Kidding with Confidence

By Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Empire State Meat Goat Producers Association’s Education Committee

A kidding season mentoring program for northeast meat goat producers. The vast majority of kids, like this kid here, come into the world with no intervention. An experienced mentor can help you identify changes needed in your management or facilities if you find yourself intervening too often. A mentor can also teach you to identify those situations where it may be necessary to effectively intervene to save the life of a doe or kid.

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Iran imports first batch of French goats

By PressTV

Iran has reportedly shipped in the first herd of goats from France to boost its dairy products which are increasingly becoming scarce and expensive. The herd, including 750 goats of Alpine and Saanen breeds, were imported in the first batch, with the number set to rise to 10,000 heads by March, the IRNA news agency quoted an Agriculture Ministry official as saying.

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Charity the Sheep Born Without Hooves Gets Special Boots from Edgar’s Mission to Keep Her Feet Safe (VIDEO)

By Amanda Bernocco

This sweet sheep born without hooves on two of her feet was given special boots by Edgar’s Mission for protection.

Sheep’s hooves protect their otherwise sensitive hooves, so Edgar’s Mission gave Charity the sheep special socks and boots to ensure her safety when she is frolicking in the fields with her other sheep friends.

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Farmers urged to take sheep attack swabs

By WMNAGreenwood

Farmers and vets on Dartmoor are to take swabs from livestock attacked by dogs and send them to the world’s leading canine DNA laboratory in the United States as the first step in a bid to crackdown on sheep worrying.

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These Animals Might Go Extinct Because No One Wants To Eat Them

By Alastair Bland

The Steller’s sea cow, the passenger pigeon and the New Zealand moa all went extinct because people developed a taste for their meat. But other animals are going their way precisely because they are no longer preferred table fare. The Livestock Conservancy, a North Carolina organization that advocates for the preservation of rare and vanishing breeds, keeps an official list of nearly 200 domesticated birds and mammals which today are at risk of vanishing. The group is trying to generate interest in these breeds, among both consumers and farmers, to keep the animals from going extinct.

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A Young Person’s Guide to Keeping Animals Safe and Healthy

By Edward T. Mallinson, VMD, Jeffrey D. Workman, MS, and William B. Epperson, DVM

This booklet provides a short youth-oriented course concerning those basic medical principles essential to keeping animals safe and healthy — farm isolation, traffic control, hygiene, and sanitation. Readers are shown how common or unusual diseases are reduced when animals are protected from direct or indirect contact with other animals (wild or domesticated), people, and equipment from other locations. Further, they are informed about the many reasons why an animal’s environment and surroundings need to be hygienic and sanitary. As used here, the word “animal” refers to both mammals, such as cattle, sheep, horses, and hogs, and to birds, such as chickens, turkeys, game birds, and waterfowl.

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Tattooing Goats and Sheep

 

By Purdue Extension Jennings County

How to tattoo goats and sheep. For all those 4-H animals!

Sheep measles a $1.3m annual issue in WA processing industry

By Jon Condon

MEAT processors met with Western Australian agriculture minister Ken Baston recently to continue dialogue over the issue of sheep measles, which causes significant economic losses due to the trimming or condemnation of sheep carcases. The disease is a significant problem in the WA sheep industry where the losses affect both the producer and the processor.

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Time to shear the sheep at annual event

By Paige Fumo Fox

While we may all enjoy a comfy wool sweater, how often do we stop to think about how the sweater got its start?

The Children’s Farm at The Center in Palos Park will host its annual “Sheep to Shawl” event this Sunday, allowing visitors to watch the modern and old-school way of shearing sheep. The farm opens at noon, and at 1:30 p.m. the Chicago Pipes and Drums will lead a procession to the shearing.

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Body Condition Scoring For Goats

By Kathy Voth

Every goat producer is trying for the “Goldilocks Goat,” the animal that is not too thin and not too fat, but just right. Here’s a video and a great fact sheet with pictures that will help you make that happen.

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