Baa's and Bleat's - The AASRP Podcast
Baa's and Bleat's - The AASRP Podcast
Carpal hyperextension in Nigerian Dwarf goats with Dr.'s Erica McKenzie & Leah Streb
Join us for a discussion about an exciting attempt to determine the cause of a mysterious limb deformity plaguing the Nigerian Dwarf community with Dr. Erica McKenzie of Oregon State University and Dr. Leah Streb of the University of Califorina at Davis.
In this episode we discuss an unpublished study investigating the potential causes of carpal hyperextension in Nigerian Dwarf goats. Data for this project is still being evaluated. This study was proposed and privately funded by a group of Nigerian Dwarf goat owners which is very unique and exciting to have such active involvement and advocacy by animal owners! You can follow along with the progress and results of this study on the Carpal Hyperentension in Goats Facebook page and keep an eye out for Dr. McKenzie and Dr. Streb’s peer-reviewed publication of this research in the future.
To join the discussion on Carpal Hyperextension in Nigerian Dwarf goats on Facebook visit:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/320584909045198/
Questions can be directed to Dr. Streb at lhstreb@ucdavis.edu
If your company or organization would like to sponsor an episode or if you have questions about today's show, email Office@AASRP.org
Hello, and thank you for joining us on our next episode of Baas and Bleats, the American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners podcast. Today we'll be joined by two guests that were co-investigators on a super interesting topic. Today we're going to welcome Dr. Erica McKinsey from the Carlson College of Vet Med at Oregon State University, and Dr. Leah Strebb, who is now at UC Davis. It's great to see both of you today. How are you guys doing?
Erica:Great, thank you.
Leah:Thanks for having us.
Sarah:All right. So we'd like to start with just a little bit of background on each of you, a brief history of where you went to school and how you got to where you are.
Erica:Well, I'll I'll start. So I trained in Western Australia at Murdoch University, but during my training I realized pretty quickly that I would like to be a specialist in large animal medicine or surgery. And so I went to Canada first and did an internship, and very quickly it became clear that I would be a terrible surgeon. So after that point, I was turned towards internal medicine. I've been lucky to work at institutions that have always done horses alongside production animals, including goats. So I feel very fortunate that my career has always involved a mix of large animal species. And so after my internship, I did five years of residency and PhD at the University of Minnesota, then two years of postdoc at Oklahoma State University, where I actually worked mostly with sled dogs on the Adiderod race, doing some exercise physiology research. And then I came to Oregon in 2005, and I've been at Oregon State University ever since, working in the hospital and as a teacher and a clinician on all species of large animals.
Sarah:Wow, so you've lived a little bit of everywhere. You've lived out here in the frozen tundra with us too. So oh, in Canada. Where were you in Canada?
Erica:I was at the University of Guelph, just outside of Toronto, but I've really loved everywhere that I've lived in uh Canada and the US, including Oklahoma.
unknown:Oh, that's good.
Sarah:Yeah, Guelph is actually, even though I live in New York, Guelph is the closest vet school to me. It's just across the border. So I do see some like fourth year interns that'll come up and ride with me. And yeah, it's a great school. How about you, Dr. Strepp?
Leah:Yeah. So I went to UC Davis for vet school. Initially was really interested in public health, so ended up tracking livestock. Really enjoyed working with small ruminants while I was there. Then kind of switched my focuses. I've always been really interested in research and so decided to pursue residency in lab animal medicine. And so I matched in Oregon. And then while I was kind of looking around for a residency project, I really wanted to do something with large animals. And so ended up getting connected with uh Dr. McKenzie and uh started work on this project. And uh now I'm completing my residency at UC Davis and currently looking to position myself for a job in areas that are using small ruminants for research.
