Skinny baby; feeding problem or parasite?

[NachoFarm]

Ok, so our two babies are almost 12 weeks old and up until this point I've just been winging it because I have yet to come across some solid information. I need help and advice as far as "natural" feeding and "natural" parasite control. Not saying that I don't think that medications aren't needed but we've always kind of hoped to raise all our livestock as "naturally" as possible. That being said I have a few questions about that;

We're currently feeding second cut hay mix twice a day and then letting them out to pasture (alfalfa/clover mix?) for an hour twice a day after they've had their fill of hay. We're doing it like this because we didn't want them to get bloat, our fencing is not up yet to have them on pasture full time and we're honestly just pulling it out of our you-know-what at this point. We're not feeding grain because, well I don't know, goats wouldn't "naturally" eat grain right? So then why would I feed it to them? Does anyone have (or know anyone who has) a good handle on a feeding program that we could follow that doesn't involve grain?

One of our girls seems to just be generally skinnier that her sister. Pepa looks like a fatty after eating hay and being outside and her sister (Salt) never seems to have quite the same curves. Their droppings are normal, although would I SEE worms? How do I know if she has worms? Short of calling the vet? Is there something I can give them that is considered "natural" parasite control or should I just go for the big guns right away?

 

[DonnaBelle]

Collect a FRESH fecal sample, you need about a tablespoon full, and take to vet for a fecal analysis. He can tell if you have worms or perhaps it's coccidia.. If not, she may just not be as big as her sibs.

You don't deworm a goat unless they do have worms. To do so invites problems, as we already have resistance to certain worms built up by using dewormer when not needed.

Very few goat people worm on a regular basis, i.e: once a month. We do it on an as needed basis.

Others will chime in, I'm sure.

DonnaBelle

 

[NachoFarm]

Coccidia...so because I'm not feeding medicated grain. Is there any symptoms I should watch for? How does someone who doesn't want to include grain in their feeding program avoid this?

 

[NachoFarm]

I feel like I've gotten off to the wrong start here and that I'm missing something important which is affecting them. I read books, but there's so much information that comes from experience with livestock in general and I feel like I don't know enough.

They've had no vaccinations and/or medication for anything, and I don't know if that's a huge problem. I don't want to just wait for them to get sick, but I also don't want to vaccinate or medicate unneccesarily.

From what I'm reading on here I should be feeding black oil sunflower seed but I don't know when or why? I don't know if I'm giving them the right feed.

I'm freaking out a little bit.

 

[20kidsonhill]

How long have they been weaned? off the bottle?

What kind of hay are you feeding them?

And I agree with the fecal test being done, And make sure you specifically ask about coccidiosis. many people treat their kids every 21 to 28 days for coccidiosis.

there is DE that can be fed to them, as a natural wormer, I am not familiar with these kind of things, I just now our feed store sells it. Not sure how young people start using this.

Pine needles and pumpkin seeds are considerred helpful for worming.

raw apple cider vinegar is useful and healthy for them.

Again, I don't use any of these things. But maybe you can research them.

Personnally, I think that goats are browsers like deer, they cover large areas browsing for brush and forage up off the ground. and just the act of penning them up is changing how they are naturally fed.

what breeds are they?

 

[NachoFarm]

They're LaMancha/Alpine crosses.

They've been off the bottle since they got here four weeks ago.

I don't mind researching things, I'm just having trouble finding a balance and I'm worried that I'm hurting them or making them sick because I don't know what I'm doing.

If you're treating every 21 to 28 days, is that with a medication? Or is it just from the medicated feed?

 

[nomad]

Ok, so our two babies are almost 12 weeks old and up until this point I've just been winging it because I have yet to come across some solid information. I need help and advice as far as "natural" feeding and "natural" parasite control. Not saying that I don't think that medications aren't needed but we've always kind of hoped to raise all our livestock as "naturally" as possible. That being said I have a few questions about that;

We're currently feeding second cut hay mix twice a day and then letting them out to pasture (alfalfa/clover mix?) for an hour twice a day after they've had their fill of hay. We're doing it like this because we didn't want them to get bloat, our fencing is not up yet to have them on pasture full time and we're honestly just pulling it out of our you-know-what at this point. We're not feeding grain because, well I don't know, goats wouldn't "naturally" eat grain right? So then why would I feed it to them? Does anyone have (or know anyone who has) a good handle on a feeding program that we could follow that doesn't involve grain?

