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CAE - First off I am not totally CAE free. I have one remaining positive animal as of today, that is my buck Austin. He is healthy and asymptomatic. I practice CAE prevention methods and I feel it has been very successful in my herd. I test my goats once a year through WSU-WADDL. I prefer them because it is my belief (based on research) that they catch positives faster. Once I'm negative for five years, I'll likely go with a local lab's cheaper (and no huge overnight fee to Washington State) AGID test. I recommend anyone who suspects all their animals are negative go ahead with the AGID test locally. CL - I have tested for CL for two years in a row through WSU-WADDL. The entire herd tested negative each time. I will begin testing every other year, next test date is July 2011. Johnes - I started testing for Johnes through my local lab in 2009. The entire herd was blood tested and found to be negative. I have no reason to suspect I have Johnes in my herd, therefore I am going to begin testing every other year. Bruscellosis/Tuberculosis - I have been testing for Bruscellosis and Tuberculosis since the mid to late 90's. I have a certified/accredited free herd. My herd has been enrolled in the voluntary Scrapie program for several years.
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PERFORMANCE PROGRAM PARTICIPATION INFORMATION DHIR - I have participated in the DHIR program for nearly three years. It is, in my opinion, worth the cost to do it every month even for a few goats. I love having data on my animals and with the owner-sampler program there is not reason why any breeder should not participate. LINEAR APPRAISAL - I try and participate in LA at least every other year. Since I have kept my herd very small the past few years I've managed to do it every year even with stale does. It's a great tool to evaluate what you're doing with your animals and where you should go in the future and it's not terribly expensive.
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Here's a
list of five catalogs I order from, links to those companies, and what I
usually buy from them.
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FIRST TIME GOAT OWNER'S LIST OF STUFF TO BUY/MAKE Refer to the column above for links to the places I will list of where to buy stuff. First you will need water buckets and feeders for hay and grain. WATER BUCKETS: Any old bucket will do for water, you need two or three at least - 3 gallon or 5 gallon work good. I love the five gallon pickle buckets Chick-Fil-A has if you can get them. You might ask next time you are there eating lunch. Otherwise you can buy buckets anywhere just make sure they're good and sturdy. HAY FEEDERS: Buy "sheep and goat" panels with 4" square holes. You can buy them at Tractor Supply locally or ask anywhere they sell cattle/hog panels if they don't usually carry them in stock. Use bolt cutters to cut them down and hog rings to put them together. You can make several variations of hay feeders using these panels. Keep in mind the size of a pad of hay out of a hay bale and go from there. Mine are large rectangular feeders hanging with wire from the ceiling. They are 3 squares wide and, oh, 5' long. when I cut them down shorter I used the 3 square wide leftover pieces to make the bottom and two sides so they are not the entire height of the panel. It's much cheaper to make the feeders than it is to buy them premade this size. The feeders I use are okay but kind of bad about waste. GRAIN FEEDERS: If you want to buy something already made, the sheep mini feeders are great. They can be found locally or at Jeffers, above. They hold about three quarts and hang on a 2" wide board. Hang them so they hang on the OUTSIDE of a gate/fence/stall front or else the goats will stand in them. The best feeder ever is a 6" PVC pipe (from Lowes or Home Depot) cut nearly in half but works best if you cut them so they're more than half left and just use one pipe to make one feeder not trying to make two feeders if this makes sense. You can make end caps, buy them (they're real expensive) or simply hang them without ends. They are my favorite. Again hang them on the outside of the gate/fence/stall front. As far as scoops go, anything will do. I generally use whatever is laying around here on the farm. SUPPLEMENT FEEDERS: Use the cheap black double chamber mineral feeders located in Jeffers catalog if you have PVC pipe feeders. They'll fit right in the 6" PVC feeder and you can use cable ties or baling twine or whatever to secure them. Or if you want to build something you can. Take some scrap 2X4s - a foot long is a good size. use one for the bottom. One for a front. Two short pieces for sides that meet up heigh-wise with the one you used for a front. You will nail this directly to a