Sarah:I didn't know there were such jobs, but that sounds amazing. That's exciting. My husband is a professor here at the University of Buffalo and the lab animal vet there. I know she works a lot with sheep and goats, some. So, I mean, primates, rodents, everything, but I guess that is a thing for sure. That's exciting. Okay, so let's jump into this very interesting topic today. I'm super excited about. And before Dr. Buckley tuned me into this, I knew nothing that about this going on in the world of Nigerian dwarfs. So I'm super excited. Today we're going to be talking about a genetic issue that goes on with these guys, carpal hyperextension, primarily in the Nigerian dwarfs. And so the other thing that's a little different today, usually you guys have the research published, and I read the paper and we talk about it, but you guys have not published yet. And so Dr. McKinse sent me her funding proposal. So it's kind of like I've just been like teased, and now I get to hear about how the study went and what you guys found. And the more I read about your different objectives and everything, it was just like you guys were just hitting this from every single angle. I just, it was such a well-thought-out proposal and study design and everything. So I'm really interested to hear about how it all turned out. So, where did you guys sort of originally develop your interest in this topic?
Erica:Well, it was really quite fascinating because personally I do not like orthopedics at all. You know, my specialty is internal medicine. So most animals I work on, I barely notice they have legs. But I had a remarkable client who is a breeder of Nigerian dwarf goats, and she is also highly organized and a medical professional herself. And she was the one who presented me with this problem and said, Listen, this is a problem. Many of us owners are recognizing it, vets are not aware of it. I can give you a list of animals that have it, and you folks really need to do an investigation. And I'll admit I wasn't quick off the starting block, as I have plenty of other projects that I'm involved in and had to complete. But she was persistent, she circled back again. You know, there's widespread interest, it's really an issue, we need to know if this might be genetic or not. So she was the uh person who really pushed it forward, and then it was just really fortuitous that Leah and I made contact about the same time because you know, taking a project like this on solo was just not something that I could possibly do. So to have a very competent and enthusiastic resident that happened to love goats, it was just like the stars aligned, and so she and I then took on the project together. And I would also like to state that it's the first project that I've performed where the funding has been provided entirely by the industry. So we opened up a platform describing the problem, and my goodness, the goat owners stepped up. We had over a hundred people donate money to support the goals of the study and to help us go out into the field and perform the sample collection that we did. So, you know, it was presented to us as a problem by members of the goat industry and then also funded by the goat industry. So I think it's a really remarkable collaboration between goat owners, goat clientele, and the two doctors that are involved. And it's one of the coolest things about this study. So that's kind of how we got started.
Sarah:I love that. When they're like, we have the problem, we need you to fix it. That's awesome. Okay, so do one of you just want to kind of go through what you set out to find, kind of what your original hypothesis was.
Erica:Well, I can speak to that, and then Dr. Strebb, who really did most of the hard labor and the very careful measurements on these goats, can can follow on with how we tried to achieve it. I mean, I think our main goal was really trying to bring attention to both clients who didn't know, but especially the veterinarians, that this disease is out there. But obviously, it's not described in any textbooks, it's not described in any journal articles. And so we decided our first objective would be to develop a clinical description. You know, what animals are affected? Is it one sex or another? What age are they? Is it one leg or both legs? How quickly do you see clinical signs? You know, can you identify it using imaging of any specific sort? So that was kind of our first objective was let's build an actual description of the disease the clients think is present so that you could describe it to another veterinarian, for example, to know what to look for and are there ways that we could reliably have people documenting this disease. And then another big objective was to determine if there were factors that were inducing this disease or influencing this disease. So we don't know for sure it's genetic. We were worried about that possibility based on the fact it does seem Nigerian dwarfs are heavily affected, and also that some owners were describing in a large herd they might only have three affected, but those three would be related. So that gave us the concern that this is heritable. But perhaps there are management factors that influence whether it occurs or not. Vitamin or mineral levels, or the way that they're fed, or the way that they're housed, were those factors that might influence the development. So that was kind of what our main objectives or goals of the study looked like, and then we formulated a plan to go ahead and try to determine each of those things that we were interested in. And that's where Leah really put her back into the work and got a lot of it done. We made a great team, but uh yeah, she really worked hard.
