Hey guys,
This is a theoretical question. I have 3 does and 2 bucks now. I would like to test them- was thinking of running the WADDL biosecurity screen (CAE, CL, Johnes and Brucellosis) on them all. I don't suspect any of them of being sick, they are all sleek and healthy looking (except for that pitiful one I just took on and she is coming around-I don't think there's anything wrong with her besides a bad parasite infestation and being ignored at the old place). Their herd of origin was a closed herd that had been tested for something but I can't remember what. And at this point I am not 100% sure I trust that breeder anymore.
Point of this is: what if, god forbid, someone came back positive? Then what do I do? Do they have to be culled? I only have a few and it would be VERY emotional to say the least to cull one. To be perfectly honest I'm not sure we could do it and we'd have to do further testing beforehand if it were one of the tests that isn't 100% accurate.
Has anyone ever gotten a positive goat, and what do you do? How common are these diseases really? I just want to test for the peace of mind and advertising it on selling the kids.
Any thoughts?
Replies
They looked like they had good information. :)
Thanks too, Rachel, great article, cleared up my questions. Very interesting indeed. Ditto Margaret, Onion Creek Ranch, seems to always have interesting and informative articles. :)
Thanks so much Rachel, I really appreciate that, it was VERY interesting and I certainly didn't expect to get linked up with something that spoke so specifically to what I was wondering about. That totally covered that subject and reassures me that my feelings on the subject were pretty on target. They seem to really know there stuff on that site. They always seem to have interesting, knowledgeable advice to share. Thanks again!
Margaret, Deb might not be able to answer for a bit... so I'll share this link I found looking for information about your Q... http://tennesseemeatgoats.com/MeatGoatMania/January2011/index.html it seems to have good information on it. I'm sure Deb will be able to answer with her thoughts once she's back. :)
Margaret Langley said:
Deborah, while we are on the subject, do you know of any reason why goats testing positive for any of these things would not be suitable for food. I mean I know it might seem like a strange question to start with but the fact is that many things that they may have would not really cause a problem with them being safe to consume. I imagine any of us who have eaten any commercial meat have eaten worse. Obviously if they actually seemed sick that would be different but if they tested positive on routine test and seemed perfectly healthy then they probably are still safe, maybe? Just curious cause I hate the waste of life without purpose and if someone hungry can safely consume them it doesn't seem so bad for them to have to die. There are so many hungry people out there these days.
The red tops.
Janel Rickey said:
What type of Vacutubes do you need to order to send in a sample for testing? There are so many types, I don't want to order the wrong ones. Thanks
I know that pulling kids at birth is not something I am willing to do. I would not breed a CAE positive goat.
I believe the first thing I would do if I got a positive would be to contact the breeder who sold me these goats and see if she were willing to take the goat back. My goats all came from her and have had zero contact with any goats since leaving her farm so if they have it, they got it there. If she would not take the goat I suppose I would just have to euthanize, though I wouldn't do that until I had exhausted relevant backup tests to be sure it wasn't a false positive.
We have our goats for home dairy and i do sell the kids. I would not sell a kid from an animal I knew was positive with any of these diseases, nor would I want the milk for my family, so euthanizing seems the only option to eradicate it from my herd.
I do not have enough land or money to support an isolated group of positive animals that could not be used for anything. In a perfect world I would do it so they could enjoy their lives but it just isn't feasable.
How is the WADDL CL test? I've heard they can be pretty inaccurate
There are tests for these diseases because goats can be carriers without exhibiting symptoms. And this is why I always warn people to NOT buy goats at the sale barn. That is where some people "cull" a goat with a disease.
I'll go from easiest to most complicated --
Brucellosis is pretty uncommon. Illinois is a certified free state, so I don't really know much about it.
Johnes is deadly. It's passed fecal-oral, so if a Johnes+ goat poops in your pasture, the pasture is considered contaminated for at least five years, and goats can get it from eating the grass. It's horrible. It's a wasting disease, which means the goats just lose body condition and waste away and die. It "usually" only kills young stock under the age of two, which is the reason there is a test. If adults get it, they can sometimes live with it and be carriers. However, the testing is not terribly accurate. The incidence of false-negatives is pretty high. I used to not see any point in it at all, but I heard a vet speaking at a conference who said that a single negative test is not very meaningful, however, a whole herd negative test means a lot more, and if you do the test year after year and always come up negative, that is very meaningful after about five years because if someone had it, they would have tested positive by then. However, if someone had it, you'd probably also be seeing dead kids and young stock by then also. Johnes can wipe out a herd. Of all these diseases, it's the scariest. I've never heard of a ND goat with Johnes. Of course, it can happen, but not common.
I've heard some people say that CL is mostly cosmetic, but eeyew. I have heard of some goats getting this.
CAE is the most complicated and most common. I won't repeat all the stuff that is on WADDL's site, which is very comprehensive, but will just respond to the question about what to do if you find your goat is positive. The ELISA is highly sensitive, so it supposedly has no false negatives and about a 1% chance of false positives. If you get a positive on a goat with the ELISA, the next step is to do a PCR with Colorado State, which checks for the actual DNA of the disease, not just antibodies, which is what the ELISA does. I don't know of anyone who does a whole-herd PCR though because it costs $22 per goat just for the lab fee! And you can get false negatives on a goat that was only recently infected. So, the ELISA is the best and least expensive screening test. If you get a goat that is positive on both ELISA and PCR, then they should be isolated from negative goats, and you'd practice typical bio-security between the two herds. If you are only keeping the goat for sentimental reasons, I'd suggest never breeding her. Yes, you can pull kids at birth and bottle-feed, but if you miss a birth, which happens to all of us and the kids nurse, then odds are good that they're infected, and now you have more CAE+ goats. I know someone who bought a goat from a herd that had CAE and was bottlefeeding, and her kid wound up positive, so it just isn't a good idea to have CAE positive goats breeding because no one is perfect, and at some point, odds are good that you're going to miss a kid.
It would depend on what they tested positive for. For example, CAE is passed through milk from their mothers so if you were to pull the babies at birth and only give them pasteurized colostrum/milk then you could prevent it from being passed on. CL is a little harder as it is spread through bacteria from abscesses that burst. I know a local breeder who claims she managed to get it out of her herd by pulling babies and giving them pasteurized colostrum/milk (there is apparently a risk for transmission from doe to kid but I'm not certain of the vector) and isolating any goat that had an abscess until she just didn't have any goats with it at all. I'm not positive how Johnes and Brucellosis are spread, I believe Johnes is airborne but I wouldn't swear by it, so I'm not sure if there's any way to break the cycle.
I think it would mostly come down to what you want the goats for.