RALEIGH — As weaning time is approaching, producers should make sure they have a sufficient supply of enterotoxemia + tetanus to vaccinate kids when separating them from their mothers, and for giving them a booster shot 21 to 28 days later.
Some herds, because of management and feeding programs, may be at a much lower risk of contracting overeating disease, and thus some producers may elect not to vaccinate their herd, but all goats are susceptible to tetanus.
A sudden access to grain or to a richer diet or any dietary changes, especially to a “richer” diet, can trigger overeating disease, as described herein. At an experimental station where I conducted research, seven experimental castrated males, two weeks from being shipped to market, died within a week when moved suddenly from pasture to pens and fed hay and grain because of a heavy frost at the end of the growing season. Results from the local veterinarian’s analysis indicated that these animals had perished due to overeating disease. Health records showed that kids born that spring had not been vaccinated against overeating disease and tetanus, a costly oversight.
Check the ‘Vaccinating Goats Against Enterotoxemia and Tetanus: Is It Necessary?’ factsheet under Health for additional information.
— Dr. JM Luginbuhl
Extension Specialist (Goats & Forage Systems)
Crop and Soil Sciences – NC State University
For more news from North Carolina, click here.