Leah:Yeah, so I guess I can kind of speak to you know what all we did in the study. It was pretty it was a lot of work for sure. So we ended up kind of enrolling 105 Nigerian dwarf goats overall into the study, and we ended up identifying 36 cases. And so initially what we did to kind of prioritize for like field work was we identified farms that had cases and then had them identify potential related controls that we could collect information and samples off of when we visited the farms. And so then for all of the animals included in the study, we collected information on signalments, clinical and dietary history, their registrations so we could develop a pedigree. We did body condition scoring, weight, then we did various measurements, including carpal joint goniometry to determine the angles of hyperextension of the front legs or of the carpus. And we took brachial muscle circumference to see if there was any muscle atrophy, toe splay measurements to see if that affected anything. And then we also collected blood on all of the animals to run trace mineral analysis and do DNA extraction so that we could, you know, potentially determine if this was genetic.
Sarah:One thing I'm trying to do is to find words that our farmers and our producers may not know. Um so signalment is simply like age, sex, you know, just like the basics of the animal. And then just to make sure we all understand that hyperextension, it's bent too far back. So these goats were standing. You wouldn't say knock knee because they weren't coming together, but where their legs were too straight, the knees were too close to the belly, I guess we could say that, right? You would say the the knees of the front leg were too bent towards themselves, right?
Leah:Yeah, yeah. So, like if you think about knee hyperextension in people, like kind of just the knees just going a little bit too far back than they're actually supposed to. Yeah.
Sarah:Yeah. Okay. Was that all the words you said? Oh, there there was one word in there that I didn't even know, but I think it had to do with you, probably. Yes.
Leah:Yeah, okay, yeah. So it's a it's a tool that's also used in human medicine that's just used to determine the joints of or the the level of flexion and extension in a joint. And so it's basically like a ruler with like a circular wheel in the center, and then another ruler attached to the end. So you can just basically measure the angle of the joint and how that's bending. And then we had you know landmarks on the leg that we used for, you know, as that kind of point of anchor for measurement on all animals, so that measurements were cons consistent and took measurements three times to make sure that you know everything was done, you know, with the best precision possible.
Sarah:When you said so the control animals were animals on the same farm, and you said they were related, like literally they were like siblings or parents.
Leah:We tried to identify, yeah, either siblings, half siblings, or parents or offspring.
Sarah:Okay, so those were the controls. So they had similar genetics, but were not showing symptoms of this.
Leah:Yes. Okay. And we um made sure that all controls were over the age of two, because what we had um heard reported from owners was that most of these animals were developing the condition by two years of age. And that is what we ended up finding in our results section as well, as far as age of onset and everything.
Sarah:And that's super important because a lot of these little goats are born with wonky legs. Sorry, that's not a very scientific term, but I can't tell you, and I'm sure you see it, how many texts, pictures, phone calls I get because my goat can't stand, blah, blah, blah. And you know, a little bit of PT, some selenium, they usually come around just fine. And so that is not these. This is different. This is something they develop later and it does not go away. Correct? Okay.
Erica:Well, it can it can go away. We're getting kind of varying reports. You know, generally these animals are born normal. They can develop it really early in life. I think maybe the earliest we heard of in one of our cases was about three months. Generally, they're somewhere over. People have also reported animals being normal until they become pregnant and then developing carpal hyperextension, which may or may not relate to the increased body weight. Or the opposite. Sometimes they say she had carpal extension until she kitted, and then carpal extension seemed to resolve. So it's not common for people to say that it has resolved, but people are attempting different approaches to treating it based, you know, on things like foot trimming, for example, and some people do feel that they're evoking a positive response. Now we don't know if they're the same animals or not, if they truly have carpal hyperextension or not. You know, clearly we're the ones doing goniometry on these animals, and the joint angles on normal or control animals we found were very much zero, zero to one, positive one. And the the angles on goats that are quite severely affected, they're severely affected because the owners have been able to recognize that they're diseased, so they are the more severe cases, which is ideal when you're trying to define a new disease. You want the worst affected animals to make sure you're looking at the right condition. And the joint angles we were finding in the severe cases were minus 15, minus 20, sometimes minus 27. So these are quite strikingly bent knees, bending backwards in kind of a straight line. They don't go in, they don't go out, they go backward at the knee. Okay. It can be somewhat rapid onset, sometimes a slower onset, but definitely some people do report I did this and it fixed it. But I would say for the most part, the animals that we defined and looked at were kind of persistently affected and not a lot of improvement with different treatments and often lame, some of them severely lame, and some of them with severe secondary degenerative joint disease. So basically developing arthritis even as young as two.
