Glucosamine and Chondroitin are supposed to work on what appears to be sympathetic magic, its really the equivalent biochemically of eating hair in hopes of covering a bald head. Its all placebo so if you gave it to your goat it would probably lead to you thinking it was working but no change for her (placebo works on perception,including your perception of others). MSM also doesn't have strong evidence supporting it, when they tighten the controls on a study and remove all of the cheating the effect disappears, so if you look at the bad early studies it looks like it works, but then again so do reflexology, bloodletting and Satan worship. Asprin is really a great way to go, or I would imagine Naproxen (Aleve) would work even better, typically goats have a much better way of handling toxins than humans do, so I would assume that it would be safe, but I don't have any literature to back that up, I simply do not have access at this time to the veterinary journals.

Yes they can get just plain oats,especially if they are mixed in with other foods (varied diets make for healthier animals). If you don't have artificial light the shorter photo period will drastically reduce your egg yield, so installing a $12 dollar fluorescent strip light might fix your yield problem. Also be weary of too much grain at all, Grains have a much higher ratio of Omega-6 fatty acids to Omega-3 fatty acids, which means that the eggs will have less Omega-3's and since the two compete for room with in your body you don't want to shift towards Omega-6's which we get plenty of.

I have used both DMSO Jelly and Bengay on arthritic goats with good success.

Both at the same time? Seems like the DMSO jelly would be redundant, and seperately, seems like the DMSO wouldn't do anything. Were there other ingredients in the DMSO jelly?

DMSO Liquid Form of Dimethylsulfoxide usually a 99.9% Pure Concentrate, this pure liquid DMSO is used for various applications. DMSO is often mixed with other extracts and compounds to enhance absorption. IT ENHANCES AND IS NOT REDUNDANT.

Some time a LITTLE knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands!

I am very familiar with DMSO and have used it in the lab thanks. The problem is that bengay is already designed to diffuse in to the skin, extra DMSO will probably speed this process up, but if that improved performance I would imagine that they would have put that relatively cheap additive in the product to begin with.

Well I'll be, I was familiar with DMSO being used to treat a bladder condition, but did not know that it reduces the inflammation response. Seems like it would work on its own, who knew, I'm not sure I'd want to expose an animal I might get milk from to DMSO however, since it does have a bit of an unpleasant taste, and the levels required for inflammation reduction are higher than those needed to act as a carrier.

The swollen knee and walking on her front knees are symptoms of CAE. But the way her feet were overgrown may be the reason. It may be worth having your vet send a blood sample out and see if CAE is present. Tom

Brendan of Bonsai knows absolutely everything about everything or at least he thinks he does. How can the placebo effect work on a goat? I had a very old dog who was so arthritic that it would cry every time it got up. I started giving it MSM and it was soon running around without any painful whinning. I was slipping it in his food, so I don't think the placebo effect was in operation here.

MSM works so well in study after study that the Bayer Company is coming out with 4 different arthritic blends that will be marketed toward the pet industry. Naproxen (Aleve) will cause liver and kidney damage and in dogs will cause congestive heart failure with long term use. Many of the Patented medications are glorified natural products that have what they call in the trade as 'sidebar molecules' added to them. You can't patent naturally existing compounds and elements-or we would be paying royalties on air and water! To get around this they take a natural product and add 'sidebar molecules' which cause side effects and then tell people who can't think for them selves that it is 'better'. They have a product on the market that is a form of boron, it 'treats' rheumatoid arthritis..truth be know you can use a boron supplement at 3 X the recommended dose and get better results with no side effects. There are hundreds of other meds that are dangerous knock-offs of natural remedies.

