Goat and Sheep Health ft Dr. Reid Redden

Announcer: 0:01

Welcome to the Backyard Bounty Podcast from HeritageAcresMarket.com, where each week you will be hearing inspiring stories and educational interviews, with expert guests to help your hobby farm thrive. And now, here's your host, Nicole.

Nicole: 0:16

Hello, everybody. And thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Backyard Bounty. I'm your host Nicole and today we're joined by Dr. Reid Redden, the sheep and goat expert at the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension, and today we're going to be talking about goat health and disease and maintaining a healthy herd. So Dr. Redden, thank you so much for joining me today.

Reid: 0:38

It's my pleasure.

Nicole: 0:38

So can you give us a little bit of background on your experience with the sheep and goats and as well as your experience with Texas A&M?

Reid: 0:46

Sure, I guess, backing all the way up, I grew up on a diversified ranch in Texas, we raised sheep, goats and cows. And as a youngster I showed goats or mostly lambs, the goats didn't get to be a more popular thing until I was out of that level. But that intrigued me and I went to Texas A&M, and now a Bachelor's degree in animal science with kind of an emphasis in small ruminants. And I just kind of stuck with me and I kept going. I have a Master's degree in reproductive physiology, but my focus was on sheep, a PhD in ruminant nutrition. And again, my focus was in small ruminants, and those were in New Mexico in Montana, respectively. I spent half a decade or so up in North Dakota as a sheep specialist before coming back to Texas where I grew up. I mean, I've been here for about a half a decade. So my life has kind of been around small ruminants and education and outreach, best animal husbandry practices for them.

Nicole: 1:47

So obviously, you have a ton of experience in this. What made you choose the animal nutrition, the ruminant nutrition?

Reid: 1:54

I guess I kind of really wanted to be well rounded. Reproductive physiology was really interesting to me and undergrad. And that's why I went that way for my /Master's degree. But then I knew I wanted to be kind of a generalist. And so I didn't stick in one field and look to ruminant nutrition and nutrition is the cornerstone. Well fed healthy animals in a good environment don't require a lot of disease prevention and disease management, because their their own body can fight so many things off. And so proper feeding is is, you know, the cornerstone to animal health.

Nicole: 2:30

So I guess it would be worth pointing out for those listening that unfortunately, I don't have any goats. But I'm really excited to talk to you about this, because goats are kind of in my long term plan. And so I feel like, I'm sort of in the position, as some of our listeners in this episode was actually requested by a listener by PJ Still who sent us a message asking to do this episode. And I just wanted to note that if anybody would like to request a topic, please send us a text; text the word "Podcast" to (719) 292-3207 to request episodes, but going back to the goat health, you know, I see some things online on occasion with people that have goats that are possibly ill, or especially I see occasional issues with birthing and things like that. So what are some kind of maybe general practices or general suggestions? Kind of top overview on maintaining a healthy herd? Obviously, you said nutrition was really important. Can you expand on that some more?

Reid: 3:38

Sure. So goats are ruminants like cows and sheep, some of our wildlife like deer, you know, they're ruminants. And they are always talked about having four stomachs. But in reality, they have one stomach, which is the rumen, which kind of where the name ruminant comes from. And so that rumen is a fermentation vat, if you will, and it takes you know, grasses and hays and grains and things of that such and ferments them into small particles that fuel the animal. And then the, what does that are bacteria, protozoa, fungi, you know, what we call microbes that live in that rumen, and they pass through the rumen into the to the rest of the digestive tract. And so, if you feed the rumin and you'll keep the animals healthy, and that comes with, you know, good quality hay, which is, what a lot of goat owners are gonna really go after is good quality hay goats aren't like cows. They don't like real low quality forages. So we need high quality hays. The goats are very efficient at converting you know, grain as long as we don't give them too much grain at one time and disturb that rumen. And so getting that balance of grain hay and some animal feeds to fuel that rumen and and keep them nice and healthy. Many goat owners are going to have them out on pasture, so they're going to be, you know, grazing and browsing out in a pasture. And if you have the right area, and you're in the right environment, goats can survive with very little supplemental hay or feed. And they can do well in the pasture. But generally, people need larger ranches. And, you know, I live in San Angelo, which is in kind of the heart of the sheep and goat industry. And that's because the the environment is very suited to goats. We don't have a very harsh winter. And there's a lot of brush and browse that the goats really like. Goats like browse, they like to eat the leaves, shoots, and fruits of woody plants out on a pasture. So I know that was kind of a grand, overarching theme, they can eat a lot of different things, but they need a high quality diet. One of the things that's a myth is I say goats will eat anything, they may be curious, and they'll nibble on anything, but they do require a high quality diet.