Sarah:Okay, so you went out, you looked at the goats, you took all these samples, and then what?
Leah:Um, so another kind of arm of what we ended up doing was we did have eight severely affected animals that were going to be eathanized due to quality of life issues. And so what we ended up doing was we got x-rays, ultrasound, uh, and MRI, and then submitted those animals for an ecropsy so that we could really do an extensive workup of the joints and see if there was anything that we could find there.
Sarah:I love that piece of it actually when I was reading the objectives because it like really adds a whole piece of the puzzle because it's like, okay, is it bone, is it tendon, is it ligament, is it muscle, is it, you know, is it mineral deficiency?
Erica:I think one of the more remarkable things we found during that part of the study too was how good the animals were. We were able to radiograph them, able to ultrasound, you know, the entirety of their little front legs with no sedation. Uh they would stand up on the blocks, they would be great for the imaging process. They'd let us clip their legs. I expected lots of stomping and bad behavior, but you know, I mean, Nigerian dwarfs in general have really pleasant personalities, but I was I was really blown away by what they would tolerate and let us do. Yeah, they were great to work with. We really enjoyed it.
Sarah:So what, and maybe this comes later, but what were people doing, like vets and owners as treatment, and were they finding anything that was helping?
Leah:No, we had kind of like varying things that people tried, maloxicam, some tried just supplementation. Only a few, I think, sought like veterinary assessment and you know had rads done, or we had a couple animals that actually had CTs done at OSU previously that we did end up looking at. But I think in those cases, mostly they didn't really help to improve or resolve the condition.
unknown:Okay.
Leah:You know, sometimes kelp, you know, they added kelp supplements or you know other things, and and just didn't really see much improvement.
Erica:Yeah, we did a very extensive survey of all clients with the goats, controls and affected. So we did a very extensive survey of their management, any treatments they'd tried, how they were feeding them, any supplements they'd given. You know, Dr. Strub did a great job recording all of that and organizing it into data sheets, and that is going to be part of our analysis. But, you know, it's a massive amount of data, everything that we collected and arranged into sheets, and so we are still going through the process of analyzing, analyzing all of this data and and preparing it for publication. So there's questions that we think we know the answers to, and there's questions that we don't know the answers to, but at the end of the day, we have to be able to prove it statistically, and we aren't yet at that point.
Sarah:I'm glad that those are good for you because they can be SAS. So I'm glad they they participated. So what are what are some of the the aha moments or the even even it's leaning this way but not statistically significant, you know, sometimes it's worth worth mentioning.
Leah:Yeah, so you know I think it's probably pretty clear that this was, you know, the you know, something that we found was that our affected animals had significantly more hyperextended angles than the controls, which Dr. McKenzie mentioned earlier that the control animals really had just straight, very straight front legs just in general, and with the carpal joint. So, and then you know, our our results was it was 0.4 plus or minus 0.6 degrees, you know, for the the angle. And so, you know, comparing that to our cases, which had minus 14 plus or minus 4.1 degrees, so really, really severe difference there. And then, you know, we did find that you know technically with our stats, it seemed like you know, males were more affected, but females were a lot more readily available as controls, so that's probably a confounding factor there. We really did have a pretty even distribution of bucks and dose for our cases, and then looking at our you know, imaging and pathology, which unfortunately didn't provide a ton of insight onto what was causing this condition. As of right now, you know, we're still waiting on some special stains, and you know, we're working with the pathologist on that. But you know, the one thing that was evident in probably about half of the those eight severely affected cases was just degenerative joint disease, which we suspect is secondary from the condition. Um, and then you know, moving on to our you know, pedigrees, I think it was pretty interesting that we were actually able to trace all of the affected animals that were included into the study back. To a single male. Yeah, which is, you know, pretty cool. Yeah, pretty interesting. You know, I mean, I think it's it's, you know, because the breed has such narrow origins. I mean, I think it's, you know, it makes sense. So, but I definitely think that it's there's a potential for the founder effect to be coming into play here. And then, you know, we did all the DNA extraction and analysis, and there's still more work that we need to do there. But there's currently we've found a region of interest that, you know, suggests that we do have potential for a gene causing this issue. But we do really need to get some more funding and do a full genotyping of that region and you know, possibly include some more animals into that to really kind of put the stamp on an answer of whether it's you know officially genetic.
