106 Bucks Nominated to Maryland Pasture Test

One hundred and six (106) goats were nominated to the 2013 Western Maryland Pasture-Based Meat Goat Performance Test. The nomination period closed today.

The nominations of mostly Kiko or Kiko-influenced bucks came from twenty-six breeders from twelve states. Illinois and Kentucky are the most represented in the test with four consigners and 18 bucks. Maryland and Virginia have three consigners and 12 bucks each.There are eleven new consigners to the test. Six consigners are returning to the test after a 1 to 2 year absence.

While on test, the bucks will be managed as a single group on pasture. They will rotationally grazed among six paddocks. The total pasture area is 12.5 acres. It is planted in a combination of cool and warm season grasses. The goats will not receive any supplemental feed (except free choice minerals), unless the forage resource is depleted due to prolonged drought.

Bucks grazing dwarf pearl millet in last year' test

The bucks will be handled every two weeks to determine body weights, FAMACHA© eye anemia scores, body condition scores, coat condition scores, dag scores, and fecal consistency scores. Individual fecal samples will be collected bi-weekly to determine fecal egg counts (epg). Pooled fecal samples will be collected every four weeks for fecal coproculture (larvae ID).  Towards the end of the test, the goats will be ultrasonically scanned to determine rib eye area and back fat thickness. They will be evaluated for reproductive soundness (teats and testicles) and structural correctness (feet, legs, hooves, and jaws)

Bucks meeting Gold, Silver, or Bronze standards of performance for growth, parasite resistance, and parasite resilience and minimum standards for reproductive soundness and structural correctness will eligible to sell at the 1st Annual Mid-Atlantic Small Ruminant Extravaganza, to be held Saturday, September 21, 2013, at the Olde Dominion Agricultural Complex in Chatham, Virginia.

To follow the progress of this year's test, visit the blog at mdgoattest.blogspot.com. Subscribe to the meat goat blog listserv to receive blog entries via e-mail. To subscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@listserv.umd.edu and in the body of the message, write "subscribe meatgoatatest".

Lamb Camp in Frederick County

The Frederick County Sheep Breeders Association is hosting a one-day Lamb Camp for 4-H and FFA members on Saturday, July 13, 2013, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Frederick County Fairgrounds.

Ashley Fuss, Frederick County 4-Her

The purpose of the Lamb Camp is to help kids sharpen their knowledge and showmanship skills. The camp is limited to 18 youth. The cost is $50 per person. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

The instructor is Scott Myers, a well-known 4-H and open class judge. Mr. Myers will be assisted by a few young adults who have demonstrated their skills at county and state fairs.

Participants will need to bring 1 or 2 sheared lambs, along with shearing equipment and a fitting stand. If someone needs to borrow a lamb, one will be provided.

Request a registration form from Dawn Richardson at (301) 908-5985 or GrindstoneRidgeFarm@yahoo.net. Additional information is available from Peter Vorac at (301) 371-4111 or pvorac@comcast.net.

www.fredericksheepbreeders.com

We Are Eliminating Scrapie

In its March 2013 report, USDA-APHIS reported that the percent of cull sheep (adjusted for face color) found positive for scrapie (at slaughter) was only 0.006 percent (at the end of FY2012). This is a decrease of 96 percent since slaughter surveillance began in 2003.

The goal of the National Scrapie Eradication Program is to eliminate scrapie by 2017 and document the absence of scrapie for the following 7 years, thereby giving the United States recognition as a scrapie-free country.

Scrapie has been diagnosed predominately in sheep and predominantly in blackface sheep. While few goats have been diagnosed with scrapie (only 32 since FY2002), a meat-type goat (in Maryland) submitted as a clinical suspect tested positive in FY2013.

Scrapie is a fatal, neurological disease that affects sheep and goats. It is in the same family of diseases (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies or TSE's) as mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. There is no human health risk associated with scrapie.