Nicole: 6:00

And what about things like vitamins or supplements? Is that something that they need?

Reid: 6:05

Routinely, people will supply, vitamin and mineral mix to goats, that they give free choice, and the goats can go through and nibble on it, lots of times are salt in there, if they may need some salt. And then there's some macro, micro minerals. But if a person is purchasing feed from a feed store, and that's a significant portion of their diet, say 30 to 50% of the diet is coming from a purchased feed that's going to have all of those minerals in there. And if they're supplying a good quality hay and feed, or there's high quality pasture out there for the goats, the rumen microbes are generally always going to be producing the sufficient amount of vitamins that the goat needs. The only time that we would get into some deficiencies is if let's say we were feeding some feed that was dormant, and it's not green any longer. It may lack some vitamin E, and some things of that such and so it can get kind of technical. But often, if you're buying feed, a lot of those things are taken care of for you. And if you're trying to develop your own rations and balance with pastures and hays and things like that, you might have a conversation with your veterinarian and see if there's some areas that that you might need to work on to maintain good proper health.

Nicole: 7:28

And is there anything that they shouldn't eat or things that we shouldn't feed them? In my own research, I've seen some things online about maybe not letting them get into chicken feed. But I don't know if that's legitimate or not?

Reid: 7:41

I can't speak exactly to letting them get into chicken feed. You know, if the feed was specifically designed for chickens, it may have some mineral imbalances that would cause issues, if fed long term to goats, if someone was using maybe chicken scratch, where it's, you know, kind of ground up those seeds and grains and things of that such that could be fed to goats, but you would want to probably keep it at less than a quarter of their diet so that we don't cause some imbalances that would lead to problems down the road.

Nicole: 8:16

Okay, I think that some of the things I read were about maybe housing chickens in the same area as goats. And so you would want to keep the goats away from the chicken food on a regular basis? Probably?

Reid: 8:27

I would think so. Yeah. If you're I mean, I guess it depends, you know, will you run into problems? I can't guarantee the run into problems, but you might, if it's kind of your hobby, and you're not too worried about the cost of different feeds and generating a profit from you know, marketing animals then definitely, feed a goat that's been prepared for a goat and feed, you know, chicken, something that's been prepared for a chicken. Can they coexist in a backyard system out in the pasture? Sure. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's not things that are going to cause a problem. You know, now if you had goats, and you purchased a livestock Guardian dog to keep predators from eating the goats, sometimes those Guardian dogs may not like chickens. So you have to, you know, gage these things separately. But there are people that raise livestock guardian dogs with chickens at a very young age, and, you know, can protect the chickens from predators as well. So something that could be a negative can be turned into a positive.

Nicole: 9:32

Sure.

Reid: 9:33

If done strategically, there may be a few diseases, one of them would be coccidiosis. coccidiosis, is generally labeled as a parasite for goats. But in reality, it's a protozoa, that protozoa is very common in chickens, and in birds in particular, and so if those birds are deficating in the water supply that a goat will be drinking from it, might present coxydiosis the goat, which generally coccidiosis only a problem in freshly weaned goats. So they've been raised on their mother. And she's been providing food for them. They're doing really good. And then they get weaned and they get stressed. And then this coxydia can cause some pretty nasty bowel irritations that can lead to death if untreated. Many times feed that's purchased, there's gonna be medicated to prevent that. And most the time, once it gets exposed to it, and it develops an immune response to it, it will be healthy and can prevent it in the future. So not really big concern for an adult goat herd, but young goats, yeah, you want to keep an eye on that.

Nicole: 10:42

And what about goats and sheep? Can they live together? And do they have different feeding requirements?

Nicole: 10:47

So goats and sheep can definitely coexist that's very, very common that they run together. They're different species. And they do have slight differences in their dietary preferences. You know, goats tend to be browsers. Sheep tend to be kind of weed eaters, but, but they can be fed the same feed. Often though, you need to feed sheep and goats, a sheep ration versus sheep and goats and goat ration. Go rations tend to be higher in copper. And sheep are more sensitive to a higher level of copper if it's being fed for a long period of time. But sheep do need some copper, there's a lot of copper deficiencies and sheep because people are scared to feed sheep, anything that has copper in it, because of the knowledge that's out there that sheep are a little bit more sensitive to copper toxicity, but it's just too much, not just some, if that makes sense.