Erica:So it is terrible to hope that a disease might be genetic. You know, we we don't really want to wish that on our clients. But on the other hand, with a disease that can potentially come and go in some animals and that generates so much kind of distress and concern about breeding, if it is genetic and if we could identify a gene and we could develop a blood test for it, you know, clearly that would be the simplest answer to the problem, even if we don't clearly understand why the problem arises in the first place. So it's it's a bit of a conundrum. You know, we didn't really find much evidence that they're lacking in a specific mineral, for example, or that specific forms of dietary management or anything like that contribute. So there's obviously a huge amount of variability in what people do and how they do it, which may drown out any specific features of management that contribute to this disease. But I guess at the end of the day, you know, so far there is supporting evidence we would say that it does appear it might be heritable, and if there is any chance to isolate that gene and come up with a simple hair or blood test, you know, that would be wonderful. And that has actually always been our ultimate goal, but we're a long way from it, and it it would require substantial amounts of funding that we don't currently have. So at this time we just get our preliminary data together. If we can show that to be convincing to an extramural source, then there's a chance that we can be funded to do more extensive genetic investigations.
Sarah:Right, right. Can you tell if it comes down through the buck or the dough?
Leah:No.
Sarah:I mean, you know it started with a buck, but that doesn't mean anything.
Leah:Yeah, it doesn't seem to have like an X-linked pattern of inheritance or anything like that. Um we think it's showing like an autosomal recessive pattern. Um yeah, that's all we really have at this point.
Sarah:Yeah, because if it wasn't recessive, we probably see it a lot more than we do, right?
Erica:I feel like we saw a lot in our little area.
Leah:I mean, to be fair, I guess. The degree of inbreeding and just in general within the breed, I think has made it just more prominent.
Erica:I mean, I think the fact that we could visit only 15, 16 properties and gather over 30 animals, I I feel is a little bit of a concern. You know, it does speak to to me, it seems like a frequent disorder. And you know, when you look at the Facebook page, it now has over a thousand members, and you've got to wonder why, why are there so many people? Is it just they're interested, or do all of these people have affected goats? So I do feel like it seems to be prevalent, but that may just be my personal perception of things. But um I'm not sure what we're gonna find in terms of the genetic probability. But I do think whether it's buck or doe for this breed in particular, it's still a concern, right? I mean, a buck can obviously be used on a large number of females, and that's problematic if they're the ones transmitting it. But this is also a breed that has multiple births, that's an expected trait, and four or five kids is not unusual. And so I guess there's also the possibility that does, if they're responsible, could contribute. But I don't think we're going to find a sex-linked trait. But I am not the expert here. Dr. Strub and Dr. Finnow at UC Davis is working with us. She's a geneticist, and those two have uh a lot more knowledge of what's likely than I do.
Sarah:Wow, that's interesting. So as far as producers go, I mean, could they trace their, you know, breeding stock back to this family and you know be more cautious knowing the originators of the problem?
Leah:Uh potentially, but currently we're not sharing the information as of yet because you know, a lot of the individuals that we've traced back to are, you know, animals that are so long gone at this point that we can't, you know, we can't confirm whether they were affected, and then that, you know, can cause issues with you know the community and everything. So I think it would be you know better for them to kind of trace through their own herd and records and maybe animals that they've got from other locations that then they can just kind of do their own tracing and determine if there's like specific individuals that maybe they shouldn't either be breeding anymore or what have you.
