Goat

Q fever and coxiellosis: implications for livestock and human health in the UK

Approximately 40% of people infected with C. burnetii will develop symptoms of acute Q fever, of which the majority will present as a non-specific, self-limiting illness (Raoult et al, 2005). In more...

How to: clinical examination of the goat

Additional vital information can be extracted from owners/farmers with careful detailed and meticulous questioning. The history can add detail to the clinical findings, can identify avenues to expand...

Lameness in housed goats

Understanding and researching lameness requires accurate measurement of lameness status. In addition to its value for research, measuring the number of lame goats on a farm is useful for identifying...

Understanding the UK goat sector in 2023

Underpinning all other areas of goat keeping within the UK are the true pedigree herds, and the British Goat Society and its various breed societies hold the pedigree and stud books and sell pedigree...

Doe and kid activity in the first hours of life

Goats observed were from a 2000-goat dairy farm and primarily of Saanen breed. Kidding takes place four times per year, and approximately 400 does give birth during each kidding block. The herd breeds...

Plant poisoning in goats

Grayanotoxin poisoning is very common in goats (and sheep). Numerous cases are reported in the literature involving Rhododendron spp. (Figure 1a) (which includes azaleas, Figure 1b) (Casteel and...

Laboratory testing and post-mortem lesion recognition in goats

A knowledge of the apparent lack of age dependent resistance to nematode parasites in goats is key to investigating weight loss and diarrhoea in goats of all ages in which clinical parasitic...

Digit amputation in small ruminants

In cattle digit amputation is indicated for septic pedal arthritis (infection of the distal interphalangeal joint) (Pejsa et al, 1998; Desrochers et al, 2008), pedal osteitis (infection of P3), toe...

Control of mastitis in dairy sheep and goats

The annual incidence of clinical mastitis in dairy sheep and goats is estimated to be around 5% (Contreras et al, 2007). This is much lower than the 13–40% incidence of dairy cattle (Jamali et al,...

Iceberg diseases in uk goats

Lentivirus is a genus of retroviruses in the family Retroviridae, that causes a group of slowly developing insidious conditions such as CAE and maedi visna (MV) of sheep, the two diseases often...

Haemonchosis: dealing with the increasing threat of the barber's pole worm

Although the lifecycle of H. contortus is superficially similar to that of many other GIN, it has a significantly different epidemiology to the other GIN species commonly dealt with in UK livestock....