06/15/2025
Great post!!!!
I caught some hell earlier on a post about doctoring up my own goat, on my own farm, with audience of my own friends children.
“Only a vet can diagnose an animal” was wild work for a comment on a post with a very sick goat, and my treatment plan.
As farmers, if we loaded up every goat with low iron, every duck with bumblefoot, every chicken with mites, every pregnant rabbit, every limping turkey, every lethargic emu, or goodness, every overweight quail, the farm would simply crumble.
“aw man, Beth the cow got a limp. Better load her up in the cow hauling trailer and drive her 6 hours to the nearest livestock vet, walk her right in the front doors and get her up on the scale so they can say she stepped in a hole and give us that there big bill”
No.
We acquire livestock. We read, we learn, we keep medical supplies on hand.
My dad once taped large sticks to a donkeys leg. Fixed him up and once the vet could get to him a month or so later said “damn good stint sir.”
Now, I love to be sassy & educational. I’ve got the sassy out of the way, time to be educational.
Farm supply stores provide most instruments you need to treat your own livestock.
Injectible iron for pigs, vitamin b injections for everyone, needles of all sizes, syringes of more. Iodine for when you need to treat a wound, pink eye solution, chemical pour on for lice, electrolytes, and even tools to go in your birth giving animal and assist if something has gone terribly wrong: from a pulling tool to shoulder length gloves to l**e by the gallon.
There’s even tools to band your boy goats and turn them into whethers (this means no nuts for Charlie) and some even disbud (take horns) off baby goats themselves.
In the coolers you can find vaccines for various animals, down the aisle dewormers for everyone ranging from minor pellets to gallons of liquid for those cattle farmers. Up until last year, you could find antibiotics that were breed specific, but the laws changed and the antibiotics did become only available through a vet. Most of us bought the big bottle while it was there, and some of us got lucky enough to get a veterinarian in our pocket.
I am one of those lucky ones able to call my vet and say “this is the list of symptoms, this is my diagnosis, this is what I need” and it’s ready for me at pickup.
Don’t know what’s wrong with your goat? Hang out here long enough and a man with 3 teeth and worn out overalls will listen to you and tell you what he did for his does some 30 years ago. Maybe even an elder emo girl that reads too much & would love to share information.
The livestock vets are for large animals, they wouldn’t see your meat rabbits anyway but they might see your cattle dogs.
The small vets are for your barn cats, maybe a bunny but not 30 you plan to butcher… unless youre loaded i guess.
There are books upon books in some of these stores full of priceless education, and people, farmers, ready to share what they know for your benefit. From sickness, to personal stories, to shelter ideas and even pasture.
I don’t have a point really. Just that you should be aware of your animals and their common sicknesses so you can treat them. Saying only a vet can diagnose is the same as saying you can’t take Tylenol for a headache without a doctor.
Farmers deserve more respect than they get. We study these animals, provide for them, celebrate their purpose, and some of us do our best to continue to share that wealth of knowledge.
Anyway. Off to stick my goat with a shot of antibiotic, it’s working for her mastitis infection quite nicely… which I got from the vets office last year by the bottle to keep cause I don’t think he wanted me to walk a 90lb goat in his front door again.
I have nothing but respect for veterinarians, I’m not discrediting anyone at all, just saying that farmers have to watch every single life on their farm and make constant assessments and adjustments. Small farms especially care a lot, even the stock that is meant for the freezer.