wall. Then build a "roof" for the feeder. The roof is simply two 2X4s angled to make the whole thing look like a triangle when you look at it straight on. This will keep hooves and poop out as well as anything else. OR you can use PVC pipe for this too but totally different than the grain feeder. There are plans for the PVC mineral feeders on the internet, I'm going to briefly explain it here but please consult other sites for better information. Take a 2" or larger PVC pipe, cut it to be about 2' or more long, then use a "Y" connector at the bottom gluing it using PVC glue. One of the tops of the Y should be what you are gluing to the pipe. Then glue a cap on the bottom of the Y. Leave the other "Y" hole open. Pour mineral in the top of the pipe, the goats will eat the mineral out of the open end of the Y. The main stem will be vertical not horizontal like the grain feeder. I've never made one of these myself so I can't help with exactly all the details - you might have to cut the open end of the Y down some, I don't know. BEDDING: I like to use straw or hay. Let it build up with what falls out of the hay rack or top dress. Once it's a foot thick or more strip it out and apply hydrated lime to the bare dirt. You can buy hydrated lime from any feed/hardware store. I prefer then to put sand on top of the lime layer about 3" thick. The sand makes it easier to clean next time around and also helps with draining. At the very least make sure you cover the lime with bedding before you put goats back in and try not to inhale the lime when spreading. Use a pitch fork for cleaning plus rakes and shovels. A good double wheeled 8 cubic foot or 10 cubic foot wheelbarrow is worth the extra expense, the single wheeled ones are harder to control but easier to turn. MILKING SUPPLIES: You'll need teat spray or a good barrier dip. A tsp of bleach in a one cup sprayer will work. Spray the very end of the teat after milking with this. Udder wash is optional but a mild bleach water solution more like a tsp. to a half gallon or so and a tiny bit of dish soap would work fine. You'll need an assortment of milk pails. Always use stainless steel and glass when handling milk - never aluminum or plastic. The exception would be plastic if used once and thrown out. Even then I don't care for it for drinking milk. Please refer to the supply catalog section above for where and what to buy as far as milk pails go. You will find it easiest (and less wasteful when you're learning how to milk) if you milk into a small bucket and dump milk into a larger bucket. I still prefer this method as you never know when one might kick - even a well behaved goat will do it unintentionally on rare occasion. You'll also need milk filters to "strain" the milk. I've gotten lazy over the years, I buy the largest filters the livestock supply catalogs carry (I think they're 6 1/4" or thereabouts) and I fold them up so they're shaped like a funnel and filter the milk just holding the filter over the jar. It works fine. You can strain your milk into any glass container. I have some Wal-mart apple juice 1/2 gallon glass jars I'm fond of or you can use half gallon canning jars. You can buy cheese supplies too and soapmaking supplies once you get the hang of milking and have extra milk. Buy the direct-set cultures and follow the instructions on the package. Once you have mastered direct set, you can go on from there - the sky's the limit. You don't have to have any special supplies to make the soft cheeses but eventually you'll need to invest in or build a press for the hard cheeses as well as buy wax, etc. Along with milking supplies you'll need a milk stand. You need to plan on making or buying one long before your doe is milking. You should have one as soon as possible so that you can get your goat used to your stand, especially a kid or dry yearling. Don't expect them to automatically jump on the stand if they've never used one before so get it ahead of time and put them on the stand every chance you get. At the least I put my doe kids up there for every hoof trimming and give them their grain while in the stand so it's a positive experience. It's even better if you feed them there occasionally just for the heck of it. If you make one, you can make it out of wood or metal but make the platform they stand on out of expanded steel. It will keep much cleaner and be better footing for the goat. MEDICAL SUPPLIES: I will only list a short suggestive list of truly basic items. There are many more items to add to your medicine cabinet once you learn how to diagnose different problems should you ever come across them. It would be to your best advantage to find the name and talk to a GOOD goat vet before you purchase your goats so you can have one lined up in case of an emergency. Sadly good goat vets are hard to find so good luck.