One of our girls seems to just be generally skinnier that her sister. Pepa looks like a fatty after eating hay and being outside and her sister (Salt) never seems to have quite the same curves. Their droppings are normal, although would I SEE worms? How do I know if she has worms? Short of calling the vet? Is there something I can give them that is considered "natural" parasite control or should I just go for the big guns right away?

Basically, all problems come down to health. Health is a function of nutrition. When an animal is getting all of its required nutrients (as well as the doe that carried the kids during gestation), it will exist in a state of good health. To determine if the animal is putting on appropriate weight, you can use the BCS (body condition score) to see if she is too thin. The following link will help you: http://www.agric.wa.gov.au/PC_91909.html?s=1001 You are shooting for a BCS of 2 or 3 in an adult.

Since you have dairy goats, they will naturally be thinner than meat goats. Our dairy goats never put on the weight that our meat goats do. We only feed pasture and hay to our goats, sheep, and cattle. No processed feeds due to the side effects. Also be careful with the alfalfa. Research is beginning to show that alfalfa is not a good forage not only due to its elevated iron content, but it is showing carcinogenic effects as well. Everything within the organism must be in balance for optimal health. If copper levels are insufficient, it will inhibit the body's ability to get rid of excess iron (iron is a heavy metal and toxic above optimum levels). If calcium in the diet is not at least double the intake of phosphorous, you will also have problems. We used to feed alfalfa pellets to our dairy goats during milking, but could not figure out why they remained in a constant state of anemia. Our hair sheep and cattle remained very pink (eyelid check) and were only getting pasture. We researched further and discovered the disadvantages of alfalfa. Within several days of taking away the alfalfa pellets, the dairy goats began losing their anemia.

Goats are not designed for high quality forages believe it or not. Their systems are set up for large quantities of poorer forages (they are browsers by design). We have found through our years of experience that our goats excel on browse and poorer pastures, whereas the sheep and cattle excel on the better pastures. The mixed hay would be a better forage for them than the alfalfa and clover in my estimation.

We do not deworm, medicate, etc. Our animals are hardy because we feed them what they were designed for and their bodies take care of resisting the parasites. All animals have parasites all the time. When an animal becomes stressed (nutritionally, environmentally, handling, etc), that is when it becomes susceptible to disease and illness. If the animal is properly nourished, its body can handle the stress. If it is not properly nourished, there will be adverse effects. During stress, vitamin B is wasted which is why when an animal is going to be transported or excessively handled, it should be given vitamin B complex.

In short: feed the goats mixed hay, grass, browse and supply free-choice loose minerals. We provide sodium bicarbonate (many good effects for the body) and Redmond's salt. You have to consider the health of the doe that carried the kids. If she was deficient in health, she would have passed that along to her offspring as well.

There also appears to be 3 periods in a goats life when it is most susceptible to problems. They are generally 3 days, 3 weeks, and/or 3 months.

This was an abbreviated version of how we manage our operation and the research that backs it up. If you would like to read more about our management system (Holistic Management) and links to research, simply ask.

We agree that goats were not created to eat grain, let alone medicated grain. (Of course, 'a seed head or two' is not 'grain fed')

Hope this helps and best wishes in your venture.

 

[20kidsonhill]

They're LaMancha/Alpine crosses.

They've been off the bottle since they got here four weeks ago.

I don't mind researching things, I'm just having trouble finding a balance and I'm worried that I'm hurting them or making them sick because I don't know what I'm doing.

If you're treating every 21 to 28 days, is that with a medication? Or is it just from the medicated feed?

We do both, we use medicated grain every day and we treat every 28 days with a medication in the water. Especially, in the spring time, and rainy, warm weather. Coccidiosis is bad in our area.

Sorry, it is so frustrating for you, I can tell you are trying to do your best with them, and trying to do things right.

 

[NachoFarm]

Goats are not designed for high quality forages believe it or not. Their systems are set up for large quantities of poorer forages (they are browsers by design). We have found through our years of experience that our goats excel on browse and poorer pastures, whereas the sheep and cattle excel on the better pastures. The mixed hay would be a better forage for them than the alfalfa and clover in my estimation.

In short: feed the goats mixed hay, grass, browse and supply free-choice loose minerals.

