JulBud Ranch Husbandry Practices

Why Holistic?

Treating our goats holistically makes sense to us for a number of reasons. 

1. We have the mindset of preventing illness, disease, and parasite issues rather than trying to be prepared for a worst case scenario. 

2. Recent laws have made getting medications more difficult for farmers and ranchers and now require a vet prescription. Which leads to the next reason we choose holistic.

3. There are very few vets in our area who treat goats, and those who do are overwhelmed with patients so getting an appointment isn't easy. Which means it's better if we can prevent the need for a vet as much as possible.

4. Many of the chemical medications given to goats have been used so frequently, that there are now resistant strains of parasites and diseases.

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Disease Testing

We draw blood once a year from our goats and send it to UBRL for a complete biosecurity screening. We do this for our own peace of mind, but also for the peace of mind of anyone who purchases a goat from us. You can be sure your goat will be healthy and disease free when you buy from us.

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Milk Testing

We are not currently on official milk testing with the Dairy Herd Improvement Registry (DHIR), however we do test our milk several times throughout our milking season as another way to check the health of our girls by looking at somatic cell counts. We also like to keep track of how much protein, butterfat, and lactose our girls produce in their milk. 

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We have not yet decided if we will do official milk testing yet or not. The only added benefit to official milk tests is our goats can be awarded for their production.

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Vaccines 

The only vaccine we use is the CD&T vaccine. As with any issue, there are many reasons people don't vaccinate their goats, and many reasons people do. After looking at both sides, we've decided it's best, for now, to vaccinate. The two diseases this protects against, Enterotoxaemia and Tetanus, are not super common, however they are deadly and since they can come from situations out of our control (manure, soil, overeating, and deep wounds) we feel it's best to protect our herd in this way.

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Disbudding/Dehorning

Disbudding is the act of burning off horn buds on baby goats. Dehorning is done on older goats, done by a vet, and carries much more risk that disbudding does. We allow all the goats born on our ranch to keep their horns. Horns help goats regulate their body temperature, and is their only form of protection against predators. We don't show our goats, so we have no need to disbud babies. Our stance on this, is that disbudding goats is similar to declawing a cat - It's only a convenience for humans. If you are looking to purchase a goat from us, please know, that unless the goat is naturally polled, or we're selling a goat we purchased from another herd, your goat will have horns.

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Feeding

Our goats are fed from our pasture. We are constantly working to improve our field, which is a mix of alfalfa, grass, and weeds. We don't use any chemicals on our field so our goats get organic hay.

 

We also feed them a small amount of Timothy Hay pellets from IFA, daily. When our field is a better quality of mixed feedstuffs, we will eliminate these pellets.

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Our goats also get a small amount of Black Oil Sunflower Seeds everyday to help with selenium deficiency. 

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Lactating goats get daily grain rations to help with body composition and energy demands of feeding babies.