Probiotic gel (Probios Max is good,
available through PBS) BOTTLE KID SUPPLIES: If you dam raise your kids you'll at least want a pritchard teat and a soda bottle around. Try to freeze some heat treated colostrum from your first milking doe or find someone who has some close by BEFORE your doe kids for the first time. Don't bother with colostrum replacements, there's no replacement for real colostrum and being without it means life or death for the newborn kid. If you decide to bottle feed kids, there are many ways to go about doing that. I free feed my kids but I have plenty of milk and if you are buying bottle kids outright with no milker you won't have any extra milk. So I don't really feel comfortable instructing you on a feeding method I don't use. You can read up on that elsewhere. At any rate you'll need a pritchard teat available locally or from any catalog and a soda bottle for newborns. There are various automatic type feeders available that are easy to make and use. Once kids are up in age I like using a lambar type feeder. You can also use the lambar nipples on soda bottles for older kids being hand fed. As far as milk goes, feeding them pasteurized goat milk is best but replacer can be used too. Avoid store bought milk because there is no clear information that shows that johnes disease is killed by commercial pasteurization. Milk replacers are safer as they have been dried usually by heat. The best in my opinion is Purina Kid Milk Replacer but it's so terribly expensive. Dumor brand ULTRA calf milk replacer unmedicated is good and fairly cheap. Merrick's kid milk replacer is okay but not great. Land-O-Lakes kid replacer used to be terrible but I tried some this past spring and they must've reformulate it sometime between when I last used it and now. It seems to be okay now. Just make sure whatever you use smells sweet kind of like cake mix and mixes easily. If in doubt, take it back to the store for a refund/exchange. It's not worth using bad replacer and having a huge vet bill when your kid bloats or even worse dead kids. On the topic of medicated milk replacers, I avoid them. It's better to medicate against coccidiosis as needed instead of giving it to them all the time. Kids need to build a natural resistance to the coccidia oocyte and if you medicate them constantly their body is not able to do this. What usually happens in this case is when you wean them off the medicated milk replacer they will suddently get very sick with coccidiosis. So I prefer to medicate as needed or ever better move the kids off contaminated ground by using portable pens and fencing. I have done this in recent years and have cut the need to medicate for coccidiosis down to nearly zero.
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HAY / ROUGHAGE PRODUCTS GRASS
HAY - I feed and
recommend grass hay. First cut is okay for non-working goats (adults not milking or late gestation) but try to
stick with second cutting for young kids just starting out on hay and milking does.
Second cut is usually less stemmy and is more palatable. It is also usually
higher in protein and digestable nutrients. Second cut is okay for older goats too, you will
just have to adjust their grain and give them less, if any. BEET PULP - I use lots and lots of beet pulp in early spring when I have problems with my goats wanting to leave hay and eat spring grass all day. It's expensive but the alternative for me at least would be locking my goats off pasture. Spring grass early in the year is high in water content and not much else to it. This means my goats are not only getting the roughage they need but they are also not getting enough nutrients period as I usually end up having to cut back on grain if they are not getting enough roughage. This of course happens right during peak lactation which makes maintaining the goats touch and go at times. Beet pulp can be added with their grain ration or fed separately or alone to help add some roughage. My does get a pint or more of no molasses added plain shredded beet pulp by volume twice a day in the early spring. I back them off of the beet pulp once the grass starts being more nutritious and tougher, about the end of May. If you have a hard time finding good quality hay, you may use some beet pulp to supplement roughage but only as a supplement not as a total replacement. Beet pulp can also be fed to increase milk production but do not do this if the doe is too thin.
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I feed my goats differently at different times of the year but generally what I like to use is a foundation of excellent pasture and hay, supplemented with good quality feed and add some alfalfa pellets and beet pulp when peak lactation demands it. In the past I recommended and used black oil sunflower seeds but there seems to be some talk of a problem with them molding internally. Thinking back on some of the deaths I've had over the years, I believe that might have been a problem I was experiences and didn't even know it. I stopped feeding sunflower seeds last year and the sudden deaths stopped. I used to have grain mixed by the ton but stopped because I was not feeding enough animals to justify buying a ton at a time. Here's a list of commercial feeds I recommend listed in order of preference:
1. Commodity feed (it's part corn gluten, part soybean hulls and part wheat mids)
Many breeders would turn their nose up at commodity feed but the proof is in the pudding and my goats do the very best on commodity feed. They milk more on less feed and maintain body condition better AND it's the cheapest thing out there. I love it. I also have less digestive upset with the commodity pellets because it's not coated with tons of molasses - it's just a plain pellet. The goats find it very palatable too. It doesn't contain bells and whistles like probiotics or chelated minerals but it doesn't have to - I give those thing separately as needed. Big Spring Mill is a local mill in my
area so if you're not in the Roanoke or Blacksburg are then please
disregard and move on to number three. Big Spring Mill's feed I am
told is a fixed formula and their feed is always fresh and consistent and it's the least expensive of the textured (sweet) feeds I've listed.