This was an abbreviated version of how we manage our operation and the research that backs it up. If you would like to read more about our management system (Holistic Management) and links to research, simply ask.

We didn't plant the pasture, it's our first year here and the dairy farmer had it planted with alfalfa. Not sure what I can do about that.
Pardon my ignorance, but when you say "mixed hay" what exactly do you mean by that? We just bought 20 bales of second cut, I hope that's ok! :/

How do you avoid and/or deal with coccidia when you come across it in your animals?

If you EVER find the time and stamina to give me the "not abbreviated" version of your management procudures that would be greatly appreciated. In short we have the two dairy goats, plans to add three Gotland sheep this summer and have six Plymouth Barred Rocks (5 hens, 1 rooster). We're hoping to have a large vegetable garden, small orchard, bees and a horse eventually and we want to do everything we can to keep it as natural as possible. Any advice or links to research would be great!

Sorry it is so frustrating for you, I can tell you are trying to do your best with them, and trying to do things right.

Thanks! I'm an information hoarder so it makes all the different options out there maddening!

 

[nomad]

Goats are not designed for high quality forages believe it or not. Their systems are set up for large quantities of poorer forages (they are browsers by design). We have found through our years of experience that our goats excel on browse and poorer pastures, whereas the sheep and cattle excel on the better pastures. The mixed hay would be a better forage for them than the alfalfa and clover in my estimation.

In short: feed the goats mixed hay, grass, browse and supply free-choice loose minerals.

This was an abbreviated version of how we manage our operation and the research that backs it up. If you would like to read more about our management system (Holistic Management) and links to research, simply ask.

We didn't plant the pasture, it's our first year here and the dairy farmer had it planted with alfalfa. Not sure what I can do about that.
Pardon my ignorance, but when you say "mixed hay" what exactly do you mean by that? We just bought 20 bales of second cut, I hope that's ok! :/

How do you avoid and/or deal with coccidia when you come across it in your animals?

If you EVER find the time and stamina to give me the "not abbreviated" version of your management procudures that would be greatly appreciated. In short we have the two dairy goats, plans to add three Gotland sheep this summer and have six Plymouth Barred Rocks (5 hens, 1 rooster). We're hoping to have a large vegetable garden, small orchard, bees and a horse eventually and we want to do everything we can to keep it as natural as possible. Any advice or links to research would be great!

Sorry it is so frustrating for you, I can tell you are trying to do your best with them, and trying to do things right.

Thanks! I'm an information hoarder so it makes all the different options out there maddening!

The first item I would like to address concerns our paradigm. The question I like to ask is " Do I have the right paradigm in a particular matter to be successful?" I want to be successful just like everyone else does, yet I see a lot of people running in circles and frustrated that their operations are neither as profitable nor enjoyable as they would like. How many are asking "why?". When we reduce anything down to its elementary parts (deduction) in order to study it and understand it, we set ourselves up for great failure. Nothing in nature exists alone - everything exists in a state of symbiosis and that is how we need to look at our ventures in order to truly succeed. A farming operation (big or small) is simply taking a part of nature and trying to control it for personal gain (monetary, animal companionship, etc). Therefore, we need to understand nature itself in order to be successful. Holistic management works on the premise that we live in accordance to nature's laws and preferences, not our own.

I used to live in the grain, medicate, and deworm world when we farmed commercially with Boer goats, Red Angus cattle, and Dorper hair sheep. It was disheartening to throw potential profit into medications and sick and dying animals. We needed a paradigm shift. We found Holistic Management (started by Biologist Allan Savory) and have never looked back. When one medicates and deworms (regularly or intermittently) he is not getting to the underlying issue (cause and effect). If you had a bad cough for several days out of each month, would you prefer just taking some medicine every month to take away the cough or would you rather find out what is causing the cough and eliminate that?

You asked how we deal with coccidia when we come across it. We don't have coccidia issues ...... ever. We don't have animals sick and dying with worms either. This is not a fantasy world - it is real science. It is not a matter of genetics alone (genetic determinism) which is a flawed understanding of the organism as a whole. As far as mixed hay, I was referring to a mix of grasses that are familiar to your area. Your animals will be used to foraging on those plants that are native to your region (except for the alfalfa that was planted) so a hay that has a variety of these grasses would be ideal. It takes a ruminant approx. 7 days to switch over enzymes to process any new food introduced into its diet so any changes should be done gradually over at least 1 week so as not to unnecessarily stress it. I would gradually allow the alfalfa field to switch back to its native forages (which it will over time). Just be sure that the goats do not have the majority of their diet from the alfalfa.

