I recently had my herd tested and everyone was fine except for a borderline test result on two goats for toxoplasmosis. We retested again this month and again those two tested borderline for toxoplasmosis. So now I'm looking at a third month of testing. :/ He retests for free so thats not an issue, but I hate having to redraw the blood etc. We haven't been drinking the milk from those two goats just in case but I am trying to decide if I should send more blood to a different lab this time or just send in more blood to the same lab. I'm also sad about the milk. Can I make a cheese out of it that requires high heat? Or is toxoplasmosis so bad it's just not worth the risk?
Any thoughts or experience you all have to share would be great!! Thanks! :)
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Yes! Thank you! Funny, the only articles that I managed to find were very small sample sizes and seemed (in my opinion) rather biased against raw milk or at least more circumstantial in nature. Anyhow...
Thanks for the link Deborah! I love reading and hearing goat stories, and especially birth stories. :) And thanks for the testing info. I've been piecing together info from here and reading online but it's just nice to have it all spelled out!
Thanks for sharing that, Emily!
I spoke with the doctor that runs WADDL and he said there is very little evidence that toxoplasmosis can be transmitted by drinking the raw milk. There was a thread on here about it a while back. One of my does tested positive for antibodies and I was pregnant at the time so it concerned me. He said that there are plenty of reasons he advocates for pasteurizing milk, especially while pregnant, but toxoplasmosis is not one of them.
When we first got goats, we tested annually for a few years, then we stopped buying does in 2005 and stopped showing after 2008, so we tested a year later to give time for everyone to sero-convert if they were positive, and since everyone was negative, we've only tested every 3-4 years after that. Problems like toxoplasmosis and others usually have symptoms, such as abortions, sometimes even "abortion storms" where all of the goats abort. But a lot of those more unusual and rare diseases are rather self-limiting, and after the active infection is over, the goat is fine again. That's not the case with CAE, CL, and Johnes, which is why people test for those routinely. They can be asymptomatic in goats for years, and they can give them to other goats either through milk, blood, or fecal-oral contamination in the pasture. And then your whole herd gets it.
Kids that weigh less than 2 pounds do tend to shoot out like a torpedo. I think we've only had two kids trying to be born simultaneously three times over the years, and we're getting close to 500 births, so thankfully it doesn't happen often. Here's a blog post I wrote about the first one, which was six years into our goat breeding adventure: http://antiquityoaks.blogspot.com/2008/06/best-laid-plans-of-homest...
The second time that happened it was a head and hoof first and two rear legs from the other kid. Like your husband I pulled the rear legs. Unfortunately, that kid's head got stuck behind the other kid's head, which was still inside, so the breech kid died while we tried to free his head. If that ever happens again, I said the head first kid will be pulled first.
The third time it happened was this year, and it was hind legs and head trying to come out together. I tried repeatedly to push the hind legs back in, but the kid kept sticking them out, so the intern held them inside while I pulled the head first kid.
Kids are so resilient! It's amazing what they survive in the birthing process.
Yeah, I wasn't sure what to call him, lol. I'm pretty sure he owns the lab and does all the testing (PanAm Vet labs). I don't know him personally or anything like that... He was really nice to respond quickly to my emails and you are right, the vet would be a better place to ask. I'm sure the "lab guy" is probably being safe in telling me not to drink the milk, and of course it isn't his job to advise me. :) You are right - they were testing antibodies. And the lack of kidding troubles is what prompted me to ask here as I was feeling rather sure that the milk was probably fine to drink (but still insecure in my knowledge in this area). I really value the knowledge I've gained from this group!
Quick question... when I test next year should I only test for CL, CAE and Johnes? Do you test each year or only if you have added goats to the herd?