Source:  National Scrapie Eradication Program, March 2013 Monthly Report, Fiscal Year 2013.

Revisions to Scrapie Flock Certification Program

Effective June 3, 2013, USDA-APHIS is eliminating the Complete Monitored and Certified categories of the Voluntary Scrapie Flock Certification Program (SFCP). Approximately 94 percent of current program participants are in the Complete Monitored category. Forty-four percent of enrolled flocks are certified scrapie-free.

Producers who are currently enrolled in the Complete Monitored or Certified categories will have the option  of converting to the (revised) Select or Export categories of the SFCP or withdrawing from the program. Both the Select and Export categories have more stringent sampling requirements than the Complete Monitored and Certified categories. Flock owners who wish to convert must notify their area APHIS office by October 31, 2013, in writing, if they wish to do so.

Only 1% of U.S. sheep are enrolled in the SFCP.

The Select category does not require an annual inspection, but a specified number of animals must be submitted for scrapie testing. The Select category does not provide a pathway to certification. There is no status date for a flock. In the Export category, an annual inspection is required and all clinical suspects and found dead animals must be submitted for testing. Certification is possible after 7 years of participation.

The Complete Monitored and Certified categories are being eliminated due to dwindling budgets. In the Federal Register, the following reasons were given as justification for eliminating the Complete Monitored and Certified categories of the SFCP:  1) Participating flocks represent only about 1 percent of sheep in the U.S.;  2) Participation in the SFCP has declined by about 25 percent since 2007;  3) The Complete Monitored category does not efficiently detect scrapie cases; and  4) More sheep producers are using genotyping to reduce their risk of scrapie.

According to USDA-APHIS, it makes more sense to spend limited resources on the components of the scrapie program which have had the most impact, which is slaughter surveillance.The goal of the National Scrapie Eradication Program is to eliminate scrapie by 2017 and document the absence of scrapie for the following 7 years, enabling the United States to eventually gain recognition as a scrapie-free country.

Source: SFCP 2013, An Overview of the Revised Program, USDA, APHIS. May 3, 2013.

Goat AI Course in North Carolina

A three-day short course on goat artificial insemination is scheduled for August 12-14, 2013, at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The course will feature presentations by faculty members from North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University. It is designed to provide participants with the background and hands-on practice needed to include artificial insemination in goat breeding programs.

Morning lectures from N.C. State and N.C. A&T State faculty members will be followed by afternoon hands-on practice sessions. Topics to be covered include anatomy and physiology of the female reproductive tract, estrous synchronization, ovulation synchronization, AI breeding techniques (standard and improved), use of fresh, chilled and frozen semen and management considerations including record keeping systems, facilities requirements and pre- and post-breeding management.

The registration cost is $400 until July 20 and $450 after that date. The course coordinator is Dr. Charlotte Farin, Professor of Animal Science at N.C. State University.

Course information, including course and hotel reservation information, is available online at http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/ncsugoatAI/.

Three Sisters Win Jr. Sheep & Wool Skillathon

Sixty-eight youth competed in the Junior Sheep & Wool Skillathon at the 2013 Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival (61 competed in 2012). Participants included 19 juniors (age 8-10), 20 intermediates (age 11-13), and 29 seniors (age 14-18) and represented five states:  Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.  Maryland counties with competitors included Baltimore, Calvert, Cecil, Charles, Frederick, Garrett, Howard, Montgomery, and Washington.

In a remarkable feat, three sisters from Frederick County won first place in each age category. Kallan Latham was the first place junior. Kallan scored perfect 50's on feeds, breeds, equipment, you be the vet, and how much does stuff cost? The first place intermediate was Brietta Latham. Brietta scored perfect 50's on feeds, fleece judging, and wool and was the only intermediate to score above 30 in each station. The first place senior was Aislinn Latham. Aislinn scored a perfect 50 in breeds and was the only senior to score above 30 in each station. Among non-state team members, Aislinn place first in last year's skillathon.