Sarah:I mean, at a minimum, it can be a question you ask, right? Like just like I encourage them, you know, make sure they're CAE tested. It can be something like, have you ever seen this in your herd? Or it could just be one more line of investigation when you're building breeding stock or or whatever, at a minimum. Yeah.
Leah:I definitely think people should be asking that if they're getting animals, you know, if they've seen it on their farm. And I think you know, that should be something that's disclosed. I had another thought, but then I just lost it.
Erica:I will say it's founder effects in general, to my understanding, are quite rare. And there's always the danger of finding or believing a founder effect in a group that has a narrow genetic lineage. So, you know, we don't we don't know for sure that there is a specific line. There's there's enough evidence to be concerned that it's possible, but certainly we're far from proof at this point in time. And we do know that some animals that are affected owners feel have gone on and produced all normal progeny, whereas others they've seen them produce abnormal progeny. So it is uh variable between owners what they experience. So I don't want to put out some widespread hysteria that, hey, you know, this is a genetic trade and owners shouldn't breed them. I mean, I don't think we have enough confirmation at that at this point in time. And we also don't know is it a direct problem where the genetics precipitate this to happen to the knees, or is it indirect where something else that's controlled by genetics, such as a higher need for some random mineral, may allow this to happen. So we don't know the pathophysiology of this disorder, and so that makes it also more complicated to look at the genetics of it. I think what we've achieved so far is, you know, we've been very methodical in performing this study and identifying affected animals and related controls, you know, trying to have the tightest genetic population that we can to study. And then uh Dr. Strubb and Dr. Finau are going to continue that kind of process of trying to define the genetics more clearly and do we truly have strong evidence for a genetic effect or not? And then hopefully, as I said, our overarching goal is to confirm it is or it isn't, and if we can identify a gene, then develop a blood or hair test, which would be the most convenient thing for the owners. You know, far better than waiting till the animal's two and hoping that it's going to be okay, because we do have the occasional animal that will spring this late in life, or it's not noticed. I think that's particularly a problem on the bucks because they have so much hair, sometimes down past their knees. And so, you know, it can happen that you can find a buck that's thought to not be affected that actually is affected, and it may just not have been noticed. Yeah. We also found, I think, that sometimes when vets evaluated these animals, they would put the lameness somewhere else. It was quite common for them to think it was a shoulder and to focus on x-rays of the shoulder, for example, and not notice a negative angle in the knee, which we found, and so that was also a concern for us is that maybe these negative angles aren't being recognized. I mean, no one's out there holding up a goniometer to a knee. That's us, right?
Sarah:Maybe vets will be, and you know, a thing that I think would be great is a lot of people, because they're buying these animals sight unseen on the internet, right? You know, I would say any buck that any any of my producers buy, I would say, I want a picture of their legs. I want that hair pulled back or trimmed, and I want to see the how straight they stand. I think that would be, I mean, unless they're under two, it may not be super helpful. But I think when you're looking at pictures of animals online and you're looking for moon spots or all the things they look for in the Nigerian dwarfs, straight legs should be something that I'm definitely going to be talking to all of my Nigerian dwarf breeders about that being something really important to maintain the integrity of their breed.
Erica:Yeah, and we're basically we're right now responsible for developing the clinical description of this disease, which is a fairly novel position to be in. And I think we also just have to be cautious. So we may sound a little bit um coy about some of the results, but the reason that might be occurring is I feel it is important for us to get this through peer review. An expert reviewer might pick up on something we're not thinking about that could have been confounding our results. Or I think it's really important that we go through that process, which is why Dr. Strubb's writing up the manuscript, and we hope to uh get that published this year.
Leah:We really just wanted to make sure we were doing our due diligence and evaluating all of the potential causes because if it is officially genetic, that really could affect a lot of readers and everything. So we just, you know, want to make sure that we're doing the most robust study that we can.