It has a bit too much molasses but most commercial feeds are like that except the pelleted feeds. If you do what you're supposed to and go light on the grain and heavy on the high quality hay/pasture you should be fine.
Blue Seal is good because it contains yeast cultures and some proteinated minerals and I believe all three feeds are a fixed formula
meaning they don't change ingredients just because one grain is cheaper
from week to week. The other feeds I listed are usually pretty good
quality too but not quite the caliber of Blue Seal. I cannot comment
on any other kinds of goat feed. I always prefer a "fixed formula"
that will not vary depending upon what is cheaper from week to week.
I also like feeds that LOOK consistent from batch to batch.
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I will list what I recommend
below with links in order of preference. Balancing the calcium to
phosphorous ratio is tricky - make sure to take water samples along with
hay, pasture, and grain if you really want to get the balance right.
2. Southern
States Beef Maker Mineral with Availafour
- I do not recommend their goat mineral. This cattle mineral is pretty well balanced.
It is hard to get and would probably have to be special ordered in.
3. Ultralyx
goat minerals - These people sell a nice goat mineral but their
website has no information about it. I have used it in conjunction
with the Southern States mineral (above). Sweetlix
minerals - Fairly
good quality popular minerals BUT they put too much
molasses in it. Animals crave salt and will eat the mineral for the salt. KELP: I also mix a little bit of Thorvin Kelp with my minerals. Be careful not to use too much or they will get too much iodine and they will overeat it because they LOVE it. Sounds neat when they crunch on it. Seven Springs Farm in Floyd, VA and Countryside Natural Products in Harrisonburg, VA carry it. I use about 1/4 kelp to 3/4 trace minerals. SODIUM BICARBONATE (BAKING SODA) and DIAMOND V YEAST CULTURE: This is good when does are milking real heavy and eating a little more grain than normal. It helps increase butterfat and keep down on rumen acidosis. I mix it half and half and free choice it along side the trace minerals. DIATOMACEOUS EARTH - I mix this about 1/4 with my minerals. I don't think it does anything for worms but it does do a number on flies. It doesn't seem to work as well on the biting flies as the regular flies. If you start adding this in your salt a month before fly season, you will see a marked difference in flies in the barn. We use it with our sheep and beef cattle too and have seen a decrease in pinkeye in both herds. Try not to inhale the DE while mixing with mineral. COPPER BOLUSES - I give my entire herd copper boluses four times a year or more. I've been most recently giving it every other month and upping the dose. You can buy copper oxide boluses - Copasure brand - for cattle sold in the Jeffers or PBS catalog. Buy the calf sized package. Open the large red capsules, pour half in one side and half in the other. Eyeball it to get roughly half of one bolus. Dump the contents of half of one bolus on your goat's grain as they eat on the milkstand. That will give each mature milking doe or mature buck approximately 6 grams of copper rods. If they won't eat it like that, buy 000 capsules, fill them up and give adults 2 boluses, kids one. There is some new research out there which shows that this is a viable method for controlling the barberpole worm, however it has not been shown to kill "stomach worms". Many experts have seen that chronic anemia and worm resistance is tied to the copper status of individual goats. And some need more than others so dose each goat as needed. I would recommend once every three months and adjust from there. I think copper is the one supplement I could not do without. It's critical to goat health. RC GOLD 4X - This is a probiotic, digestive enzyme and yeast product all rolled into one. I put 1/2 tsp on each doe's grain feeding 2x a day. It seems to help keep digestive upset at bay during times of stress. |
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BO-SE (SELINIUM & VITAMIN
E - prescription only - ask a vet for a bottle)
COVEXIN EIGHT
DOES -
3-4 weeks before kidding - 1 1/2 cc Bo-Se, repeat in six months around
breeding season. Around my area, Bo-Se is not a critical thing to give but it does help with reproductive health especially the bucks and I've found if my does get it before kidding their births will be much cleaner. Covexin Eight - I give this eight way vaccine two
times per year according to labeled directions but instead of the
labeled once yearly booster I give two boosters six months apart.
