogs due to environmental situations, this current editorial in the New York Times is super interesting. They are beginning to note the effects in humans too.
It's time to Learn from Frogs

This is a good article that discusses the use of antibiotics in farm animals.
There is a difference between using antibiotics appropriately on a farm, ie when animals are actually sick. Versus the over use of antibiotics-using them on all the animals whether they are sick or not, to compensate for crowding and unsanitary management processes. It is this misuse of antibotics that is causing them to become less useful over time and creating superbugs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-rogers/whos-hogging-our-antibiot_b_220500.html

 NPR has a radio show about 5 American farm families. One of the families is Jeff and Annie Main of Good Humus farm. Good Humus is in Capay valley in California and my husband worked at that farm when we met. I was working at Full Belly Farm down the road. Annie was instrumental, along with Dru of Full Belly, in getting Eric and I together. 
Listen to these beautiful radio shows, and see some great pictures, on this website: http://cds.aas.duke.edu/fivefarms/look.html#

 Next time I'm going to NYC, here is a google map of where I want to go- all foodie locations of course- Vegetarian, vegan, chocolate shops, cheese markets, etc. Plus some key tourist spots like the Daily Show, Guggenheim museum (which is the only major museum in NYC that i haven't been to) and Little Italy- hoping to find some great Italian pastry shops!

Favorite restaurants in Manhattan: Velsalka's (Polish/ukranian food) and Gobo (vegetarians with awesome food and juices- if you can decipher the menu)

Saxelby Cheesemongers shop is a truly awesome cheese shop- she tries to buy only locally, within so many miles of her Manhattan shop and therefore has mainly small-scale cheeses- Divine!

NYC Google Map

 I'm trying to only eat cheese from humane, small-scale farms. Below are my current favorites (will add more as i find more farms):

• Goat's Leap in St. Helena, Barbara Backus- has a small herd of La Manchas and makes amazing cheeses. Her herd is very disease free.
• LaClarine Farm in Sommerset, CA - small herd of about 40 Alpines. Their 3 farmstead cheeses are incredible and remind me of cheeses made in Europe. Just met her tonight at a cheese reception- she learned to make her raw milk cheeses in the French Alps. They try to be organic and use herbal dewormers, however, the price of the organic feed is too expensive at this point for them to afford it. They leave the kids on the moms and goats have access to pasture and browse, including acorns in the fall, which she says increases the richness of their milk.

 

I remembered something this morning from my college days. 

A few of us started a Farming Interest Group (or FIG- cute, huh?!?) at Grinnell College. And one weekend, we went on a field trip of some local farms around the school, in Grinnell, Iowa. 

Barney raised hogs but also grew crops and was one of the few remaining small, diversified farms in a state where most farmers grow thousands of acres of corn or soybeans or thousands of hogs. We were invited into his barn where the sows were raising their piglets. The sows would sometimes crush their piglets accidentally and as we were walking through the barn, Barney found a dead piglet. He quickly picked it up and then proceeded to fling in out the window. Throwing it out the window was shocking enough for us sheltered college kids (seeing this poor dead piglet being flung through the air, out a window) but then it didn't get fully through the window and we heard a big THUMP as part of its body hit the upper part of the window on its way out. We all cringed. And then we went outside and below the window was a big "compost" pile, with many dead piglets. It was super gross. 

So here I am today- at a goat dairy that is suffering a huge mortality rate from this Q-fever abortion disease. (It is now mostly under control as we started injecting all pregnant does with tetracycline.) And we have this cart- it is mainly to collect the placentas because that is where the Q-fever is most concentrated, and we then bury or burn them. But it also contains the kids who die during birth because of the disease. One of my co-workers sister said it feels like the Black Plague cart, "bring out your dead...". 

We have an epidemic, abortion disease at our farm this year and its been grueling, traumatic and challenging. 

I saw a "normal" birth for the first time since last year's kidding season- over a year ago! (Last year- we were short staffed so we were always tired, but I long for last year- 98% were "normal" with only a few problems.)
I had forgotten what a normal birth looked like: this year most of the time we need to go into the uterus and pull the kid(s)- and many times the head is twisted back (the worst) or 2 kids are trying to come out at once (very difficult) or one of the kids is already dead (totally gross).

