Posted by Vicki McGaugh on December 27, 2000 at 20:57:29:
In Reply to: Re: Water posted by Evan on December 27, 2000 at 16:37:10:
We all want to win, but when it comes to the detriment of your stock, I don't think winning is the best thing in this case. Especially since if you are showing market stock this means that you are children. I would love to meet the person who has told you to dehydrate your goats, for reasons that make no sense. Dehydration would cause the skin to shrink into the muscle only in the most severe case of deydration, it also would cause a concentration of the urine, which would likely with the animal also on full feed to not only be in a great mineral inbalance but also the threat of urinary calculi. This is all well and good if your animal makes the sale and is slaughtered after the auction, but for you to take this animal home, to have this done over and over until he is no longer showable for the jackpot money, is inhumane. And to be fair I feel exactly the same way when I see over uddered does at summer shows in Texas, and over uddered first fresheners with milk spewing all over the ring.
If you had fitted, fed, trimmed, exercised and managed the animal correctly, you would not now need to starve it of water. All of us on the 911 list have had emails I am sure asking "how can I get some weight on my wether, the show is in 3 weeks" this is the very same thing, you are looking for a quick fix of something you should have been working on from day one.
I thought long and hard about posting this to the list, but I just felt I had to. This is certainly not something I would want my children to be doing to their goats. This is certainly not something I would do to my goats. Vicki