What's In It?

One sees lots of articles about caring for, breeding, and raising goats. There are also from time to time articles about how to market our animals. While all of these are important issues related to the success of a goat enterprise you see very little information on another important aspect. This being the production of contaminated meat products by us, the goat producers, and I am not talking about bacterial contamination in this article. Through organic acid washes using lactic and acetic acid and the implementation of HACCP guidelines meat products being processed are bacteria free to a large extent.

The contamination I am talking about is the type that we the producers have total control over. This being antibiotic and other drug residues such as anthelmintics which could be present in processed carcasses. There not being many drugs approved for goats and thus no established guidelines for withdrawal periods compounds the problem. With no set withdrawal or approved usage, the off label usage of drugs by goat producers puts our product and us at risk. One of the main reasons being if there is no approval for usage, neither is there an acceptable maximum residue level for these substances in goat carcasses. Theoretically detection of unapproved substances even at the parts per billion level could lead to condemnation of our product.

We are very lucky that at the current time our product is seen in general as a lean and healthy meat protein. I am sure though you all have through the years seen how quick the media is to jump on any story regarding food safety and supply. We darn sure don't wish to give ourselves a black eye by production of an "unsafe" food before we even get off the ground with the general consumer. As a whole the American public still perceives the goat as a stinky, tin-can-eating animal and certainly not as a source of food. I, as I am sure many of you have, have seen the look of shock on people's faces when they ask what you are raising goats for and you tell them, meat.

We are still quite a ways from getting many wide range antibiotics and drenches approved for use in goats. One reason being the size of our industry in relation to other meat industries. We are only about 1/10th of 1 percent as big as the Beef industry. This along with the fact that it takes around 20 million dollars to get FDA approval for antibiotic usage in a new species means for now off-label use is a fact of life for goat producers.

Knowing that, it is our responsibility as farmers and ranchers to make sure the product we deliver to the kill room floor is free of contamination. If we don't pay attention and exercise caution we can sink our boat before it ever leaves the dock. I am not going to claim expert status as to how to best achieve a goal of drug free meat, but I will make a few suggestions. The first suggestion being to at least double or triple the drug withdrawal times listed for approved species on the pharmaceuticals you use. While this won't guarantee a thing it will at least give the animal a good opportunity to get the drug out of their system. I cringe every time I go to a terminal show and see exhibitors treating their show animals with drugs for pneumonia or other ailments. Mainly because I know in less than 48 hours after the show that goat is going to be hanging on a hook in some processors facility. Scary thought when you look at it from that perspective.

I really think most of us do try and pay attention to suggested withdrawal times, yet I would still urge greater vigilance.

I do have to admit in the past, as in years back, to not paying attention to information as the above article addresses. We would work a bunch of goats and turn them out, then if the market got good in the next week or so, get them in and sell them.

You do have to remember though this was before much concern or attention was focused on meat goat production and most of us who had them were happy anytime we could catch ours. Hopefully we are far enough past that point that we as an industry and producers can police ourselves. I see very little in most goat production educational forums which address these issues and perhaps most producers have never given such as the above a thought. That is the reasoning behind this month's article. I would also suggest if there is any possible way that one could, that all drug administrations, including drenches be limited to breeding stock only. If we never give our slaughter animals injections or drench them then we know we are safely producing 100% organic Chevon, the best meat in the World!!