High desertwoman, I actually explicitly answered that question in my first post. I'll quote Its all placebo so if you gave it to your goat it would probably lead to you thinking it was working but no change for her (placebo works on perception, including your perception of others) A million things are happening at any one time, if you take your dog off MSM and it gets worse again, then you put it back on and it gets better, then you take it off again and it gets worse, and you repeat this a good 3-5 times then you can be pretty sure it is the MSM, but until then please keep in mind that correlation is not causation, just because event 1 followed event 2 does not mean that event 1 caused event 2.
Also, before your next ad hominem attack on me you might want to check a post two spaces above yours, where I admit to having not known something. When I can be shown where I am wrong and it is a good source I freely admit it, in this case I went out looking for my self and found something that seramas didn't appear to know (if I were arguing from his side I would have picked that one first at least, because it is by far and away the stronger argument).

seramas no one has done a long term safety and efficacy study on MSM. There have been a few preliminary studies but I just don;t see anything that is resounding in a pubmed search, it may work along the same lines as DMSO (although it seems to be antagonistic to DMSO) and we need to wait until after the studies have been done rather than going out on a limb. I will admit that there is some promising evidence, there is also quite a bit of shady evidence, just like for homeopathy (well no promising evidence for this one) and glucosamine/chondroitin. I just distrust any medication that is sold before the studies are done on it (like MSM was). Also C-reactive protein seems to remain up, I think that after a few clinical trials are done the jury will be in, and to be honest I hope that MSM works, but I don;t think that evidence is in yet so I don't think we should be making suggestions based on how we are guessing it will come in.

Also you do realize I hope that you have no idea what you are talking about as far as patent law, a new patent was just issued on baking soda in 2008. The ancient egyptians used baking soda, it was purified in the 1700's, and a patent was issued on it for a medical procedure.

Are you a big proponent or orthomolecular "medicine" you seem to be pro "natural" and big on larger than normal doses of things.

Surely they had accepted evolution by the time you went through school for your PhD (I always want to make the "P" little and the "h" big)and as a correlation to that they realized that the compounds that occur in say a willow tree are there for the benefit of the willow tree, not humans, and that compounds found in an alga are there for the benefit of the algae and not humans. Also you must realize that many of these compounds with 'sidebar molecules' (now a days they are typically referred to just as functional groups, I couldn't find the phrase you just used any where in the journal of the american chemical society from the last 55 years, or google scholar or pubmed, in fact I only found it one place, in this thread; admittedly I do remember a really old professor using the term sidecar once my freshen year of college, he was describing the position of DNA polymerase in the formation of Okazaki fragments and its attachment to the other enzymes at the replication fork) would be indistinguishable for us as natural or unnatural if we did not know the source. Something like the acetate on asprin serves a great purpose in the animal digestive system, preventing a rapid absorption in an acid environment and acting as a chemical time release mechanism. If you can show me a study that compares in a double blinded manner a natural remedy with its knock off (or two studies that compare to placebo for the same or similar conditions and people in similar situations) that shows that the 'Natural' remedy is both safer and more effective than the 'knockoff' and the 'knockoff' is in wider use than the 'natural' remedy I will go to the mat to get that changed, but really you need proof to make that claim. (The ratio could have to do with different situations, sometimes people will try the safer compound and if it doesn't work try to switch to the more dangerous one, but the safer more effective treatment should be standard of care and doctors should be sued for not trying it first in the absence of contraindication).

The German Commission E has done over 450 studies on MSM to the tune of $355,000,000. US dollars. Many of the studies were done by US Medical Colleges and US Government has commissioned studies at a cost of about $122,000,000 of tax payers hard earned dollars.

I dare say you should be sure brain is engaged before putting mouth in gear!!! You are making this forum unpleasant for many and for your own good STOP this nay saying!!!

Hi jmdj,

There is a website that you can go to and get vet advice - $20 dollars for those on a tight budget - $40 if you are satisfied with the answer $60 if it is urgent.

http://www.justanswer.com/questions/1jmxu-please-help-goatsuffering

hope this helps - I have used this site a couple of times for my labs.

Nelda

The whole being nasty thing is a two way street.

Where is your source for that German Commission E thing?

I've looked a lot and it would seem that the evidence I have found for MSM is stronger than I thought it was, there have been no large well done damning studies, there have been no large well done supporting studies either, its all pilet studies still. "Moderate evidence was found for methylsulfonylmethane"
"Several other supplements are promoted for treating osteoarthritis, such as methylsulfonylmethane, ... but there is insufficient reliable evidence regarding long-term safety or effectiveness."