I am going to copy and paste from other posts so hopefully I do not get redundant.

I will pull a little information from a researcher that I have come to trust (through implementing his findings and seeing the results of course) and I would recommend that all check out his research over the last several decades. He does not casually throw out information, he quotes studies all the time and dissects their conclusions and footnotes his work so you can look up where he obtained his information. His name is Dr. Ray Peat and he can be found on raypeat.com. He will certainly challenge your paradigm concerning health and well-being.

This is a quote from one of his papers - anything in parentheses is my paraphrasing : Shock, caused by the injection of endotoxin (from possibly clostridium), which is 100% lethal to normally fed animals (meaning grain fed), is only 24% lethal to the deficient (lacking unhealthy polyunsaturated fats present in processed feeds) animals. We have found this to be true as I mentioned above.

50 years ago, paints and varnishes were made of soy oil, safflower oil, and linseed (flax seed) oil. Then chemists learned how to make paint from petroleum, which was much cheaper. As a result, the huge seed oil industry found its crop increasingly hard to sell. Around the same time, farmers were experimenting with poisons to make their pigs get fatter with less food, and they discovered that corn and soy beans served the purpose, in a legal way. The crops that had been grown for the paint industry came to be used for animal food. Then these foods that made animals get fat cheaply came to be promoted as foods for humans, but they had to direct attention away from the fact that they are very fattening. The "cholesterol" focus was just one of the marketing tools used by the oil industry. Unfortunately it is the one that has lasted the longest, even after the unsaturated oils were proven to cause heart disease as well as cancer. [Study at L.A. Veterans Hospital, 1971.]

The polyunsaturated fats in these vegetable oils cause a state of hypothyroidism. The thyroid's role is to regulate body temperature and metabolism. A high metabolism is key to maintaining good health. A low metabolism causes a whole host of issues including early death.

Freud wasn't the first physician who grasped the idea that the baby's health depends on the mother's, and that her health depends on good nutrition. Between 1834 and 1843, John C. W. Lever, M.D., discovered that 9 out of 10 eclamptic women had protein in their urine. He described an eclamptic woman who bore a premature, low-weight baby, as having "...been living in a state of most abject penury for two or three months, subsisting for days on a single meal of bread and tea. ("Cases of puerperal convulsions," Guy's Hospital Reports, Volume 1, series 2, 495-517, 1843.)

The health of the mother (doe) of your kids is instrumental in understanding where they now stand. If she suffered, so did they. If she was well nourished, so were they.

We only feed our layers oats. We do not feed soybeans and corn especially since 90% grown in the US is GMO. The only reason chickens need the supplemental food is due to the starch (carbohydrate). Chickens can get around 50% of their diet on pasture (free range) which is how we manage ours. They will eat grass, seed heads, bugs, worms, etc., however, in order to produce enough energy to maintain body condition and lay eggs regularly, they need additional starch in their diet. The question to ask is "Do I care what is in my food?". If the answer is yes, then be mindful that whatever goes into your animals mouth has an impact on the product that you get out of them (milk, eggs, meat). As I posted earlier, we feed a particular animal what it was intended to eat and nothing more. Did you know that in history usually only the wealthy possessed chickens for eggs because since chickens require grains for regular egg production, only the wealthy had the ability to provide a steady supply to their flock?

In my operation, I do not use a dry lot. In my opinion this is taking an area that should be growing grass and turning it into a parking lot. My lambs and kids have been much healthier being born on fresh grass since a dry lot will contain a large amount of fresh manure. When a newborn lays on this ground, she is very susceptible to taking in bacterial infection via the umbilical cord. Many of us have different approaches to our farming and that should be respected since there are many different variables to consider (what animals do I like, how much time do I want to spend tending to them, etc)

My animals only run on pasture and that is 24/7 every single day of the year with no supplements given (other than minerals and salt given free choice). As I stated earlier, I have run big and small operations and no matter the size, grass always needs to be treated in a particular manner in order to thrive. Mowing (and I did my fair share of brushhogging in years past) does appear to be more beneficial than grazing at a quick glance, however, we need to look a little deeper. When you are mowing a pasture, it is because you are not using the animals to manage it. When animals are run through a paddock for a short time and then removed to allow for a recovery period before regrazing, the grass will really respond. This is also in the context of using your animals to achieve "animal impact" as mentioned in my last post. This is not opinion, but science and years of experience.

