Goat and sheep vaccinations
If you ever get a chance to attend an Extension Service Master Shepherd Course,
I highly recommend it. We only took in one of the two days because
Artemesia was kidding the weekend of the other, but hopefully we'll get a
second stab at the earlier session next year. In the meantime, I came
home with so many notes that it will probably take me several days to
work through all of the information.
The morning classes at the event we attended were led by Dr. Roberson of LMU-Veterinary College.
Despite showing us lots of scary photos that will probably keep me up
at night, the excellent teacher's two-hour time slot flew by.
The
information most relevant to our farm was his vaccination
recommendations. Basically, he suggests only preemptively treating for
diseases that have shown up on your farm in the past. That said,
Roberson is a fan of the CD&T (Clostridium perfreingens type C and D plus tetanus) vaccine.
We didn't mean too, but
accidentally got the first dose of that vaccination for Aurora while we
were at the vet's office last Monday, so I'm glad to hear it's a
recommended treatment. Tetanus is most common in young goats and sheep
that have been subjected to castration, tail docking, or disbudding, while the other half of the vaccine will help prevent so-called "overeating disease" primarily in grain-fed animals.
I'll probably do a bit
more research on the topic (and will be curious to hear what readers
have to say on the subject). But Dr. Roberson's advice does suggest that
we should plan to bring Aurora in for the recommended booster shot in a
few weeks. By that time, Aurora may be almost too big to carry at the
rate she's growing!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Yeah, CDT's are essential. Back twenty years ago, when I was young and even more stupid, I failed to get a kid vaccinated for this, and had to put him down for lockjaw. Lockjaw is AWFUL. Believe me, this was a sad lesson learned.