I will freely admit that my first post was too harsh on MSM, it was based on the studies I had seen to that time and how the effect was being reduced as the studies got better but did not include the latest round, which looks to have leveled off a bit, and it was based on the biological plausibility of mechanisms I have seen proposed (seriously who suffers from a sulfur deficiency?). That doesn't mean that you weren't/aren't further off from the evidence or that you were less mean.

For the 'highly' educated person you claimed to be in pharmaceuticals and you haven't read the English translation of the most highly regarded clinical studies ever done of over 300 herbal remedies. http://www.salisbury.edu/nursing/herbalremedies/German%20Comm.htm

This will be my last post.

I can't access the papers that way, I tried before I asked. I can get a few paragraphs on some herbs but nothing on MSM or a third of a billion dollars having been spent to study it.

Brendan, you really need to get out of your mom's basement more often.

I actually live something like 3000 miles away, but thanks for the Ad Hominem attack.

C'mon everybody, let's just all sit back, count to 10 and take a deep breath. Then choose either pistols at 10 paces, pugil sticks, paintball guns, or large stale baguettes to settle the dispute. I suggest using the latter, as they are far easier to procure and less painful and easier to clean up.

Ok, group hug everyone!

hee,hee,hee,hee,hee!!!!

I agree-I would have the doe tested for CAE. I've heard the glucosomene can be used but if it is CAE she will eventually be unable to stand. CAE is not curable, but can be prevented in the next generation by bottle feeding the kids with clean (CAE Negative) goat milk. I've never had a case of CAE, so not sure if it would effect only one knee?

You can give aspirin, however it is more for your benefit than the goats-aspirin would have to be given in very high dosages to do any good.
It is also possible she bruised a tendon or something when she was forced to walk on those bad hooves-if this is the case she may heal over time. A 10% bleach solution, Koppertox, or Formalin can be used daily to clear up hoof rot, along with LA200. Hoof rot lives in the soil and is hard to clear up, keeping her area dry will hasten healing.

Banamine (vet script) can be used for the short term but I wouldnt use it for any length of time.

BrendaSue

I personally have learned to ignore Brandon just like his post did not exist. I have noticed that many others have started doing the same. His responses are normally argumentative, wrong and useless. If you met a person like this would you entertain him by arguing or discount him and move on?

jmdj1994 did you treat the foot rot and clip the goats nails as a starter? Have you had her checked out by a vet and also tested for CAE?

I am interested in knowing how this came out for you.

Hi again
Sorry it has taken me so long to give an update...Thanks for all your contributions.. I have always been one to look for opinions on both sides of the fence and I think this time I really hit the jackpot. About my goat (Lily) she made some initial improvement but then it got really cold so now she hardly puts weight on the that right leg at all. I have been giving her and Aspirin and Glucosamine every day for a little over a month now, and then last week I started giving her MSM every day. I have also been trying to put warm packs on it in the mornings and I try to rub it down and put some topical salve that is like bengay but also has glucosamine in it ( I got some for my Grandma and after talking to the gal at the store she was telling me that they tested in on goats so I thought I might as well try it). Anyway the left knee is really doing well but it's still just the right knee that keeps bugging her. With hoof trimming and such her hoof rot is gone--her hooves look great now and she gets around really well--she keeps the right knee bent and off the ground and walks or runs (at a pretty good clip too) on her other threee. She is eating and drinking better than she was at first, and she is really pretty playful and curious--which she really wasn't when I originally posted-- so I think maybe her pain is getting a little better. I am anxious to see if she will use it more in the spring once it warms up. Also I have an odd question about DMSO. Does anyone know if that is the same thing that gets instilled into people's bladders for various bladders diseases (like chronic cysts, stones in the bladder etc.)? Although I haven't done it recently, when I worked day shift (I work weekends now) at the hospital I work at now it seemed like we would instill that into people's bladders and leave it in for an hour and then drain it out. I am not exactly sure how it was supposed to help but I pretty sure its DMSO. If I were to use it on goats is it better to use a topical preparation or give it orally?

As for my chickens they are great! Their is a light on for them all the time and I did start mixing 1 part chick starter, 1 part oats to 2 parts layer ration and egg productions was back up in just a few days. Thanks a bunch!

Thanks again for all your comments and tips, and please feel free to contribute any new ideas!

Have a great night--marie

DMSO is a solvent, its used to dissolve things.