2013 Skillathon winners (L-R):  sisters Kallan (Jr),
Brietta (Int), and Aislinn Latham (Sr)

The second place junior was Chet Boden from Virginia. Chet placed first last year. Elizabeth Miller from Montgomery County placed third in the junior division. The second place intermediate was Rebecca Herriotts from Howard County. Evan Lineweaver from Virginia was the third place intermediate.  Andy Bauer from Howard County was the second place senior. Andy won the Maryland State 4-H Livestock Skillathon in March. The third place senior was Ashley Braun from Charles county.

The first place junior team was one of the Virginia teams whose members included Chet Boden, Cyle DeHaven, Riley Ashby, and Haley Seabright. Frederick County (Maryland) had the second place junior team. Team members included Kallan Latham, Jessica Martin, Karianna Strickhouser, and Kiandra Strickhouser.

1st place senior team from Charles County (L-R):  Ashley Braun, Caitlyn Olejnik, Johnny Hancock, and Emily Solis

The first place intermediate team was Frederick County (Maryland). Team members included Laura Dutton, Brietta Latham, Ray Martin IV, and Benjamin Sanville. The second place intermediate team was one of the Virginia teams whose members included Mackenzie Ashby, Caleb Boden, and Evan Lineweaver.

The first place senior team was Charles County. Team members included Ashely Braun, Johnny Hancock, Caitlyn Olejnik, and Emily Solis. The second place team was Howard County, whose members included Andy Bauer, Audrey Bennett, Dean Bennett, and Maggie Goodmuth.

This year, a wool award was provided to the individual with the highest cumulative score in the two wool stations:  fleece judging and wool ID.  The Junior Wool Winner was Kaisy Knott from Frederick County. The intermediate winner was Brietta Latham from Frederick County. Brietta had a perfect score of 100. Logan Stoltman from New York had the top senior wool score (95).

2nd place senior Andy Bauer examines wool
in the new wool identification station.

The Junior Sheep & Wool Skillathon is a program of the University of Maryland Extension Small Ruminant Program which provided plaques to the winner in each age division. The Maryland Sheep Breeders Association provides ribbons and premiums to the top 10 individuals in each age category. They provide festival t-shirts to members of the top three teams in each age category. This year, MSBA also provided awards for the top placers in the two wool stations.

It takes a lot of volunteers to run a skillathon. Special thanks is extended to everyone who helped with this year's event. Next year's Junior Sheep & Wool Skillathon will be held on Sunday, May 4 at the 41st Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.

A Blood Test to Determine Pregnancy

In their recently published 2013 Sheep Research Report, North Dakota State University reported on a study whereby they evaluated the effectiveness of the BioPRYN blood test to detect early pregnancy and pregnancy rates in sheep.

Is she or isn't she?

The BioPRYN test can be used to determine pregnancy status in cattle, bison, goats, sheep, deer, elk, and other ruminants. It measures the presence of Pregnancy-Specific Protein B (PSPB), a protein only produced by the placenta of a growing fetus, in the blood circulation of the female.

In the North Dakota study, pregnancy was detected as early as 20 days in one ewe; however, 72 percent of the ewes were falsely determined to be open when the test was conducted before 25 days of pregnancy. Testing between 25 and 30 days accurately determined pregnancy in 83 percent of pregnancies. Testing after 30 days of pregnancy accurately identified 98 percent of pregnant ewes.

Breed and age of pregnancy were strongly correlated with PSPB concentrations. Concentrations of PSPB were not correlated with litter size in the Katahdin and Hampshire breeds. Thus, the test could not be used to determine pregnancy rates in ewes of these breeds.

Concentrations of PSPB were strongly correlated with litter size in the Columbia and Dorset breeds. Thus, PSPB concentrations could be used to sort Columbia and Dorset ewes into pregnancy groups. However, the exact date of breeding would need to be known.