Nicole: 11:43

It does. Is there anything that sheeps or goats should not be eating, whether it's any natural plants or anything that could potentially be toxic, or anything that maybe people would want to give them as treats or anything like that?

Reid: 11:58

So if you did a Google search plants, you know, that are toxic to sheep and goats, it will scare the bejesus out of you. Because there's so many in there, in many of them you may have growing on your place that could be out there, the vast majority of plants that are toxic to sheep and goats, they are not going to eat voluntarily. Now, if they were starved down and weren't being fed anything, and they had to eat some of these plants through starvation, we might see some toxicity. If some of these plants were harvested in hay and then ground up into a heap, and they couldn't sort through it, we might see some problems that come out of it. But in most cases, they're gonna avoid plants that will be detrimental to their health.

Nicole: 12:45

Well, that's reassuring. So what are some common illnesses or diseases that sheeps and goats can get in? What do those look like? Like, how do they present, I guess?

Reid: 12:56

Sure, the most common disease for sheep and goats, especially for smaller acreage, producers is going to be internal parasites, internal parasites, particularly one parasites, it's a round worm. It's called the barber pole worm or the wireworm. The scientific name is haemonchus contortus. It lives in the abomasum in the reason that it's such a problem is it feeds on blood within the digestive tract. And so when sheep and goats are grazing, shorter grasses, generally in the spring and early summer, they're gonna pick up a lot of these parasites, and then the young lambs and goats and females that are lactating are the most susceptible to this disease, and they will become anemic because those parasites inside feed on so much blood. And so what you'll see is kind of like pale eyelids, pale gums, kind of look around the rectum in their bum area, anywhere where you're gonna see skin, it's not covered with wool or hair, it's gonna be real pale in color. And there's a scoring system by the name of famacha, which is a real common acronym put together is developed in South Africa, but it's a way to judge the eye. And so you can go online to YouTube and learn how to do famacha scoring. To identify if an animal's anemic or not, as that disease presents further, you'll start to see a bottle jaw, this big lump underneath the jaw to cumulation of fluid under there, you really don't want to use that as a warning sign because those animals are in really dire health situation when they get to the bottle jaw level. And then it'll even present on they get to where they're so lethargic because they can't breathe or they'll die. So that's a big problem that needs to be taken care of. And the common issue that we have now is we haven't had any new dewormers. that prevent that in almost 40 years, and so the overuse of the warmers has allowed a lot of those internal parasites to develop resistance to it. And so we need to be very strategic about treating for those internal parasites, and doing all the animal health things ahead of time, so the animals can fight it off without the need of the dewormers.

Nicole: 15:22

So with this progression, is it something that progresses pretty quickly? Or by the time that you see that they're ill? I mean, do you have generally have time to get them to the vet?

Reid: 15:33

Oh, yeah, you do. Most of the time, if you're keeping an eye on on, the disease is gonna present itself over a few weeks.

Nicole: 15:41

Okay.

Reid: 15:42

So it takes time. For those those parasites to really build up and numbers, the only time you would see it progress really quickly is if you had a bunch of animals and you move them into a new paddock, or pasture or place where you have really infected grasses, and you turn them out. And they were naive to it, and they picked it up. And then you've got, you know, maybe a week in the plant, they start showing signs before real serious animal health issues present.

Nicole: 16:14

And I imagine this as a conversation that you would want to have with your veterinarian, but in general, is a deworming something that's done only if they are infected, or is that something that's done preventatively as well?

Reid: 16:26

Internal parasites are a problem in grazing systems, we're really relying a lot on the grass. And we're not feeding a lot of hay and grain. So if you're in a confined system, and you're feeding hay and grain, it's not a big issue, or it's generally not a big issue. When you get into the pasture situations where you're getting a good chunk of their feed from the pasture. That's where they pick up more of this. So if that's a part of your system, it is going to be in the in each goat honors best interest to do their own research and learn about this either on their own and or in conjunction with their veterinarian. There's a fantastic website called wormx.info. It's a group of animal scientists and parasitologist. And I'm a part of that group. And it has some of the best fact based information that's out there. I say all that because, you know, sometimes you may work with a neighbor or someone from the feed store, even your veterinarian if they don't have a lot of sheep and goat experience, they may prescribe a deworming treatment plan that will fail on you. And it leads to resistance. You know, if you do one of these, where you give them a dewormer, you know, every three weeks throughout the year, you will develop resistance. So you need to be strategic about when you provide deworming so that you don't add to the problem in the future of parasite resistance.