Here are some other things to consider. Do you have grass within a right-of-way along a road that can be grazed using the portable electric nets? We live between a state highway and a private road. We obviously cannot graze along the state route, but we can graze right up to the edge of the private road. I have 2 acres of grass outside of my fence that would go to waste if I did not graze it. At my last farm, the county allowed me to graze along the county road as well. Glean as much from the land as possible.

The key to success is to NOT continuous graze a pasture as so many people do today. That is the main reason why pastures are overgrazed (animal returning to a select grass before it can sufficiently regrow) and sickly looking.

I buy all of my portable fencing from Premier Fencing (http://www.premier1supplies.com/) and have been very pleased with them. The portable netting has given me great flexibility and efficiency in my operation.

As far as size of paddock. A quick way to judge paddock size is to estimate how much grass will fill all of your animals rumens. This will become much easier with experience. If there is an inverted triangle on the left side of the animal, it is not eating enough. Ruminants were designed to eat large amounts of forage for optimum health. As far as eating habits, ruminants also need to have access to forage most of the day because they will consume forage, lay down and ruminate, then get back up and forage again. I use high density grazing as my tool for getting sufficient animal impact on my pastures (that is figured as 500,000 lbs of animal per acre calculated as a stocking density).

What is your water situation (pond, stream, from a well)?. Have you considered adding a few free range chickens to the mix? They will serve as great predators on any nuisance bugs, provide great tasting eggs, and will add healthy nitrogen (via their ammonia waste) to your soil.

I will copy and paste a previous posting. I apologize for any redundancy in the postings, but I believe that armed with the right knowledge, we can be very successful in life.

If you would like to hear more stories about others that are using this system and being very successful at it you can search Green Pasture Farms (Greg Judy), Polyface Farms (Joel Salatin), Allan Savory (biologist who started Holistic Management) Ian Mitchel Ines (large rancher in Africa).

"We started using Holistic Management as our management tool several years ago. The results have been great to say the least. If I get too much into the science, I apologize (I have loved the natural sciences since childhood). We use "high density grazing" under the Holistic Management scheme. A little background first. Nature is tremendously symbiotic - nothing exists in a vacuum and all parts of the whole need to be functioning properly in order for the entire ecosystem to be working at optimum level. Most farmers believe that we are managing animals, however, that is not true. We are actually managing microbes in the soil - you must start at the basic foundation of everything in order to have a sound system (just like a solid foundation under your house). The microbes in the soil (or lack thereof) will dictate how well your grasses will grow, repair, and propagate. If we fertilize a pasture with petroleum based fertilizers, we are killing the microbes because they can not tolerate a hostile environment like that. This then makes your fields dependent upon the fertilizer every successive year because the microbes are not doing the work for you. When you fertilize your fields with the waste from animals themselves, the microbes that are cast onto the field with the waste will do the work of breaking down the waste material into simple carbohydrates to be used by the plants. The animals eat the plants, generating more waste, thereby creating more food for the microbes which break it down for the plants. It is a vicious cycle that is both simple and very effective. Okay, now for the actual Holistic approach.

Holistic Management was started by a biologist (Allan Savory) who observed how nature is very self sustaining if left alone from our intrusions. A quick example to think about is the vast herds of Bison that were reported in the diaries of explorers when venturing out west. The bison are migratory and in order to sustain such tremendous numbers of very large animals, a lot of food would have had to be available. We do our best to mimic the action of these migrating bison to increase our fields to their fullest potential. Here is how it works:

Plants require "animal impact" in order to have healthy, sustained growth. Animal impact includes things like - hooves breaking up capped (hard surfaced) ground so new plants can poke through, broadcasting of waste material, stomping down of some plant material, and consuming vegetation. It was discovered that when animals are run in large numbers or in high densities, their grazing behavior changes. They are in competition mode due to the close proximity of their neighbor and will be more likely to eat less desirable plants, stomp down some vegetation which gets broken down into food for the plants in that area, and spread a heavier dose of waste material on the ground (called fouling). The key to success is to remember that once the plants are grazed, you need to provide a recovery period for the grass to repair itself (grow). This recovery period changes depending on environmental conditions such as time of year, moisture level, height of grass after being grazed, and ultimately how much ground you have to feed your animals prior to running them over the same paddock again.