Why not CD&T???:
I used to use CD&T but found that it did not remain effective against
enterotoxemia for much past a couple months. Covexin Eight has
been found to last more like six months. I believe it is working
as I have no more sudden enterotoxemia deaths. That is the main
reason I use Covexin but it also covers tetanus. Enterotoxemia can strike at any time for no particular reason - it's just not worth it to gamble with this one particular disease. It's naturally occuring in the gut of the goat however all it takes is a sudden change in weather or even just the stress of kidding for a goat to get sick with this and it's usually an extremely excruciating, fatal disease.
About Covexin:
Covexin is bad about giving the goats a quarter sized abscess at the
shot site. It is always given to my goats behind the left elbow so
as not to confuse the shot site abscess with contagious abscesses which
usually occur around the lymph nodes. The Covexin abcesses can be
lanced and drained of the puss they are filled with once the hair falls
off of the lump. Not all goats will get a lump and not all lumps
will fill with puss. The lumps are unsightly but not as unsightly
as finding a lovely doe dead as a hammer with very little signs anything
was ever wrong with her the night before.
DRY YEARLINGS / DRY DOES / BUCKS / WETHERS - Same as above, I just give their shots during when I do the milking does. Follow the label on Covexin to start the animals on their first shots as kids. If you ever have problems with neonate enterotoxemia, I would recommend contacting Betty Longman at Longman Nubians and ask her about her vaccination schedule for young kids. |
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If you don't mind chemical wormers, here are several options that might work in your herd. Whatever you
choose, stick with it until it stops working. Don't switch products
every month unless you are trying to treat something like a meningeal worm
or specifically target tapeworms. Ivomec products - I give this at three times regular strength. This is another alternative that might work in your herd. I try and avoid this because it has such a long milk withdrawal. Valbazen - I give this at twice the labeled strength. Same family of wormer as Levasole and Safeguard.
Safeguard
- You should give this at three times the labeled dose - even the goat
product needs to be tripled. In order to really gauge worm load, you need to work closely with a breeder and learn how to read your animals for worm overload. It's best not to worm prophylactically without the animal having a worm load that it can't handle. Even if a fecal test shows a heavy worm load, if the animal is handing the worm load and doing well it should not be wormed unless the animal is suffering from anemia or showing other signs of not handing the worms well. There are several signs of worm overload. I first look at the lower eyelid to see if the animal is becoming very anemic. You must learn how to do this from experience - consistently keep an eye on eyelids throughout the year and get a feel for when they are pale vs. good pink coloration. I also note how well the animals are eating. A gradual drop in feed consumption when nothing else is wrong can mean worm overload. A gradual drop in milk production is a good indication in a milker. For those of us on DHI testing, an increase in somatic cell counts with no evidence of mastitis is a sign of a heavy worm load. My husband says he can smell worms on his sheep's breath but I am not able to determine worm overload by smell. He can also taste "worminess" in the milk of a wormy animal. Again I'm not that sensitive. If you can develop these two senses they are just two more tools to use. Once I suspect worm overload I sometimes follow this up with a fecal exam which nine times out of ten will show a heavy worm egg infestation if they are showing other symptoms. There are instructions for doing the fecal exams on the internet and it's not hard or expensive to do. Lastly if an animal EVER gets an unexpected soft swelling between the chin and the jaw (not the same as a milk goiter in a baby goat but instead a swelling that just shows up overnight), worm the animal IMMEDIATELY with Ivomec ONLY. If you use Levasole to worm you might cause hemorrhage in a case like this. I have trialed the herbal wormer product sold by Fir Meadows for three years. I am undecided about its effectiveness in my herd BUT I think I was not keeping the product fresh enough so I will try it again this year. Plus it does appear that since I started on it a few years ago Kat has reformulated the product so that might make it a bit more effective. It did seem to help some but I still had animals get overloaded with worms even at twice the recommended frequency as directed by the maker. I think if you are going to use their product, do so but keep a close eye on your animals and be prepared to spot worm as needed. That being said, I am still continuing to use their products and am getting ready to place an order for the new formula very soon. Overall I like the lack of "binge and purge" using the herbal products. The animals are not stressed with overloads and purges so much and cost wise it's not too terribly much more expensive than chemical wormers, in fact since Levasole has become so hard to find I believe the cost of the herbal formula I am buying will be cheaper especially if I don't have to give as much because of the new formulation. Only time will tell. I do not recommend moxidectin. It is the newest latest greatest but has also killed a many animal in herds I am personally familiar with. Plus it's expensive. Not necessary unless you are having major worm resistance problems to all other drugs and if you have to use it, do so under supervision of a veterinarian.
