Mimbres Valley Ranch L.L.C

04/17/2026

Barber Pole Worm in Sheep & Goats — ARTICLE 1

What Barber Pole Worm Actually Is

Most people think of worms as a digestion problem.

Something that causes diarrhea.
Something that lives in the gut.
Something you “clean out.”

That’s not what this is.

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This Is Not a Gut Problem

The Barber Pole Worm — Haemonchus contortus — does not primarily damage the digestive system.

It doesn’t work by irritating the intestines.
It doesn’t need to.

It feeds on blood.

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Where the Name Comes From

If you’ve ever seen one, the name makes sense immediately.

The worm has a distinct twisted appearance:
• a red stripe (blood-filled intestine)
• wrapped around a white reproductive tract

It looks like an old-fashioned barber pole.

That visual isn’t just interesting—it’s a clue.

This is a parasite built around blood feeding and reproduction.

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What It Actually Does

This parasite attaches to the lining of the abomasum (the true stomach) and feeds directly from blood vessels.

Not a little.

Continuously.

Each worm removes a small amount.
But animals don’t carry just one.

They carry:
• dozens
• hundreds
• sometimes thousands

So what you’re seeing is a slow, steady loss of blood happening inside the animal.

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Why That Matters

Most of you know how important blood is:

It carries:
• oxygen
• protein
• nutrients

So when blood is lost, multiple systems start to fail at the same time.

This is why Barber Pole Worm doesn’t look like a typical parasite problem.

You often don’t see explosive diarrhea like you would expect with a typical gut parasite.

You see:
• pale eyelids
• weakness
• bottle jaw (fluid swelling under the jaw)
• animals that just don’t keep up

And sometimes…

You see nothing at all—until it’s too late.

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This Is the Pattern

This is where people get misled.

They’re trained to look for:
• scours
• rough hair coats
• visible illness

But this parasite is designed to work quietly.

By the time you see the problem:

It’s already been happening for weeks.

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Why It’s So Dangerous

Because it doesn’t announce itself.

It doesn’t create obvious early warning signs.

It creates progressive loss:
• less blood
• less oxygen delivery
• less resilience

Until the animal reaches a point where it can’t compensate anymore.

And then it crashes.

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What This Changes

If you understand this one thing:

You are not dealing with a “digestive issue”.
You are managing blood loss.

Everything else in this series will make more sense.
• Why some animals look fine… until they don’t
• Why lambs and kids crash so fast
• Why timing matters more than reaction
• Why some tools work—and others seem to fail

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System-Level Takeaway

You’re not treating a problem—you’re managing a system.

And in this system:
• the parasite removes blood
• the animal tries to compensate
• and your management determines how long that balance holds

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Next Article

Now that you understand what it is, we need to understand how it keeps happening.

Because nothing about this parasite is random.

In the next article, we’ll break down the lifecycle—the engine behind everything—and why the environment matters just as much as the animal.

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Good livestock management isn’t about always having the right answer — it’s about learning how to think when the answer isn’t obvious yet.

03/31/2026

Understanding goat terminology isn’t just knowledge… it’s the key to better breeding, healthier animals, and higher productivity.
Save this guide and level up your farming game today.🐐🌱

03/31/2026

When that time of year rolls around I’ve always stated the importance of not reusing the same need over and over again. ☺️ I actually carry about a caddy that contains a multitude of items but especially always an over stock of needles! Think about it goat skin is tougher than human skin! 🤍 being able to do the job while maintaining the most comfort it’s the main goal. Use a needle for withdrawing your vaccine and replace with a bed needle every time! This also prevents spreading disease within your goats and preventing abscess along with other things! ☺️

With so many goats to manage, why don't we reuse needles?
Wouldn't it save us time and money?
For us, time is time, and money is money.
There are things more important to save.
We do not reuse in the interest of our goats.
The picture below illustrates what happens as a needle is reused. Bear in mind the magnification is greatest in the last picture, but that is to show the degree of damage to the needle.

03/27/2026

Another good article guys!

CL in Sheep & Goats — Article 1

What This Disease Actually Is

If you spend enough time raising sheep or goats, you will eventually hear two letters spoken quietly and often with a great deal of concern.

CL.

Caseous lymphadenitis is one of those diseases that carries more confusion than clarity.
People know it involves abscesses.
People know it can spread.