When we speak of 500,000 lbs per acre, we are talking about stocking density - not the stocking rate. The stocking density merely indicates a level of pounds per designated area of pasture. The stocking rate refers to total number of animals on your property. If I have 50 ewes weighing approx. 150 lbs each (total weight of 7500 lbs), I can calculate what size area I need to put them in to arrive at a stocking density of 500,000 lbs per acre. Divide 7500 by 500,000 and you get .015 (or 1.5%). An acre is 43,560 square feet so I calculate 1.5% of an acre ( .015 x 43560 = 654 square feet). I now know that I need to set up a paddock that encompasses 654 square feet. The square root of 654 = roughly 25. This means that a paddock that is 25' x 25' would fit the bill, however, I do not want to move my animals 5 times a day in order to provide them enough food any more than you do. What I just calculated in size of paddock had nothing to do with meeting the animals total energy requirements for the day - it merely provides me with sufficient animal impact upon the soil and microbes (remember we are managing microbes first and foremost). What I will do is expand the 25' x 25' to a size that allows the animals to have sufficient forage for the entire day and only move them once in a day. While they are contained within that paddock for the day, they will have the impact upon the soil that I am after which is specifically 80% of the grass consumed, the remaining 20% either stomped into the ground or even left standing. During the spring, however, I do move them 2 or 3 times per day and therefore keep the paddocks smaller to ensure proper impact on the soil. The animals are used as a tool for management - they are not the end-all of the operation.

This stocking density is not meant to be a rigid "do not digress from the number" kind of tool. It helps you to decide where to start with paddock sizing. If you have an "eye" for guesstimating, you could look over a piece of ground and try to determine how much grass it would take to feed all of your animals for the day and fence of that area. If you plan on moving them twice in a day, then only give them half of your estimation in each move. The key to success then is to move your animals on from this paddock and give it a recovery period (meaning no grazing at all). Once again this depends on how fast your grass is growing and how low it was grazed. Generally, the faster the grass is growing (spring and early summer) the shorter your recovery period can be. I try not to return to a paddock before 45 days. Also, if you keep the same animals from a particular piece of your pasture for more than 21 days, it tends to break the parasite cycle and will help greatly with parasite resistance.

Continuous grazing (the preferred method today and yes, I was there myself at one time) is destructive because animals are allowed to spread out over large areas leaving the more undesirable plants ungrazed, way too much overgrazing on the good desirable plants, and not enough concentration of waste material. Holistic Management can be employed by someone with 3 sheep on 2 acres or 1000 cattle on 500 acres. It is a very simple and effective management method and is intended to be adapted to your specific likes or dislikes and how involved you want to be in your farming venture.

The great bonuses to this method are: we do not deworm animals at all anymore due to greatly reduced parasite loads, our grass (and legumes) increase in density every year which allows for even more animals to be carried on our property (increased stocking rate), and increased animal vitality. By allowing nature to do its thing, we gain a greater diversity of plant species in our fields which provides a wider range of nutrients to our animals and reduces the need for supplemental minerals (we do still provide free choice minerals to make sure they are getting what they need)."

Again, wishing you great success in your venture. The information that I provide is from years of study (biology graduate with an emphasis on ecological studies) and experience. I have learned that the more we think outside the box, the more successful we will tend to be. As Warren Buffet once said "If you see the herd running in one direction, head in the other direction".

P.S. I currently support 30 hair sheep, 15 dairy goats, 1 milk cow, and 30 laying hens on 7 acres of pasture. I began my pasture rotations 3 weeks ago when I stopped feeding hay. I can support hundreds of animals on just 75 acres (my last farm).


Pertaining to some benefits concerning sodium bicarbonate, the following excerpts from an article will help you get started. If you go to raypeat.com, you find a plethora of information about anatomy, physiology, health, and well-being. Dr. Peat has been a researcher for many years and his articles heavily reference many researchers both present day and past. You will learn a tremendous amount that can be applied to your health as well as your animals.

The biological idea of stress refers to the difficulty of adapting, and this involves energy, structure, and insight/orientation. Given enough energy, we can often adjust our structure to achieve full adaptation, and with insight, we can minimize the amount of energy and structural change needed, for example just by a change of pace or rhythm.

