The Sunday Mail
Farmer’s Diary Sheuneni Kurasha
Welcome, dear reader, to our column where we explore all things farming. Last week, I focused on how to care and manage does and bucks in a goat-breeding programme.
This week, we continue with goat farming, focusing on biosecurity and health management in goat breeding.
Animal health management is one of the most crucial aspects in goat farming.
As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.
Farmers must, therefore, thrive to keep their goats healthy and free from diseases at all times.
While goats are generally tough and energetic animals, there are some health problems that the farmer needs to give attention to, particularly parasites.
Thus, goat breeders have to always observe their farming environment and implement strict biosecurity measures to prevent and minimise exposure of their herd to infectious pathogens that cause diseases.
Healthy goats are productive goats, while sick ones will not only affect the farmer’s production targets, but may also result in financial losses for the business.
Accordingly, farmers should give proper care to the various categories of goats, in particular bucks, pregnant does and newly born kids.
The critical issues that must not escape a goat farmer’s attention include parasite control, vaccine management, environment management and proper record-keeping.
By instituting biosecurity measures at their farms, which minimise exposure of their herds to potential sources of diseases, farmers will reduce the mortality rate of newly born kids.
A robust biosecurity system also helps to build workers’ knowledge, skills and practice on how to prevent and control common infectious goat diseases.
It is, however, important to note that no matter how effective an animal health management system one has in place, it is inevitable that animals will fall sick from time to time due to various internal and external factors.
Once an animal falls sick, the farmer should be quick to buy and administer the appropriate veterinary medicine.
In order to ensure early treatment, early detection of sick animals is very critical.
This takes us to the question of how to recognise ailing goats in the herd.
Goats that are sick exhibit different symptoms depending on the nature of diseases.
Some of the most commons symptoms of a sick goat include fatigue with poor or no appetite, isolation from the rest of the herd, hair that is standing hunch, coarse and dull skin, heavy breathing, variant temperature than usual, faeces mixed with blood or mucus, dark yellow urine, retarded physical growth rate, red eye or runny and watery eyes, high palpitations which can be felt by touching interior side of hind thigh and floating saliva from mouth.
As indicated earlier, it is important to put in place biosecurity measures to keep your goats healthy and eliminate the costs and losses that come with having to treating a sick animal.
One of the ways to ensure that your goats are healthy is by providing them with adequate and quality feeds along with clean water.
In addition, it is crucial for the farmer and the workers that handle goats to have knowledge on major goats’ diseases such as foot rot, bloating, orf, pneumonia and blue tongue, among others.
It will be even better if the farmer is aware of the vaccinations used to prevent these diseases.
As part of the disease control programme, farmers should also be knowledgeable about the various internal and external parasites that affect goats in their area and the remedies that are available to prevent sickness.
They should also be able to administer treatment in the event of infection.
Another vital animal husbandry practice is to separate or quarantine a sick animal from the healthy ones.
Quarantine should also be done to new goats that are being brought into the herd from outside the farm.
This will give the farmer an opportunity to observe, record and treat the animal in the event of sickness, before it is allowing to join the heard. Local veterinary office is always helpful in providing guidelines for quarantining animals in different situations.
Goat farmers should also construct walled, roofed and well-ventilated kraals to protect the animals from bad weather such as rain, cold, sun and wind.
Goat kraals will also make goat handling easier during treatment, ear-tagging or hoof trimming, thereby reducing stress on the animals.
In addition, solid kraals with a roof also help to reduce mortality among both kids and adults.
It is also important to make sure that the kraals have adequate space in order to avoid overcrowding, bearing in mind that each adult goat requires about one-and-half square metres.
“Paswera badza hapanyepi” (results of a noble effort always speak for themselves).
Till next week.
Sheuneni Kurasha is a farmer specialising in stud breeding in boran cattle, boer goats and damara sheep, as well as dairy farming. For feedback, kindly get in touch on email: [email protected] or WhatsApp: +263 772 874 523.