But very few people have ever been taught what it actually is —
or more importantly — how it behaves inside the animal.

Before we talk about testing, vaccines, or what to do about it…

We need to start with a more important question:

What kind of disease are we dealing with?

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Not a Fast Disease — A Persistent One

Caseous lymphadenitis is caused by a bacterium called
Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis.

Unlike many of the diseases producers are used to dealing with, this is not a fast-moving, overwhelming infection.

It doesn’t typically knock animals down in a matter of hours or days.

Instead, CL behaves more like something that moves in… and stays.

A better way to think about it is this:

This is not a lightning strike disease.
This is a long-term resident.

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A Disease of the Lymphatic System

CL primarily targets the lymphatic system —
the part of the body responsible for filtering fluid and monitoring for infection.

If we simplify this down:

Think of lymph nodes as security checkpoints scattered throughout the body.

Fluid passes through them.
Cells are inspected.
Threats are identified and dealt with.

Most infections pass through this system and are cleared.

CL does something different.

It doesn’t just pass through the checkpoint.

It sets up inside it.

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Containment Instead of Elimination

Once this bacterium establishes itself in a lymph node, the body responds the way it often does with difficult infections:

It builds a wall around it.
It isolates it.

This creates what we recognize externally as an abscess.

But that abscess isn’t random.

It is a containment structure.

A better way to picture it:

The body is not winning the fight.
But it is preventing the spread.

Inside that structure:
• bacteria remain alive
• immune cells remain active
• and the two exist in a kind of controlled standoff

Over time, this produces the thick, layered material many producers describe as “onion-like.”

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Two Forms — What You See and What You Don’t

CL shows up in two very different ways:

External CL
• Visible abscesses in lymph nodes
• What most people recognize

Internal (Visceral) CL
• Infection inside the body
• No visible abscesses
• Gradual weight loss, poor performance

This second form is often the more important one from a production standpoint —
and also the easiest to miss.

As I attempted to show in the article image, it’s like an iceberg. The single abscess you can see might just be the tip of the iceberg itself.

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Why This Disease Gets Misunderstood

CL creates a unique situation for producers:
• Animals can look completely normal
• The infection can persist for long periods
• And the most visible sign (abscesses) is only part of the story

Because of this, people tend to oversimplify it into one of two extremes:
• “It’s no big deal”
or
• “It’s catastrophic”

In reality, it is neither of those things.

It is a management disease —
and understanding how it behaves is what determines the outcome.

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Where We Go Next

Now that we’ve defined what CL is,
the next step is to understand the system it lives in.

Because once you understand how the lymphatic system works normally,
you’ll start to see why this disease behaves the way it does —
and why it can be so difficult to fully eliminate.

03/07/2026

At Mimbres Valley Ranch, we want to take a moment to recognize the hard work of our mama goats this kidding season. While ranching often highlights the long hours and dedication it takes from the people behind the operation, the real credit belongs to these hardworking does who bring new life to the ranch and care for their kids day and night.

Our focus has always been simple: healthy, well-cared-for goats that produce strong, healthy kids. The success of any ranch begins with good animal care, and we’re proud of the mothers that make that possible here.

Starting this ranch just over six years ago has been a journey filled with lessons, growth, and plenty of hard work. Even now, we’re still learning every season and striving to improve our herd and our program.

As we move forward this year, Mimbres Valley Ranch has plenty of goals ahead — continuing to strengthen our herd, improve our breeding program, and raise quality goats we can be proud of.

Hears to a year of hard work and more success in a multitude of categories than ever before.

03/05/2026

Thank you Linessa Farms, LLC for sharing such and amazing article!

Late Gestation in Sheep and Goats

Part 1: When Space Becomes the Problem

By Tim from Linessa Farms

Spend enough time around sheep and goats and you’ll hear a lot of simple advice about late pregnancy.

“Just feed more protein.”

“Give them more hay.”

“Add some grain the last couple weeks.”

The problem is that biology rarely works in simple one-line rules. Sheep and goats aren’t machines where one dial controls everything.

Late gestation is not about one nutrient.
It’s about how the entire system changes during the last weeks of pregnancy.

And one of the most important changes has nothing to do with feed ingredients.

It has to do with space.

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The Rumen Is Enormous

To understand what happens late in pregnancy, we first need to understand just how big the rumen really is.

