Dr. Beth Johnson, Office of State Veterinarian, Kentucky Department of Agriculture The key to any successful business is to produce as much product as efficiently as possible with minimal financial input. As all goat producers know, the major goal of a meat goat producer is to get as many pounds of a sellable product out of a single doe as possible. To achieve this goal we must have live kids born that survive to weaning or later depending on the producers plans for their kids. Hopefully this...

By Dr. Beth Johnson, DVM Recently there has been increased interest on the social front encouraging producers to use Lye (sodium hydroxide) as a dewormer.  PLEASE do the research; there is no evidence that it works as a dewormer. While lye is a strong alkali with high pH, the concentration needed to kill worms would also be lethal to the animal, and digestive acids and buffers in the animal's gut would reduce the lye's effectiveness anyway.  A 1% sodium hydroxide solution, which was used in a...

by Dr. Beth Johnson Cause :  Mycobacteriosis (commonly referred to as Johne’s disease) is caused by a bacteria Mycobacteria avium...