The BioPRYN (PRYN stands for "Pregnant Ruminant Yes No) test is commercially available from BioTracking, LLC. The test costs approximately $6.50, plus the cost of the sample tube and needle

The alternative to blood testing for pregnancy is ultrasound scanning, which requires expensive equipment and a highly trained technician. In some states, only licensed veterinarians may provide the service.

Source: Efficacy of pregnancy specific protein B assay to predict pregnancy and pregnancy rate in sheep, 2013 Sheep Research Report. North Dakota State University.

40th Anniversary of Maryland Festival

This weekend, the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival will celebrate its 40th anniversary. The Festival is always held the first full weekend in May at the Howard County Fairgrounds in West Friendship, Maryland.

Festival hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission and parking are free.

The festival features more than 260 vendors selling wool and sheep-related items along with sheep and sheep dog demonstrations, and demonstrations of shearing, carding, spinning and weaving wool. It is one of the largest festivals of its kind.

The Festival is sponsored by the non-profit Maryland Sheep Breeders Association. For more information, contact office@sheepandwool.org, or visit sheepandwool.org.

New Processor for Lamb and Goat

Simply Natural is the name of a new company that will begin processing sheep, lambs, goats, and cattle at an abattoir formerly known as Woodlawn Country Meats in Sharpsburg, Maryland. They anticipate a starting date of mid-May (2013).

Simply Natural plans to sell certified-Halal meat products to consumers, restaurants, and retail establishments in the Washington DC Metropolitan area. Customers will be able to order meat online and have it delivered to their homes or businesses. The company will also provide custom slaughter services and facilitate custom slaughter of sheep and goats during various religious observances.

As such, Simply Natural is interested in purchasing naturally-raised sheep, lambs, goats, and cattle from local producers. In the future, the company also hopes to purchase and process locally-raised poultry.

For more information, contact Simply Natural at (202) 656-6328 or visit their web site at www.simplynaturalmeat.com. The web site is currently under construction.

Mid-Atlantic Small Ruminant Extravaganza

The 1st Annual Mid-Atlantic Small Ruminant Extravaganza will be held September 19-21, 2013, at the Olde Dominion Agricultural Complex in Chatham, Virginia. There will be seminars with expert speakers, including a two-day Master Meat Goat Producers Certification Program. A sale of bucks and does will be held on Saturday, starting as 12 p.m.

The sale will include an “Elite Buck Sale” consisting of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze-performing bucks from the Western Maryland Pasture-Based Meat Goat Performance Test. One hundred does from top herds across the country will also be sold, regardless of breed or registry affiliation. The doe sale will be comprised primarily of animals from herds that have participated in the Western Maryland Pasture-Based Meat Goat Performance Test.

The sale will feature the top-performing bucks from the
Western Maryland Pasture-Based Meat Goat Performance Test.

The sponsor of the event is the Performance Management Group (PMG), which was established to promote breed improvement in the meat goat industry, via performance testing.

For more information about the Mid-Atlantic Small Ruminant Extravaganza, contact  John Smith at  jstrider01@netscape.com or visit the event’s web site at http://pmg-epd.com. To learn more about the Western Maryland Pasture-Based Meat Goat Performance Test, visit the blog at http://mdgoattest.blogspot.com.

Violative Drug Residues in Goats

The United States National Residue Program for meat, poultry, and egg products is a chemical testing program implemented by the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service. In 2010, the most recent published report, goats accounted for violations at higher rates than any other livestock class.

Six of 337 goats exhibited levels of drugs in violation of approved use in the domestic scheduled sampling plan. At 1.78 percent, the violation test rate for goats was 3.7 times higher than any other class of livestock Avermectins (Ivomec) and milbemycins (Cydectin), also known as dewormers or anthelmintics, were the drug classes responsible for all six violations.