Nicole: 17:47

Sure that makes sense. So what are some other common illnesses or diseases? I know that we talked about the coxydiosis earlier? What does how does that one present? What does that look like?

Reid: 18:00

So coxydiosis typically presents with bloody diarrhea. They'll get really bad diarrhea, generally, it's always in younger animals, somewhere between three weeks and three months of age, they'll present will diarrhea, there'll be really lethargic, they will kind of stop eating and drinking as much and they need to be treated right away. So we need to get with your vetrinarian and get them treated. And in places that this is a common problem might encourage them to use a preventative measure some type of medication in the feed or medication in the water right around those stressful times.

Nicole: 18:38

And is there any other common diseases or illnesses that you can think of that would be worth mentioning, I guess I'm sure there's plenty?

Reid: 18:47

Urinary calculi is a common problem in goats. Urinary calculi is basically kidney stones. And so a lot of times we're feeding goats grain, and you know corn or wheat or some milo or, or something of that nature, and those generally have more phosphorus and less calcium. And so a goat tends to meet about two parts calcium to one part phosphorus, a lot of those feeds are kind of backwards in that ratio. And so for feeding a lot of those grains, what will happen is they'll start developing kidney stones and we'll have real problems. And so to prevent that, we can either limit the amount of grain that's being fed, or purchase a grain mix that has added calcium in it in it to balance it out. So lots of times they're going to add limestone into the ration to balance out the calcium to phosphorus ratio. And then many rations are going to include ammonium chloride. It keeps the PH right in the urine so that those stones don't develop.

Nicole: 20:00

Okay.

Reid: 20:00

And they're most common in males, or those kidney stones present and especially castrated males.

Nicole: 20:07

And then like the other illnesses, what does that look like? How would you know if your if your goat was experiencing this issue?

Reid: 20:14

Yeah, well, the inability to urinate.

Nicole: 20:18

Okay.

Reid: 20:18

It's called water belly because their belly will get real big. And then they'll feel like there's a lot of water in it. And that's when the disease is really progressed. But the good goat herders will observe the animals, and especially if you walk out and everybody's laying down and resting and kind of chewing their cud and ruminating, you walk out and they all stand up and kind of walk around. As soon as they stand up. You hope that everybody urinates and deficates you know, they poop and pee, right then. If they'relaying down, they stand up, they poop and they pee. If they do that, they're generally pretty healthy, and they're doing good. The tail of a goat is gonna be straight up, if it's down, and they're kind of depressed. And if there's diarrhea, we have some problems. So, you know, just observing the animals, making sure that they're, they're pooping, and peeing, and that all looks normal.

Nicole: 21:11

So my uneducated lack of goat experience, it sounds like high quality feed and an active goat, and you're probably in a pretty good spot as far as their general health.

Reid: 21:22

You are, yeah, for sure. There, there are some other diseases that we need to be aware of. But again, not to scare people off, but there's a disease by the acronym CAE, or it's K Prime, arthritis, encephalitis. And it's a kin to Ovine Progressive Pneumonia in sheep, it's a disease that they pick up. It's a kind of a RNA type disease. So it's similar to HIV. So not that you're not gonna get HIV from goats that have CAE. That's not, but it's just the same type of pathogen, if you will. And so it presents in a whole bunch of different things that can cause arthritis, it can cause mastitis, it can cause pneumonia and different things. And so, you know, having a CAE free goat herd is something to consider. That's one of the diseases. Another disease to keep in mind is Scrapie. Scrapie is more thought in sheep. It's the Mad Cow Disease, of the sheep and goat world, there's actually some national programs, when you sell an animal that's over 18 months of age, you have to have a Scrapie eradication ID flock ID until it's sold because they do surveillance and things of that such. It's really rare. There's only been 44 cases of it determined in the US. But you know, it's important that people understand it so that they're not harboring that disease, because we're trying to eradicate it, or we're really close, but it's an early mining level. So it's helpful if people that own sheep and goats understand the disease and understand how to participate in programs that help eradicate it.

Nicole: 23:04

And when you mentioned a CAE free flock, I'm not sure what that means. Can you expand on that?