In an adult sheep or goat, the rumen is massive.

In many animals it can hold roughly the volume of a five-gallon bucket of feed and fluid. In fact, the rumen alone can account for 60–70% of the entire digestive tract volume.

That large fermentation vat is what allows sheep and goats to live on forage. Inside the rumen, billions of microbes break down plant fiber and convert it into usable energy for the animal.

Under normal conditions, this system works extremely well.

But pregnancy changes the physical layout inside the abdomen.

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Two Organs Competing for the Same Space

As lambs or kids grow during the final weeks of pregnancy, the uterus expands rapidly.

In sheep and goats, roughly two-thirds of fetal growth occurs during the final four to six weeks of gestation.

That means the uterus is increasing in size very quickly during the same time period when the developing lambs or kids are demanding the most nutrients.

But the abdomen is a fixed space.

When the uterus expands, something else has to move.

And what gets pushed out of the way is the rumen.

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A Simple Way to Picture It

One way to visualize this is to imagine two balloons inside a box.

As one balloon grows larger, the other balloon has less room to expand.

The abdomen works in a similar way. As the uterus enlarges during late pregnancy, the rumen has less room to expand after a meal.

The rumen doesn’t disappear.

It simply has less space to work with.

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The System Starts to Tighten

As the uterus enlarges, it begins compressing the rumen.

This creates an important shift in the system:

The same animal that needs more nutrients is also losing some of her ability to consume large volumes of feed.

In other words:
• Nutrient demand is rising.
• Feed capacity is shrinking.

Late gestation is where those two curves begin to cross.

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Why “Just Feed More Hay” Doesn’t Always Work

A common piece of advice is to simply offer more hay during late pregnancy.

While forage remains extremely important, this advice misses a key biological reality.

As abdominal space becomes limited, the animal often cannot physically consume the same large volumes of bulky forage she could earlier in pregnancy.

This is especially true when animals are carrying twins or triplets.

It’s not that the animal suddenly refuses to eat.

It’s that the system is becoming physically constrained.

Understanding this mechanical pressure is one of the keys to understanding late gestation nutrition.

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Bigger Babies Are Not the Goal

Another misconception that sometimes appears in late-gestation discussions is the idea that larger birth weights should always be the goal.

Birth weight can certainly be useful data when tracking flock performance, but it should not be confused with future growth potential.

Just as in humans, a larger newborn does not necessarily mean the animal will become larger later in life.

The goal of late gestation feeding is not to create the biggest possible lambs or kids.

The goal is to maintain metabolic balance in the ewe or doe while supporting healthy fetal development.

Those are not always the same thing.

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Why Understanding the System Matters

Many sheep and goat producers do very well with simple feeding systems.

Pasture-based animals may raise healthy lambs every year.
Others feed round bales free-choice with few obvious problems.

But understanding how the system actually works allows producers to recognize when things begin to drift out of balance.

Late gestation is a period where several forces are all changing at the same time:
• fetal growth accelerates
• energy demand rises
• rumen capacity decreases
• abdominal pressure increases

When these changes line up poorly, metabolic problems can begin to appear.

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In the Next Article

Now that we understand the space problem, the next step is to look at the metabolic side of the equation.

Because once rumen intake begins to fall while fetal demand continues to rise, the ewe or doe must begin drawing energy from somewhere else.

And that’s where some of the most important late-gestation challenges begin.

07/21/2025

First 2 babies to drop this season 🤍🤍🙏🏻 looking real healthy! 1 male 1 female!

02/24/2025

Just got this handsome fella home today! ☺️🤍 welcome home Milo! Or as Devin would call him Spoticus (aka sparticus) final name is to be determined!

02/19/2025

Ohh how I just love kidding season! 🤍

02/17/2025

Devin and Dustin’s little/big project today! Thank you baby and Dustin for making such a cool feeder for the goats! I love it and the goats sure Do too! (He still plans to add a bottom catch all for the feeder!) 🤍🐐 no more wasted hay in 2025

01/31/2025

Unfortunately, we have not posted in a while. we've had unfortunate circumstances of natural disasters that have affected the ranch for the past 2 years. these disasters caused us to step back on the number of livestock we had and affected our fields... this year we are finally able to move forward with not only restoration but also improvements for the ranch! we're looking forward to rebuilding our livestock count and business within the New Mexico Community!