These related drugs are used to treat parasite infections in livestock. Goats tested specifically for anthelmintics had violation level residues of 1.6 percent and 3.21 percent in 2009 and 2010, respectively. The suspected cause for the extraordinarily high rate of violations can be attributed to the fact that there are only two drugs currently approved for use in goats (morantel and fenbendazole) and therefore parasites affecting goats are becoming resistant to these drugs.

Goat producers should only use prescribed or FDA-approved over-the-counter drugs by the recommendation of their veterinarian. In instances that veterinarians prescribe doses of deworming products above label specifications, withdrawal times need to be extended accordingly.

Veterinarians and producers can find current information on anthelmintic resistance and parasite control at the American Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control website.

Source:  Michigan State University Extension

Preventing Floppy Kid Syndrome

Italian researchers undertook a 10 year clinical study to determine if separating kids from their dams at birth and feeding them bovine colostrum, followed by cow's milk, could prevent floppy kid syndrome (FKS). Floppy kid syndrome (view image) is a "metabolic acidosis" that manifests itself as a flaccid paresis or paralysis (kids have no muscle tone: they just"flop.")

Artificial rearing

The study was conducted on a private farm. Kids were divided into two groups:  1) those separated from their dam and fed bovine colostrum and milk; and 2) those raised traditionally to suckle their dams. Four hundred and fourteen kids were born from 2000 to 2010. None of the 146 kids from group 1 developed FKS. Sixteen of the 268 kids from group 2 developed FKS.

The distribution of cases in group 2 was 0, 0, 2.6, 69.2, and 71.4 percent, respectively, for January, February, March, April, and May births. Kids were most likely to be afflicted with FKS four to five days after birth. There was a 100 percent probability that no kids would develop FKS after 11 days of age.

In group 1, separation of newborn kids from their dams prevented exposure of kids via suckling/licking to the bacterial agent causing d-lactic acidosis, originating from the adult goats and/or their immediate environment.

Source:  Small Ruminant Research. November 2012.

Skewing the male: female ratio

Diets high in omega-6 (n-6) fatty acids in mice have been associated with a higher proportion of female offspring. So, Australian researchers designed a study to determine whether feeding ewes a diet differing in n-6  for 6 weeks before and 3 weeks after conception would increase the proportion of females born.

Merino x Border Leicester ewes (n=296) received either a diet high in n-6 (70% oat grain, 8% cottonseed meal) or a control diet low in n-6 (88% legume silage) for 42 or 53 days before and 17 days after conception. After mating, all ewes grazed improved pastures until lambing.

Plasma n-6 concentrations were greater, the time to parturition was shorter, and the proportion of female offspring  was higher (58.2 vs. 43.5%) for the ewes fed the high n-6 diet compared to the low n-6 diet.

Further research is needed to find out if the observed differences in the sex ratio were due to the alterations in the n-6 fatty acids or other differences in the diet (e.g. energy density).

Source: Animal Production Science. April 2013.

Parasite Control Timely Topic

This month's Timely Topic from the American Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control is "Relatively easy, low-cost "fixes" to reduce gastrointestinal parasite loads on the farm."

Written by Dr. Jean-Marie Luginbuhl from North Carolina State University, the article covers the following topics:

Multi-species grazing:  cattle + sheep

1. Repairing water leaks
2. Fencing off moist areas
3. Avoiding grassy pens
4. Separating animals into management groups
5. Subdividing pastures
6. Decreasing stocking rates
7. Grazing multiple species of livestock
8. Keeping recently purchased goats and sheep off pasture
9. Keeping good records and culling aggressively 

You can read the full article on the home page of the American Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control. Each month, there is a new Timely Topic written by a member of the consortium. Previous Timely Topics are archived on the web site.

The American Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control was formed in 2003 to address the growing problem of anthelmintic (dewormer) resistance in the small ruminant industry. In May, the Consortium will celebrate its 10th anniversary by holding an International Conference in Fort Valley, Georgia.