I just got off the phone from talking with our state vet. She’s a wonderful lady, and has been out here once a year for a long time now to check out our sheep flock and goat herd for Scrapie.
But not this year.
I was in the voluntary program, as I felt it made it easier to sell registered stock. However, I disliked all the paperwork. Worse, there wasn’t any way to correct any mistakes you might have made once the paperwork was in. And then there was the problem we had when someone gave The Farmer an OLD goat. She was too old to have kids any more, so NOT breeding stock. Didn’t matter, getting that goat set our years in the program back to Day 1.
Since we’ve downsized and are mostly a retirement home for a few old goats and sheep, there just isn’t much point to keeping up with something that creates a lot of work and no return for your trouble. So I told her I was opting out of the program. I won’t have any lambs or kids this year, and won’t be selling any more goats or sheep, so why keep it up?
It’s the end of an era.