Thread by @AKermodeBear

This is Rook. He's a fancy goat and he's handsome. He's also losing his balls in a few days. Here's why. Oh boy, I get to use the thread emoji!🧵

Carpal Hyperextension is an issue with various animals, but for Nigerian Dwarf Goats it is not an uncommon problem.

It basically makes your knee go the wrong way. Instead of nice straight line (left) you end up with, well, legs bending the wrong way (right).

The problem is that this condition doesn't express itself until a goat is two, three, or sometimes four years old. And it doesn't always express itself in the next generation, or not so much that people notice it.

Rook's father was recently euthanized because he developed this condition.

It is believed to be genetic. Oregon State University has an ongoing project to do research, but everything costs money: beavsgive.org/organizations/…

So you can probably see where this is going.

We don't know if Rook carries this gene; there's no test yet.

We were planning on selling him because he's been bred quite a bit here and it too related to most of the does now.

But we can't sell him (ethically, which matters).

He's also not quite at the age where he'll start displaying symptoms. He may actually be fine; we need another year to see what develops.

So since we can't breed him, we can't sell him, the only test we have is time, and he's a dick - he's losing his balls.

This will turn him into much less of a jerk (I nicknamed him Rapey Rook for a reason - no butthole is safe when he's around), he can be a pasture pet, and we'll be able to observe his legs - with math. Super complex math.

That's a goniometer, a simple tool to measure angles.

Target angle: Zero.

Okay, so not very complicated. We're going to start tracking the legs of Rook (if possible) and his offspring. If someone starts to drift into the negatives that will be good to know.

In the meantime, until we have a good idea on if Rook is affected, his offspring aren't being bred either (which is fine; we've been wanting to downsize the Nigerian number in favor of Saanen goats anyway).

If they're affected then they become pasture pets or turn into tacos.

Trilly is one of his daughters, and she is my most special little girl. If she's affected by this I'm going to be pretty upset. There's no treatment; you just have to keep them as comfortable as possible (and not breed them, obviously).

And for mild cases it's really not so bad. We have an older goat, V, from another herd with a mild case and, at six years, she's still getting around just fine.

V was spayed and now she hangs out with the bucks, living life.

One of the problems has to do with the breeders. NDGs are popular - they're small, lots of people getting into goats will usually start there.

There's a lot of low quality breeders who crank out the kids and don't really care. Like puppy mills, but for goats.

So if they have a genetic problem they're:

A) Not going to try to control for it, and
B) Won't tell you about it, and
C) Don't care

The breeder who sold Rook let us know that there was a problem, is removing those genetics from her herd, and is offering us (and everyone else) a replacement from a different genetic line at no cost.

This is the responsible thing to do, but it's also really expensive.

So we're in a holding pattern on Rook's kids. In the meantime, Rook loses his balls, and Shrek is still around. He's good at adding udder capacity to girls who need it.

Look at that face. So handsome. So masculine. So... stinky.

Guys, pee on your face. Ladies love it. #ProTip

@threadreaderapp unroll for my derpy friend who refuses to make an account here, thanks.