Thanks so much for clarifying the birthing trouble. I'm sure you are right. They were cleaned off but still wet. That particular doe isn't quite as doting on her kids as our other does. She is good to nurse them but other than that seems rather unconcerned about them. And on the topic of births... I had just read your birth post - the scary one with the happy ending - and had one ourselves. Our first complicated birth. The doe quickly pushed out a 1 1/2 pound buckling (shot out is more like it) and the next baby seemed to be taking longer. The head was coming and a hoof, but by the time the head was almost totally out I realized that the hoofs were pointed the wrong way. I felt back and found that they were the back legs of another baby!! I couldn't get the legs back in and about that time the baby with the head out made a squeak. My heart sank... I didn't think they would make it. About that time my husband arrived and after assessing the situation determined that one would probably have to die so the other could make it. He checked and the legs were easier to move, so on her next push he pulled the legs. Once that baby was out the next slid out easily. We didn't know if either one would make it or if he pulled to hard, but they both made it and the doe was fine as well. Phew!! I hope we don't have one like that again anytime soon!!!
One good thing that came from the previous doe who lost two of her babies is that my husband agreed to get a camera for our garage birthing stalls. Yay!
You should be able to get a definitive answer on this from a vet or vet professor. "Lab owner" sounds kind of odd. Simply saying don't drink the milk is not helpful. The general consensus is that pasteurization kills everything, and that's the excuse that commercial dairies use for keeping sick animals in their herds. You need to ask if this is a test that detects antibodies or the actual DNA of the disease. I'm guessing it's an antibody test, which just means the goats were exposed to the disease and are not actually infected with it, especially since they didn't have any issues with kidding.
As for the dead kids ... the doe probably was not able to get them cleaned off quickly enough, so they most likely died from hypothermia (if it was below freezing or if there was a breeze) or suffocation (if the sac didn't break during birth). It's not unusual for ND babies to come shooting out so fast that the dam has no hope of getting them all cleaned up, especially if she has more than two. I've seen them come out less than a minute apart, and as a human with two hands and towels, I have a hard time keeping up! Goats laying on babies is not really a problem.
Good question... I ran across a thread on a goat group on Facebook discussing testing and several people mentioned testing for Toxoplasmosis, and Q-Fever in addition to the regular CAE, Johne's and CL. I had only intended to test for the latter three but since we drink the raw milk I was trying to cover my bases. The thing that really put a fire under me to get the testing done was I noticed what felt like a small lump on one of the girls in front of her rear legs (one on each side) and partially freaked out thinking it was CL. Everything came back fine though except this borderline thing with the Toxoplasmosis.
I was thinking it wasn't a problem but when I asked the lab owner he said I shouldn't drink the milk. I had a hard time at the thought of just throwing it away on such a grey issue. I couldn't find much info on it at all, so my my compromise was to save the milk away and turning it into some of the higher heated cheeses. Anyhow, your reply definitely agrees with what I've been thinking so I'm relieved. Thank you for responding!
Interestingly... both does kidded mid March and their babies were fine, no abortions. One of the does had two dead babies and one living but I'm sure it was our fault. I thought the night before that she was five days away from her date and we should put her in her birthing pen, but we needed to fix a latch on the gate and it was late. So we intended to do it the next day and learned a hard lesson. :( The dead babies were perfectly formed but I think they were probably laid on by the other goats. She kidded very early in the morning probably before it was light. Anyhow... it was a sad day.
I checked Goat Medicine, and it says that a goat can test positive for years, so it sounds like repeated testing would be a waste. When I said I've never heard of anyone having their goats tested, I should have said specifically for milk safety purposes. Typically the only time anyone has their goat tested is if they aborted a pregnancy because they're wondering why that happened. I haven't been able to find anything that said whether or not toxoplasmosis is shed in the milk after the infection period is past, but I'd be surprised if it is. I met a woman a few years back whose entire herd got toxoplasmosis and all 15 does aborted, and she simply said that she rebred them all, and they were fine. She said nothing about not drinking their milk any longer. I'm curious why you had your goats tested for this.
Toxoplasmosis can be transmitted through raw milk. If you pasteurize the milk, it's safe. For best cheesemaking results, you'd heat it to 145 degrees for 30 minutes, but if you just want to get it done quickly, it's pasteurized instantly at 170 degrees.
Also, toxoplasmosis is really only a problem for pregnant women. It doesn't usually make people sick, but it can cause miscarriages. It can also cause miscarriages in goats. I have never heard of anyone having their goats tested for it. If this is just an antibody test, it could be that they had it at some point, but they don't any longer. Most commonly it's transmitted to people and goats by cat poop, which is why they tell pregnant women not to clean the litter box.