CAE psitive dairy goats- ok for personal use?

ET1 SS · #41 02/29/08, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozark_jewels

Your vet told you from a description(he didn't even look at them??) that they had CAE and to put them down?? And this same vet advised NOT testing the rest of the herd?? Sounds like very bad advice to me. Kuddos to him for advising you not to buy at auction, but I can't agree with him on anything else. If your(maybe) seeing such virulent CAE in your herd, you would certainly not get all negatives if you tested.
Maybe your goats did have CAE, but with all the symptomatic goats I have seen, I've never seen anything like you described. The swollen knees sure, but not the rest. I sure would have wanted to *know* what I was dealing with. Pulling blood before you put them down and sending it in would have helped clear it up some anyway.

We have not found a vet in this area that is willing to deal with goats. We have a bit of a shortage of vets, USDA butchers too [a lot of folks butcher, just very few are licensed]. I have been able to talk with this vet as his assistant is a friend of ours.

Apparently the moment livestock show any sign of anything they are hauled to the auction yard. Where either a few of us starting up get them, or else the brokers get them [in which case they all go South to the cities and are butchered down there].

Why are folks here saying that I am dealing with CL and not CAE?

ozark_jewels · #42 02/29/08, 11:07 PM

Oh I understand that! There are not many vets who know goats even if they are willing to treat them.
What your describing is certainly not CL, though it could be CAE. My advice would be to test. At least then you'd have an idea of what your dealing with.
Yep, most livestock at the sale barn is there for a reason......with the exception of big cattle auctions. For cattle, thats the usual way to sell them.

NewlandNubians · #43 02/29/08, 11:45 PM

I'm not sure but it was highly likely she was initially exposed to CAE from how she was fed as a kid. At the time she was a kid, I was not testing, just pooling milk and not pasteurizing. Some of the does I was feeding milk out of were later tested and found to be positive but they were asymptomatic FWIW.

Exposure "can" happen at a show but not highly likely unless someone is sloshing milk around and the doe actually consumes the milk (and yes I've seen that and the lovely squirting does that I just adore walking around like little milk fountains - yeeech). There are other ways they can get it at a show I realize that but I just doubt that was where she got it.

Besides, she had not been to any shows since the summer of the previous year. That year I had been to two shows, one in July of the previous year and one in August. so nearly a year had passed from last show to date of test.

Several years ago I had a doe kid I was pretty sure nursed her positive asymptomatic dam. I went ahead and raised her prevention anyways and sold her after she was weaned. She never tested positive even when I brought her back to the herd and tested her as a two year old while she was pregnant. I tested her through WSU too. I never had the opportunity to track her as she died shortly after kidding.

I had another doe I sold as a kid that came out of a really, really symptomatic dam. I told the man who bought her that the kid's mother was really sick when she kidded and the kid could've been exposed to CAE in utero. The kid was washed off right after birth and was raised prevention never having nursed mom. I ended up buying her back because she did convert and was a positive as a yearling. the other goats in his herd were negative.

CAE is a strange disease. I did have some symptomatic does when I lived on the coast but since moving to the mountains for some reason I have halted the symptoms. I have two seven year olds who are still asymptomatic and their mother was dead by the age of three from CAE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by susanne

cathy why are you so sure the doe was infected because of raw milk? i know you are showing and there are so many different ways how an animal can get infected.