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Exporting Goats to Spain

Dreda & Roland Randall, Monach Farm

Hilton, Huntingdon, Cambs, PE28 9NB

rer10@cam.ac.uk

In October 2004, July 2005 and September 2006 we exported a total of 67 male and female Anglo-Nubian kids and goatlings from various British AN breeders, including our own, to the farm of Vicente Rojas Villagos at El Sotillo de Alcoba south of Toledo in Spain. On both occasions the goats travelled well in the 28 hours it takes to get to Vicente’s farm. All goats were quarantined with us for 30 days before travel during which time they were wormed and vetted.

In the autumn 2004 visit the outside temperature when we left the United Kingdom was 8 ° C but on the Spanish Plain the temperature dropped to 4 ° C and ventilation had to be adjusted accordingly. In July 2005 the English temperature was around

23 ° C but in the area of Madrid and Toledo it was over 39 ° C. All vents on the trailer were opened and the goats were very happy in the breeze. When we stopped to check the temperature in the trailer it was 31 ° C with a relative humidity of 20%. The next day the temperature in the shade rose to 43 ° C! However, despite the high temperatures in summer in this part of Spain relative humidity remains low and the goats are not at all distressed. It was great to see the kids come off the trailer and go racing round together in paddocks where hay, feed and water were all waiting for them.

Vicente has over 3000 milkers and the milk is made into cheese on farm. Most of his goats are of the Canary Island breed (like Anglo-Nubians) but he also has Murcian goats (like Golden Guernseys). The milkers are kept in large, airy, well-vented brick buildings with adjoining large paddocks for exercise. Integral milking parlours mean that the goats can move too and fro in dry, cool conditions. They also have an ‘in house’ AI station and medical area. The milkers’ buildings are sectioned for health reasons so goats are kept in batches of 300. Kids have large, outside pens with mature trees for shade and free access to ad lib hay and water in cool barns. Biosecurity to the farm is assured with only one access through a disinfectant bath. The farm is 800m from the nearest public road.

The farm produces its own feeds. They have Heston bales of irrigated lucerne (alfalfa) made with no rain with an excellent nose and colour; barley-straw chaff mixed with maize, carob and other grains mixed on farm from barn-stored feed. This is fed from racks with trays below and spotlessly clean automatic waterers supply water. The goats have free access from barn to paddock all day. Handling of animals is more on a herding system than individual but this is inevitable because of the large numbers. In this area of the Toledo Mountains autumn and spring can be quite wet and winter is cold but summers are long and hot – a Nubian heaven!

When we arrived this summer, we were proudly taken to see the male kids we had transported in October. All had grown on very well and were still loose-housed in the building where we had off-loaded them on arrival. They, too, have a large stockyard for exercise. All of them could have been considered in ‘show’ condition in England which, in itself, must speak for excellent stockmanship. The females also were in tip-top condition and had obviously thrived in their new environment.

Vicente, who is one of Christine Ball’s clients (Goat Genetics & BGS Overseas Officer), had travelled to England in January 2005 accompanied by mutual colleague Christian Guidarini who is an English/Spanish/Italian speaking vet in Milan. All three met up at an advanced AI course in France in ’04. As Vicente doesn’t speak any English all communications between Spain and the UK go via Christian! They visited several Anglo-Nubian breeders who had supplied goats for the autumn export plus the Charnocks BT Herd and the Givendale commercial herd which was of great interest to Vicente. Ten more AN males were subsequently booked and Vicente would have taken up to 300 females, but only 21 with adequate CAE and Scrapie health status were able to be sourced in 2005 which was a very poor year for female AN kids.

We had been concerned about the transport of goats over nearly 2000 kms in warm or cold weather bearing in mind that these animals had never travelled before. However, our worries were groundless. Our trailer is a two-deck Ivor Williams Sheep trailer, 2m wide and 4m long with continuous venting flaps for both decks, making temperature control relatively easy. Nevertheless, frequent stops for observance of the animals are a prerequisite since weather can change dramatically with thunderstorms, high wind or open sea. Stopping briefly every 1.5 hours or as conditions determine seems to work well and selection of ‘treed’ rest stops or shade also helps.

Because of their unfamiliarity with travel, one of the greatest problems is noise on busy motorways or around cities, as this can be quite distressing. Also, when stopping or on ferries, it is wise to avoid parking near refrigerated lorries. For this reason, we usually have some of the ‘traffic side’ vents closed under these conditions. The goats always migrate to the ‘vehicle’ end of the trailer and the vast majority lie down and cud during moving periods. Hence, frequent brief stops of half-hour or so enable the goats to move around, drink, eat hay and evacuate. This keeps the rumen active – essential for the goats if effortful for the drivers. We provided hay and water continuously throughout the journey and hard feed morning and evening to keep their usual routine. Goats are frequently fussy over the water they drink, so to ease the stress of travel, it is advantageous to take as much ‘home’ water as possible or to put a ‘taste’ into the water (e.g. cider vinegar) while animals are in quarantine and continue this during travel.