I have been using aging (menopause and the ovaries) and cancer (carbon monoxide as a hormone of cellular immortality) to explore the issue of cell renewal and tissue regeneration. Yesterday, Lita Lee sent me an article about K. P. Buteyko, describing his approach to the role of carbon dioxide in physiology and medicine. Buteyko devoted his career to showing that sufficient carbon dioxide is important in preventing an exaggerated and maladaptive stress response. He advocated training in intentional regulation of respiration (avoiding habitual hyperventilation) to improve oxygenation of the tissues by retaining carbon dioxide. He showed that a deficiency of carbon dioxide (such as can be produced by hyperventilation, or by the presence of lactic acid in the blood) decreases cellular energy (as ATP and creatine phosphate) and interferes with the synthesis of proteins (including antibodies) and other cellular materials.

In a nutrition class, in the late 70s, I described the way metabolically produced carbon dioxide opens blood vessels in the brain, and mentioned that carbonated water, or soda water, should improve circulation to the brain when the brains production of carbon dioxide wasnt adequate. A week later, a student said she had gone home that night and (interpreting soda water as bicarbonate of soda in water) given her stroke-paralyzed mother a glass of water with a spoonful of baking soda in it. Her mother had been hemiplegic for 6 months following a stroke, but 15 minutes after drinking the bicarbonate, the paralysis lifted, and she remained normal. Later, a man who had stroke-like symptoms when he drank alcohol late at night, found that drinking a glass of carbonated water caused the symptoms to stop within a few minutes. (Dr. Ray Peat PhD -http://www.functionalps.com/blog/2011/04/23/stress-and-water/)


From another article: Considering the universal importance of carbon dioxide to life, the ways it interacts with all of the important substances that make up organisms, that it is involved closely with ATP synthesis and other energy-related processes, that it participates intimately in the regulation of water and ions, that it is therapeutic in a range of conditions including angina pectoris, hypoxia, epilepsy, inflammation, shock, lipid peroxidation, pneumonia, and asthma, I think we can at least conclude that it is a largely overlooked mediator between chemical energy and life processes. In many cases, its movements and reactions constitute the actual motive force that so many fantasy theories have failed to explain. In other situations, it fills out the context for understanding the energy-mediating actions of ATP, calcium, and hormones. (Dr. Ray Peat -http://www.functionalps.com/blog/2011/04/23/energy-structure-and-carbon-dioxide-a-realistic-view-of-the-organism/)

Concerning Iron: In the 1960s the World Health Organization found that when iron supplements were given to anemic people in Africa, there was a great increase in the death rate from infectious diseases, especially malaria. Around the same time, research began to show that the regulation of iron is a central function of the immune system, and that this seems to have evolved because iron is a basic requirement for the survival and growth of cells of all types, including bacteria, parasites, and cancer. The pioneer researcher in the role of iron in immunity believed that an excess of dietary iron contributed to the development of leukemia and lymphatic cancers. Just like lead, mercury, cadmium, nickel and other heavy metals, stored iron produces destructive free radicals. The harmful effects of iron-produced free radicals are practically indistinguishable from those caused by exposure to X-rays and gamma rays; both accelerate the accumulation of age-pigment and other signs of aging. Excess iron is a crucial element in the transformation of stress into tissue damage by free radicals. (Ray Peat - Iron's Dangers - http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/iron-dangers.shtml)

Iron and copper interaction: Copper is the crucial element for producing the color in hair and skin, for maintaining the elasticity of skin and blood vessels, for protecting against certain types of free radical, and especially for allowing us to use oxygen properly for the production of biological energy. It is also necessary for the normal functioning of certain nerve cells (substantia nigra) whose degeneration is involved in Parkinson's disease. The shape and texture of hair, as well as its color, can change in a copper deficiency. Too much iron can block our absorption of copper, and too little copper makes us store too much iron. With aging, our tissues lose copper as they store excess iron. Because of those changes, we need more vitamin E as we age. (Ray Peat - Iron's Dangers - http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/iron-dangers.shtml)


Another great site for analysis of a lot of research out there would be: http://www.functionalps.com/forum/index.php

Some good youtubes include: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbxy0wx ature=plcp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKEOf6o ature=plcp


Hope I have not given you too much. This is only the beginning.