I live in Michigan and it has no selenium in the ground and if Angora's don't get it, they get a wasting disease and will die. Our baby kids got a shot of Bose before a week old,(injectable selenium) it was part of my receipt for their grain and they had it free will in each room in the barn. It is a salt that without it in the earth, plants don't have it...a lot like iodine is put in salt because many area's of the country iodine is absent in the earth....One of our friends had a kid born with wasting disease, couldn't stand on his back legs, not enough muscle. Other parts of the US don't have to have it added to feed...her kid was the only one I knew of that was born with wasting disease. Many years ago and I don't remember the outcome of the kid...
My flock didn't have a steady diet of alfalfa, but when we opened that one field, they all seem to find it quick. We also had to clear the fields of Burdock, that poisoned them. I was told that and took the person at their word. I sure do miss my farm...
Geeze.
That is sad.
I buy them a mineral block that seems to keep them doing pretty well.
Sadly, no amount of love or medicine will cure old age.
Baa was full grown with a wicked set of horns when I got him, 10 years ago.
Lord knows how old he really was.
Every winter became an increasingly difficult struggle for him and bless his heart, he did make it to see spring, one more time.
Spike was with him when he passed but she didn’t seem to “get it” like most animals do.
As soon as we wrapped him up to bury him, it’s like she forgot he was dead and went on a week-long quest to “find where he’d gone”.
She just cried and searched, endlessly.
We did find her a little Spike-clone this week and she has stopped fretting, thank God.
It nearly broke my heart.
I sat with her for hours at night before the other goat came because it seemed to be the hardest time for her.
One night, a pack of damn coyotes was up by the pond, about 50 yards from the fence.
I ran them off and kept watch over her.
Damn things. >:-(
I lost most of my sheep on cool spring nights. They would sleep too sound after the evening grazing period and would roll to their sides. Then the gas would build and They would struggle onto their back and couldn't right themselves. If you don't get tipped over sheep back up in four hours the pressure cuts off the main artery and they die. Even if you save them they are slightly paralyzed in the back end for about a week. I would lose about ten a year that way. We used to do a pasture walk around midnight to catch most of them.
Once the nights stay warm and the ground heats up the problem stops.