Sarah:All right. Do you feel like you have hit all the points that you'd like to hit that you would like veterinarians and producers and even other scientists to know about?
Erica:I think it's uh, you know, I'd just like to reiterate how how fascinating and important it was that this was brought to us by the clients, that the clients are the ones who recognized this problem that brought the veterin's attention to it and that wholeheartedly supported it. You know, I just think that's a remarkable. And I've been doing research for 20 years, and I don't recall ever being in that situation where the clients have driven us to research the problem and also supported it financially at the same time. So I think that's pretty remarkable. And I think, you know, our GOAT owners are extremely knowledgeable and extremely observant. And I think it's really important that veterinarians listen to them and give credibility to the observations that clients bring to them.
Sarah:I think that's true in any species, absolutely. You know, you can't do anything without a solid history. And yeah, 100%, definitely.
unknown:Dr.
Sarah:Strubb, do you have anything to add?
Leah:No, I think that pretty much covers it.
Sarah:All right. All right. Well, so keep an eye out, listeners, for this to be published, but we're probably many months away, right? It sounds like if you're still writing up the manuscript, it's not a fast process.
Erica:The review can be even slower. Yeah, I know.
Leah:But you know, if collections have questions, you know, they can contact me. I don't, you know, Eric is really busy, so I don't know.
Erica:The Facebook enthusiast. I've I've never been on Facebook in my life, so it was another incredibly helpful aspect of working together on this project that she could so many things.
Sarah:So I just thought I'd follow along with you guys. But we will, if you're okay with it, Dr. Strabb, we'll put your email in the podcast notes. So if people have any questions about that, I'd like to end with asking all of our guests, what and you can look at your own research, you can shoot for the stars here. What do you see as the next problem that researchers need to think about and address in small ruminant medicine? Dr. McKinsey, you want to start?
Erica:I personally struggle with the process of debutting, disbudding in goat kids. You know, I feel like it is a management procedure, and for those reasons, it is done in an economic fashion that is most convenient. But we need to recognize that only 16% or so of kids that are being disbudted in the field are receiving any kind of analgesia whatsoever. And I know it's a widely accepted process, and it's an important process to happen for many reasons that is necessary, and we don't lose sight of that. But most of our owners kind of have come to accept it as normal and seem to believe that it's not it's not causing pain or welfare issues, that it's a temporary thing. And honestly, I would just say if if this is not considered humane to do to a puppy or a kitten or a two-year-old kid, we shouldn't think of it as a humane thing to do to goat kids. Like I would really like us as a as an industry and as a clinicians to strive for a better way to disbud with some degree of analgesia. This is none, which is the majority of cases.
Sarah:Right. Yeah. I mean, those of us who do it for our clients do all the things we can, you know, but when they're doing it on farm, which I know they are, all I can do is give them some meloxicam and pray. So yeah, that's a good one. That's huge. Absolutely. Dr. Strabb?
Leah:Yeah, that was gonna be kind of my answer as well. It was just anesthesia and analgesia for these painful procedures. And I think that's some more something for, you know, kind of all livestock species that we can continually be improving on and, you know, refining those procedures. And, you know, if if you have animals that are experiencing chronic pain, they're not gonna be producing as well as an animal who is not experiencing that chronic pain. So that's just something that we need to be thinking about and addressing for the future.
Sarah:Yeah, I love that we're in the generation of veterinarians who can really push that animal welfare is also financially beneficial. You know, in the dairy world, it's been proven over and over again. So yeah. And unfortunately, so many of our goats are pets, and so they're not producing, you know. So when I'm like, if you do this, they'll grow faster. Well, nobody really cares about that, or they'll produce more milk. Well, I already can't drink all the milk they're making. So, but when they're looked at as pets, like our dogs and cats, I think hopefully that will come across even more strongly. So, yeah, those are great answers for sure. Well, I want to thank Dr. McKinsey and Dr. Strubb for joining us on this new and exciting and super interesting topic today on our next episode of Boz and Bleats, the American Association of Small Ruminant Practitioners podcast. Thank you guys so much, and we'll see you next time.