Yesterday- Bluebell was crying in the main pen and was totally sunken, so I pulled her into a smaller pen. An hour later she was intensely pushing (had "forgotten" what that looks like too because when they are aborting, they don't push). And within 15 minutes, we could see the sac and then a foot and then the perfect presentation of the head with 2 feet. The sac broke once she easily pushed out the head and legs and I helped her get the kid out the rest of the way. Then 5 minutes later, she was pushing again and the 2nd kid came out really fast. 
I couldn't believe it. It was the easiest birth I had seen in 14 months. I got teary-eyed realizing how all the other births (abortions) I have dealt with this year have been so traumatic in comparison- and that it CAN be so easy. 

Here are the lessons: if you are starting a commercial dairy- you need to start with high end goats that are as disease-free as possible (ask about contagious mastitis, abscesses and abortion diseases). The person who started this herd before I got here, had a big heart and "rescued" goats from some of the many marginal dairies around here. But you can't have rescue goats at a dairy where they are expected to produce milk every year (which puts them under stress) and where the conditions are more stressful because of the larger number of animals. These "rescued" animals brought diseases with them which easily spread in a larger population that is housed together AND became especially problematic in the pregnant and lactating animals, when their bodies are most stressed. Most of these dairy diseases are spread through the milk or birthing fluids. So if you want to rescue goats, I'm 110% behind that (they deserve to be rescued as they are so intelligent and sweet)- but don't breed them nor milk them. And don't bring even 1 rescue goat to a commercial dairy- you're saving 1 goat at the expense of all the other goats.

It's hard enough to find good written info on how to successfully deliver a kid/lamb. And it's almost impossible to find any info on assisting in an abortion, so I'd like to share what we have learned:

Normal kidding signs:

• Sunken: a pregnant doe is full around her hips with kids. When her kids move into place to be born, the area in front of her hips will sink. This usually means she'll give birth within 12 hours or less. This is about 80% accurate as some does stay sunken the whole time or partially sink weeks ahead of time.
• Mucous plug: the mucous plug is more than 4 inches long and thick. A pregnant doe can have other discharges before birth but the mucous plug is a sign that she will kid in 6 hours or less. I had one doe present the mucous plug and then started to push within 2 minutes.
• Hard pushing: consistent, hard pushing means the kids should be out within an hour. If not, assist. Don't confuse hard pushing with uncomfortableness. With hard pushing, they are literally trying to push something out of their body and sometimes their back end will even raise off the floor a few inches, every time she pushes.

Abortions:
Abortions can occur at any time in pregnancy but the does have the most problems when they are within 4 weeks of their due date, because the kids are almost full grown by this point. With abortions, we have found that none of the signs above work. They can sink 48 hours ahead of time, have a mucous plug for 12+hours and may never push.

Here are the signs we use to know whether to intervene:

• If there is any blood or any pinkish color to the mucous discharge, you must get the kids out ASAP (normally the mucous plug is white or creamy yellow). By this point, one or more of the kids are out of their sac and leaving the doe too long allows the kids to become more twisted. If the cervix is open, get the kids out ASAP, being VERY careful as most of the time the kids don't present correctly- you can have 2 heads at the entrance or 2 kids twisted- proceed slowly and gently- making sure you are pulling only one kid, pushing any others back.
• If she has been pushing every 5-7 minutes without progressing for an hour- check her cervix and assist if it is open.
• If the mucous plug has been out for more than 10 hours, check her cervix. 18  hours is probably the longest you should wait.
• She has been looking extremely uncomfortable and is crying intensely- not the normal "mama" noises that she can start before birth, and not screaming, but there's an intensity in her voice.

What you want to check for in an abortion is the openness of the cervix. If you check every 15-25 minutes, you'll be able to compare whether the cervix is opening or closing. The danger is that you wait too long, the cervix closes and then the kids have no way to get out. The only option at that point is a C-section or death (or manipulating the cervix back open- a discussion for another time). The other danger sign to watch for is the water breaking. Once her initial water bag breaks (not the sacs the kids are in but her water bag -this can be difficult to spot unless you watch her constantly), it acts as a lubricant for the kids to move out of the canal successfully. If the water sac has been broken for over an hour, the birth canal starts to dry up, leading to tearing if you need to remove the kids manually.

Basically if the cervix is open, you aren't interfering too early, unless the water bag hasn't broken yet. However, if the cervix is open and you feel the kid, most likely the water bag has already broken and you missed it. We almost never catch the water bag breaking.

Work with a vet to help you get the kids out successfully.