Is this a cl abscess? Help please

Cloverbud · #21 09/15/08, 04:57 PM

I wouldn't just butcher and base the entire herd's health on the internal organs of one goat. I really can't recommend testing strongly enough. CL doesn't always cause internal abcesses, and goats with internal abcesses won't always have external abcesses. You could butcher, have a clean carcass, and still have a herd full of corynebacterium. Then you can wind up with a premises full of corynebacterium, and infected goats for ages.

**mygoat** · #22 09/15/08, 05:41 PM

Though testing isn't always completely accurate, coupled with isolation, culling, biosecurity (disease prevention) and buying from clean herds, and researching the diseases, testing is a VERY worthwhile tool to determining your herd status. If you get a freak positive out of an unlikely candidate you can easily retest to resolve a false positive.

Testing is only effective if done regularly and retests done on all positives to be sure of their status. I do a best 2/3 thing if I think it's unlikely they're positive, but if there's a chance they're positive and have a positive test result I cull immediately. It isn't worth it. Of cource, if anybody had a positive test on my farm it would be immediately isolated from the rest of the herd. All incoming stock are isolated and tested at least twice over the course of as long of an isolation period as I can.

CAE is manageable. CL is VERY difficult to manage properly. It's zoonotic (meaning you, your children, your spouse, or other animals on your property can get it) so be careful when handling abscess contents from any animal.

thatcompchick · #23 09/15/08, 09:17 PM

UK just made CL one of it's 'monitored' diseases (side note - US started monitoring Scrapies only 2 years after UK) - I found some good faqs on the testing (finally #'s that make sense to non statistical folk!)

[bold]How accurate is the blood test for CLA?
Validation of the ELISA for CLA indicates a test specificity of 99% and test sensitivity of
87%. This means that if 100 disease-free animals were tested, 99 of them would give a
negative CLA test result. If 100 animals with CLA disease were tested, 87 of them would
give a positive test result. In other words the test produces very few "false positive"
results and a moderate number of "false negative" results.[/bold]

This is from the SAC - article link is here - http://www.sac.ac.uk/mainrep/pdfs/clafaq.pdf

So the above test sensitivity/specificity facts indicate that the test is highly effective, but you still would want to retest occasionally - depending on your herd exposure, etc.

Andrea

Anderson farms · #24 09/16/08, 08:21 AM

I have her quarantined and am getting the supplies to draw some blood. This will be another first for my husband and I. The spot is actually more to the front of her on her chest not above her shoulder. Thank you for all the replies. How long does it take to get results back?

Alice In TX/MO · #25 09/16/08, 09:14 AM

Make sure you phone the lab and find out if the blood needs to be there at a certain time of the week. Ask about reporting. Do you call in or ask for email or wait for a written report.

On my CAE, they send email, and it takes three days or so.