Reid: 23:10

There's a lot of resources online, if you look up those certification flocks, and certain states have different programs where you test all of your animals that come back negative, then you're required another test. And then if you only bring animals in that are negative, and you can kind of have a free flock.

Nicole: 23:31

Gotcha. So it's a testing process, then.

Reid: 23:34

Another animal health issues that we have is common around birthing. Kidding, Parturition, what have you had during that time, when goats would be giving birth, they may have birthing problems, you need to have a good relationship with your veterinarian in case of problems. They're just random stuff that could happen injuries, broken legs, lacerated skin, or something of that nature, just random things. goats are curious creatures. One of the important things about owning goats is having the proper type of fencing, you can put the goat in a pen with the best feed in the world, and it's still gonna stick its head through the fence, trying to eat, you know, a toxic plant on the neighbor's. And so most people that have goats will get a goat proof wire that's no more than four inches wide, so that it can get its head through because if it gets if it can get its head through and you haven't dehorned it, or it's not a polled goat, it's going to get hung up trying to get it back with its horns. Sure, you know, we will want to go to get its head stuck in the fence and be out in the blazing sun and you know, and suffer from dehydration.

Nicole: 24:46

And in talking about fencing. Is there much of a predator issue with goats like not that necessarily the fencing would keep something like a coyote out but is that much of an issue?

Reid: 24:57

Well, it's definitely an issue. It's a big problem. For for goat ranchers that are um, you know, large properties that require a lot of fencing and those predators can dig under it. In smaller properties, generally, we can fence them out that four inch wire and that wire that I mentioned before is pretty good about keeping predators out. A lot of goat owners will use a livestock guardian dog to protect them from predators. But you know, those livestock guardian dogs need a lot of rearing and training to make sure that they're doing what they're doing when they're supposed to be doing and observing and liking any animal they have to grow and mature to get to a point to where they know what they're doing in life. So you know, guardian animals, such as the guardian dog, some people use donkeys or lamas, to protect their goats from predators, but with good, good fencing is critical, keeps the predators out and keeps your guardian dogs guardian animals in.

Nicole: 25:55

So with your experience, not only with the extension, but also just in general, do you have any kind of common mistakes or problems that you see new people with goats making and, or anything like that?

Reid: 26:10

Sure, you know, it's good to see so many people wanting to raise goats. And most people, you know, have smaller properties, few acres. And I think one of the things that people do a lot is they get too many goats for what space they have. And so you know, they're gonna over graze the grass there. So they're not gonna really have any forage production if they have too many goats. And then also, if they have too many goats, they may get kind of wet and nasty, and a lot of feces will build up and things like that. And so you just get an environment where it's, it's not clean and healthy. So make sure that you're having the right goats for the the size of place that you have, whether you're grazing pastures, or, or maintaining kind of a confinement lot situation. I think people, new goat owners will often overdo it with nutrition. They're probably making it harder on themselves by buying two or three different types of hay in two or three different types of feed because they see something or hear something from someone that uses this, and I really like it and they use that and they use this and they use something else. And they just make it super complicated. And so you know, I encourage goat owners to work with their vetrinarian and you know, work with maybe county extension office. Texas has an extension agent in every county that can help people kind of come up with a generalized gameplan keep it simple, don't overcomplicate it, don't overfeed the animals, overfed animals can be can present with healthy health issues just as well as underfed animals. So kind of understanding that right body condition to keep an animal healthy. I think that would cover the majority of the mistakes that people make.

Nicole: 27:52

A couple things that I've heard online, and I'm not very familiar with it, you know, I haven't done a serious research because I'm not in a place to get goats right now. But you know, it's it's, you read things along the way here and there. But I've heard things about colostrum, if I'm saying that correctly, and then the mastitis with, you know, milk, milk goats.