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HOOVES:
I trim my entire herd about every other month, or whenever they look like
they need trimming. I do not recommend buying "hoof trimmers" from the goat supply catalogs. They gave me blisters. A good pair of hoof trimmers is the difference between trimming 20 goats in a day or 5 goats in a day... Another breeder uses a Mikota grinder. I have never tried it but she has a LOT of goats and it must work well. If I had as many as she does, I would probably try it myself. I own a grinder but it's so loud I can't imagine using it on hooves. I CAN imagine it doing a great job though.
Whatever you use, hooves should be trimmed
regularly. Don't neglect this, or you could cause your goat to have
permanent feet and
leg problems.
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COCCIDIA:
This is a major problem in young goats. Coccidiosis and
enterotoxemia (see shots, above) are the leading killers of kids. If
your kid gets diarrhea unexpectedly without any reason that you can think
of, it is probably coccidiosis. Coccidiosis is not hard to treat.
Here is what I do: Alternatively you can dilute as follows and dose as needed: Mix 1 1/2 tsp. powder to one ounce (30 ccs) of water. Multiply weight of the kid times .15 (that's POINT one five - not fifteen). This will give you the amount of ccs you need to dose the kid by weight and you can just use a syringe and either put the mixture in their bottle or dose by squirting it in their mouth. 3ccs of this dilution will treat 20 lbs. of kid if you don't like doing much math. DECOX: I have used this once the kids are weaned. You can buy medicated feed and that will work okay but is usually not mixed strong enough for goat kids so be forewarned and keep an eye out for diarrhea. That being said, it is still okay to feed because of its effect of just reducing the amount of coccidia and not completely killing it off. Decox is a coccidioSTAT not a coccidiocide meaning it controls the coccidia the animal is being exposed to but isn't a total killer. It's best used after an animal has been treated with Albon as the Albon will completely wipe out the coccidia. The Decox is a great product though because it allows the young goats to do what they are supposed to do - develop an immunity to coccidia. Albon used too heavily too often will not allow this to occur.
SULMET / CORID:
These are
good too and may be less effective or more effective for you depending
upon the resistance of the coccidia. For instance I had to quit
using Corid because it no longer worked for my goats. Maybe in another ten
years I can use it again. Sulmet doesn't work real well for me, it's
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Preparing for the show is not all about primping. Some training must
be done beforehand. I know some of you have seen my goats wailing at
the ringside and think this is horrible... I do work with my goats ahead
of time. They do that because they want their mommy (me) to stay
with them every waking moment!
You can use a
hair removal cream around the rear udder arch and foreudder if desired -
not on the entire udder. Preclip the udder with a 10 or 30 blade and don't use the hair removal
cream until a couple days after you clip up their udders. It takes
practice getting the cream right where it needs to go to make a perfect
rear udder arch but it can be done if you are careful. Use lots
of hand or udder cream on their udder after you wash off the hair removal cream.
After using the hair removal cream you will still have to trim up with a
50 or 40 blade.
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