Texas Health Certificate Question

[Blackie's handmaiden]

Sorry, another of my endless questions. called vet. Says only health certificate we can get for a goat here Is only good for 30 days for selling. Now what? What do you guys do to cover this problem? Thanks.

[Nanno]

You do not have to get a health certificate unless you're taking your goat across state lines. What I do, though, is I make sure my goats have tattoos and are registered with the ADGA wether identification program. I also have a premises ID and scrapies tags from the government. This way our goats are identified for the purposes of the USDA and their scrapies eradication program. I don't like to put the tags in our goats' ears so I hang them on their collars when we go out of state. I might also put the tags on if I were concerned about the local authorities. When I had only one packgoat, I had him vaccinated for rabies and I kept the tag for that as well. Rabies vaccinations are off-label for goats, but at one point I lived in an area where rabies was a real problem and some folks were concerned that my goat wasn't vaccinated, so I went ahead and had it done. My vet used the sheep rabies vaccine on my goat and was perfectly willing to give me a tag for it.