It is unfortunate that DEFRA regulations require a maximum of 14 hours travel + 1 hour rest + 14 hours travel as this limits the time goats can relax to feed and then cud in the cooler time of the night. In situations where the stock have plenty of room to move around in the trailer (each goat had 0.5m sq. of floor space), it would be beneficial to have 4-5 hours of stationary night rest even if this extended the total journey to 35 hours. In situations where space to move around in the trailer is adequate, lairage (primarily designed for cattle and sheep transportation) is not a good solution. Unfamiliarity with the ‘new’ location and extra handling of the stock is extremely stressful for the goats and it takes too many hours for them to relax enough to take advantage of the lairage location. In view of the relatively small number of breeding goats transported in the EU it would be helpful to have a derogation for ‘owner-transporters’ to use their knowledge and experience in what is best for the goats’ health and safety.

BRITISH DAIRY GOATS FOR FINLAND.

Minna Tikkanen is a determined lady who knows exactly what she wants!

She began her quest to import dairy goats back in Oct ’03 knowing it would be difficult. The only previous goat importations to Finland took place in the late ‘70’s & early ‘80’s and comprised eight goats from Sweden. There had been nothing else since ’82 and never anything from the UK.

Her first attempt to import dairy goats ended when the two male kids selected grew too big to fly due to delays with the export paperwork. An overland delivery was not viable at that point. In late ’04 she decided to try again and I inherited the order. From the word go Minna and I were communicating almost daily as there was so much to sort out.

Initially I was asked to source two male kids from good milky families. That was not too difficult but then tragedy struck. News came that some of Minna’s bought in Finnish stock was under threat as they had been identified as scrapie contacts. An agonising wait for tests and Ministry visits resulted in the worse case scenario. The entire herd had to be culled.

Minna and husband Kari have four sons, the youngest Eero only 3 years old, so this was a very traumatic time for the whole family. I would not have been surprised had that been the end of the export order but amazingly Minna was even more determined to carry on. But now the order had risen from two to three males plus thirty-two females. Foundation stock for a completely new herd. Quite a different proposition!

Health requirements for Finland are very strict and the Finnish vet I was dealing with requested as few herds as possible be involved and with a background of high-health status. I had to look to commercial sources. Fortunately Roland & Dreda Randall’s “Monach” herd and Lyn & Jenny Jenner’s “Nutknowle” herd were able to supply the numbers and with the high-yielding backgrounds required. Minna was also very keen to include a Charnocks BT male so I booked a kid from Jane Miller and kept my fingers crossed. We planned to export the goats in August ’05 but the timing was tight as Minna’s farm buildings had to be completely disinfected and given the all clear before new stock could move in. All internal wooden structures and hay racks had to be replaced with new metal ones. Thankfully Jane Miller had a super BT male kid available so during the summer the three herds involved slowly started to work their way through the long list of tests and veterinary declarations we had been asked for. Somewhat daunting at first but the Finnish vet was supportive and we gradually made progress. Faxes and emails buzzed to and fro daily.

The route plan was a complicated issue. I had pondered on it for many hours and it took a week’s work with DEFRA to pull together something suitable. The chaps in the Animal Health and Welfare Dept were fantastic and very helpful. Nobody had ever done the intended route before so we were all on a steep learning curve. We needed to keep within the official Ministry transport rules of course but also consider the best interests of the goats. Ferries had to be booked and paid for as we couldn’t risk leaving it to the last minute. I also had to loan a much bigger trailer that could carry 35 kids. Roland Randall offered me his 12’ Ifor Williams which had a sheep deck. In early July following their quarantine Roland and Dreda transported AN’s to Spain in it for my client Vicente’s commercial herd near Toledo, then a few days later the 35 goats for Minna started their 30 days quarantine at Monach Farm near Huntingdon. It was now definitely all systems go!

Once in quarantine owners were paid for their goats and more tests were undertaken to comply with Finnish requirements. Roland applied for the official export paperwork and we kept everything crossed that no last minute hiccups would cause us problems. I had to make arrangements with my friend Kate in Cheshire to board my own GG’s while I escorted Minna’s goats accompanied by my husband Keith and two of our three sons Joshua and Lewis. Barnaby who had to work was left in charge of the house and Jack Russell terriers!

We set off on August 13 th to pick up the goats and trailer from Monach Farm.

Loading took a while and I took many photos as a steady stream of BT and BS kids were carried to the trailer. We had 17 Nutknowle girls on the top deck, 15 Monach girls below and three boys in a separate pen at the front. I took a bale of Easi-Bed for the top deck to absorb as much urine as possible and keep the kids on the lower deck dry. With straw on top this worked well.

