Basic goat health management: all you need to know.

Basic goat health management: all you need to know.For producers to benefit from the growing national and international demand for live goats and goat products, it is essential to have healthy flocks. The profitability of a goat enterprise depends largely on the animals’ health and productivity. It is crucial, therefore, that a goat farmer has the skills to identify an animal in poor health, diagnose the illness and treat it, or obtain assistance from other knowledgeable goat farmers, state animal health officials or private vets. The key is to act swiftly. Prevention is always better than cure, and it is therefore important that any goat introduced to an existing flock be disease-free and healthy. Begin by ensuring that goats always have access to clean drinking water, and enough and the correct quality of grazing, browsing and supplementary feed. Coupled with the requirements above, it is imperative to have a strict vaccination programme to control common diseases, as well as internal and external parasites. Isolate sick goats, so that whatever disease they are suffering from does not spread to healthy animals. Treat every sick goat and keep records of the treatments given. Animals that are often ill should be culled.