IN THIS ISSUE:

• Feed Rations: Choosing What is Best for Your Goats
• GoatCamp2011™ A Resounding Success

GoatCamp2011™ A Resounding Success

Interest in GoatCamp™ continues to be so great that more than the planned 25 students signed up this year. Twenty-nine students and six interns joined the Staff and Instructors for this week-long session of learning how to raise meat goats successfully.

Jeffers again provided "goody bags" containing essential items like weak kid syringe and stomach tube, digital rectal thermometer, paint sticks, and adjustable lead ropes packed inside those handy insulated Jeffers coolers for all students and interns.

Dr. Lou Nuti and Dr. Gary Newton of Prairie View A&M University spoke to students about Artificial Insemination and reproductive biology of goats on Monday. Dr. Jim Miller of Louisiana State University taught students about internal parasites and did actual fecal counts under microscopes on Tuesday. Dr. Miller provided FAMACHA training and certifications to attending students. On Wednesday, Kent Mills of HiPro Feeds spoke extensively on goat nutrition, the topic which I always say is the hardest thing to get right in any managed herd. HiPro Feeds furnished an evening meal on Wednesday night for all students wishing to stay beyond class hours and learn to work Mr. Mills' nutrition formulation problems.

My vet, Dr. Mark Swening of the Coleman, Texas Veterinary Clinic addressed goat health issues and did a necropsy which all students got to watch on Thursday morning. Dan Byfield, President of American Stewards of Liberty, brought students up to date on private property rights issues affecting goat raisers. Joining us this year was Jim Bob Harris, President of Texas Vet Lab in San Angelo, Texas. Mr. Harris' company provided a fajita luncheon on Thursday. Bob Glass of Pan American Vet Lab near Austin, Texas discussed blood testing for several different diseases on Friday morning.

All week long, Pat Cotten of Bending Tree Ranch in Arkansas taught students how to tattoo, hoof trim, stomach tube, and give injections, using my goats in the working pen area of the Vet Bldg. And Brooke Bonilla did double duty preparing lunch and break foods daily while she maintained her regular job schedule as school bus driver twice a day.

GoatCamp2012™ planning is well underway. In fact, one student, Larry Plowman, of Pennsylvania, has already signed up again for next year's GoatCamp™. GoatCamp™ 2012 will be held October 22-26, 2012. You too can sign up for GoatCamp2012™ now. I am already taking student reservations. My thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make our tenth year such a success.

Suzanne W. Gasparotto, Onion Creek Ranch