We needed to take several bales of hay, straw, sacks of dairy nuts and medicines with us for the trip. Luckily our new camper has a huge garage area which was ideal as a feed/store room though not quite what Keith had intended!

Monach Farm is very handy for the port of Harwich where we caught our first ferry. We had to go as freight with all the lorries but that wasn’t a problem. We topped up the water buckets and put fresh hay in before boarding the ferry then had to leave the kids for the overnight seven hour crossing. On arrival at the Hook of Holland port at dawn I was very relieved to return to the trailer and find all aboard fit and well.

We discovered that the procedure required to feed and water the females was a bit complicated. Once the rear ramp was down there was a solid metal partition covering the lower deck that swung upwards to gain access. To start with the kids moved away from us when we lifted this up but once they realised we were bringing goodies they got bolder. It took three of us each time to keep the lower deck females contained inside the trailer, and getting feed buckets in and out without being mobbed became increasingly difficult. They all ate like little horses however which made me happy.

The 600 km journey across Holland and northern Germany to the port of Travemunde (nr. Lubeck) was difficult. Non stop torrential rain and accidents on the autobahn slowed us down considerably. As we approached Hamburg we knew we couldn’t make our scheduled check in time. I was able to make contact by mobile phone and the shipping company swopped us onto the next ferry.

This however meant an overnight wait in the port and threw a spanner in my carefully calculated route plan. A German vet came to visit us in the port to check our paperwork and see if the goats were fit and had enough room to move around. All was in order. The kids seemed amazingly content and as all were eating and drinking so well I had no concerns as to their well-being. I was glad I had read reports of a well-known goat transporter though who covers vast distances from coast to coast across North America. That helped to put our journey into perspective. We boarded the Finnlines ferry the following day and were guided on behind a port official riding a bicycle with a yellow “Follow Me” plate fastened onto his rear tyre!

We had to wait on one side until all freight vehicles were loaded then we pulled forward and parked right behind the ramp in the open fresh air. I had requested this as I was worried about the heat and air quality on such a long voyage. A horsebox and trailer parked next to us carrying horses destined for Russia.

Ahead of us a 39-hr voyage up the Baltic Sea to the port of Helsinki.

We had to be escorted by crew members every time we wanted to feed and water the goats so organised a three times a day routine. We had a hosepipe near the trailer so could put fresh water in the buckets each time and the goats devoured everything put before them.

In between visits we could access the open passenger deck above the trailer and look down to make sure the goats were settled. Sometimes there were a few little faces looking out over the ramp on the top level. We were on board for two nights and finally came into Helsinki port at sunrise on the fourth day after leaving home. I texted Minna to let her know as soon as her goats were on Finnish soil. The 360km drive north from Helsinki was on good roads with little traffic. Although we had travelled through all the other Scandinavian countries previously this was our first visit to Finland. 65% of the country is forested and 10% is lakes. Only 8% of the land is cultivated. It is much flatter than Sweden which is on the other side of the Gulf of Bothnia, so you often couldn’t see anything but endless pine trees. Most of the farms and houses are small and painted in the traditional red oxide. They look very picturesque against the green forests.

At Seinajoki we turned off the main road onto an unmade track and drove into the forest. Minna knew roughly what time we would arrive and sure enough as we turned into her driveway she was outside waiting for us. Neither of us could quite believe that after so many months of planning and communicating almost daily her British goats had finally arrived. It was a very exciting moment for us both and the culmination of so much planning and organising.

Unloading was a reverse of the loading and we carried the kids straight into their new barn. We didn’t want anybody skipping off into the forest after all that effort!

They were in incredible shape with absolutely no after-effects following such a long journey. Elton, Wooster & Wallace the three boys were penned separately and the girls had a spacious barn with a new central feeding aisle. A small group of younger BT females were penned separately as they were a little bit too small to reach the feeding platform. Minna and her bullmastiff dog Ali sat on the aisle watching the new herd almost in disbelief. She was thrilled with the quality and size of the kids and could hardly tear her eyes away from them.

Following importation they will now be in quarantine for seven years. Minna has joined the BGS and will register all her stock to retain their Herd Book status.

The following day we set off for our journey home and it was very strange leaving behind the 35 kids that had become the focus of our lives for those few special days. We had decided to drive back overland which took a week and included a visit to Santa Claus at the Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi in Lapland. Christmas carols and Santa’s Grotto in August was very odd but then nothing about the entire trip had been run of the mill. Minna and I continue to communicate regularly and will hopefully meet up again one day. I am just so glad I was able to help make her dream come true.

Photo albums of Minna’s goats for online readers:-

http://community.webshots.com/user/goatgenetics

http://community.webshots.com/user/narniagoats

Christine Ball (British Goat Society Overseas Officer).

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