Reid: 28:14

Yeah. So you mentioned colostrum. And I think that's an important part. Because if someone is new to goats, often where they'll get started is they will get a call a bum goat or a goat that didn't have a mother anymore. Maybe she had more kids than she could raise herself. Or maybe she had some complications, she had mastitis and she couldn't raise them. And so someone gets a young goat and they raise it on a bottle. And that's completely fine. It's okay. But one of the issues is, is if that kid goat was not given colostrum, which is the first milk. So sheep and goats are born, immunologically naive, so they don't have any antibodies, really protecting them that they got from their mother, and everything that they rely on. And basically, the first few weeks of their life comes from their mother's first milk that colostrum and so it's important if you get a young goat from someone that you ask, did this goat get colostrum from its mother, or at least didn't get some, you know, frozen colostrum from another goat or some, you know, purchase colostrum from somewhere, something to give it some immunological protection until its own immune system can get up and functioning, which may take a couple of weeks. And so often those young goats that didn't get colostrum present with a lot of health issues, generally respiratory disease, but also some digestive diseases that they just can't fight off because they don't have an immune system that's functional. So that's a very important part of this scenario, I mentioned mastitis, that might have been a reason that they couldn't raise their offspring. If you are raising goats that are giving birth and kidding, it's important to talk to someone and knows who's been through that before, it's important to work with your veterinarian and identify mastitis, which which can be common, it's a bacteria or something gets into the mammary glands in a doe will get sensitive, and she will not allow her kids to nurse on maybe one side or the other, that bacteria grows. And it gets worse and worse, if you catch it really early and milk it out, maybe give that goat some antibiotics, which would be again, directed by your veterinarian, if you catch it early, you can prevent it. But if disease progresses, and there's, you know, a lot of inflammation, you know, it's really advanced, you might not be able to save that sign of the utter. So it's important that you reach out for help if you're raising goats, and they're giving birth.

Nicole: 31:00

And I know that, you know, one common reason to have goats, of course, is for milk too. So I imagine that mastitis is something that could happen with a milk goat, not necessarily one that's nursing but one that you have.

Reid: 31:12

Yeah, one thing you have to be real honest with you, I'm not as familiar with dairy goats. What I do is with sheep and goats on pasture, and they're kind of meat and fiber producing animals, but there's a lot of similarities between the two, most of the time our mastitis occurs, you know, within the first few days after birth, while that milk production is getting started, and, you know, not a lot of it is being nursed out, because we have young animals, or if we're letting those young animals nurse off of a dairy goat for the first little period of time. And then whenever kids are weaned off, or we cease to milk, a goat, and then you know, we're letting them dry up so that milk is accumulating in there, and it's not being you know, evacuated from those mammary glands, and then we have a chance for mastitis.

Nicole: 32:04

So I know that earlier, you mentioned that there was some resources available for folks that are getting into sheep and goat raising the wormx.info, and then your local extension. And then of course, your veterinarian. But is there any other resources or websites or anything that you would recommend?

Reid: 32:25

You want a pretty decent resources out there, it just kind of depends on the level of complexity that you're looking for, you know, whether you're going for the textbook version that's got everything in there, or you're looking for, you know, a simple kind of stories guide to raising goats, the thing that I would make sure that I would stress is do your research into where that information is coming from, you know, whether it's coming from an academic entity, or a veterinarian wrote this. There's a lot of bad information that circles around, and kind of, particularly on social media platforms, there's communities and people ask questions, and a lot of folks are giving answers that that don't have the proper training background or experience to be giving that kind of advice. And so very, very cautious about that kind of information.

Nicole: 33:20

And that's one of the reasons I appreciate your time, because that's that's one of my goals. I see that in the poultry side, that there's a lot of misinformation. So I really tried to have experts in, you know, like you on the show that can share good information.

Reid: 33:37

But there's generally always good intent to it. And...

Nicole: 33:39

Of course.

Reid: 33:40

We're raising goats and raising livestock. And it's not as simple as people think it is a complexity to it. It requires a fair amount of learning and acquiring information, observing, watching the goats letting them tell you when things are right, or they're not right in in trying to catch things off early. I've always always said sheep and goats are more labor intensive than beef cattle. And people that are good at it are very observant, quick to see challenges, whether that's the internal parasites, whether that be some type of disease, whether that be, you know, the animals don't look right. And I can tell that predators are lurking around and then cutting those problems off before they become system.

Nicole: 34:30

Kind of the old adjective of a of an ounce of prevention, I assume.

Reid: 34:34

Yeah, for sure.

Nicole: 34:35

Wonderful. Well, Dr. Redden, thank you so much. This has been really great overview and lots of fantastic information. And I greatly appreciate your time today. Thank you so very much.

Reid: 34:46

You bet.

Nicole: 34:46

And for those listening, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Backyard Bounty, and we'll see you again next week.

Announcer: 34:53

For more from Backyard Bounty, text the word "Podcast" to (719) 292-3207, or visit HeritageAcresMarket.com/podcast. See you again next week!