One swollen knee?
 

I have a four year old doe who kidded with quads in April. We have just finally gotten her over a case of mites....her hair is growing back and scabs coming off.....

but a couple of days ago we noticed one front knee is swollen. It feels squishy.

Can just one knee be affected with CAE?

We've had her since she was three weeks old. Could she have gotten that from a buck we brought in. Or other does we have bought?

How do you test for CAE?

Is there anything else that would cause one knee to swell like that?

Thanks,

Dee

It's (obviously) arthritis (the swelling of a joint)

Arthritis is more like a symptom rather then an illness--it has a cause like scours. The only way to really know (unless if you know she got injured or tested her for something like CAE) is to call a vet and have him examine the joint fluid. Examining the joint fluid can determine whether goat is suffering from bacterial arthritis, viral arthritis, traumatic arthritis or nutritional arthritis.

Oh and is there a scab on the knee? If it was torn open or something, it could have gotten affected and swollen.

So arthritis can be something other than CAE? Good to know.

I don't see any scab or abrasion on the knee.

The only thing I can say about this doe is that she seems to be pretty delicate. If there was a problem in the herd or even with some of the kids, she seemed to get it. Cocci. Mites. She does not seem as sturdy, healthwise as my other Nubians. But she gives the most milk and is a sweetheart, so we keep her. She is thin (especially after kidding quads and milking), but she really was born that way. Her Mom and Grandmom are thin, more delicate looking goats, too--but good producers.

If it would be something like CAE, would the swelling go down....or more symptoms develope?

If the swelling goes away after a few days, can I stop worrying about CAE?

A trip to the vet in my area cost more than the goat is worth.....and they don't know alot about goats anyway. I hate to have to do that.

What kind of sample do you need for CAE testing? Blood? Knee fluid?


Dee

animals infected with the cae virus have a weaker immune system, get faster sick, more parasite problems.
same seems to be true for heavy milker.
you need to draw blood and send it in to WADDL or biotracking.
maybe you can find somebody in your are to help you with that.

there can be flare ups. so just because it temporarily seems to ease up doesn't mean it isn't cae. I had a positive doe that only had one knee that would occasionally blow up. can't say for sure it was her cae status that was causing the problem but it seems likely. She went in the freezer.

try not to be intimidated by the idea of drawing blood. I buy blood tubes I need from a vet and you could probably buy syringes there too.

where are you located? maybe someone is near you that could help as susanne said.

Dee, are you the "Dee" that lives in Monroe, Ga. and works at the Tractor Supply Co.?

I met her at a goat show in Monroe a few weeks back and she was giving out coupons for goat feed and caps. I thought it would be nice to talk with her again. Just checking to see if this was the same "Dee".



Tonya
Graceful Acres Farm

Sorry, not the same Dee. ; )

And I looked tonight and both of her knees are swollen--one is just worse.

So.....what would be the reasons to test her if I was never going to breed her again?

Dee

If her doe kids had her colostrum and you plan to breed them, you need to know. If you have more than one milker and are milking by machine, you need to know. It's also good to know her status if you do anything with her that may spread body fluids to another goat, such as trumming hooves and hers bleed, milking her and some gets where another goat could lick it, etc. Also, if a goat has CAE, by the time the knees get affected, it's about time for freezer camp.

<<<If her doe kids had her colostrum and you plan to breed them, you need to know>>>

I pulled the kids after birth b/c she wouldn't nurse them. But I milked her and fed it to the kids, so yes, they had her colostrum. And.....all of her kids were sold.

<<<If you have more than one milker and are milking by machine, you need to know>>>

Why only if you're milking by machine?

<<<It's also good to know her status if you do anything with her that may spread body fluids to another goat, such as trumming hooves and hers bleed, milking her and some gets where another goat could lick it, etc.>>>

How common is that? Could my goat have gotten it from another goat I bought or would it have likely came from her mother from birth?

<<<Also, if a goat has CAE, by the time the knees get affected, it's about time for freezer camp>>

Well, then wouldn't she have other symptoms? If the knees being affected is a later sign, wouldn't I notice something else wrong with her? What else should I look for?

Thanks so much for this info.

Dee

the arthritis is the thing you will notice wrong with her other than very generalized not quite as robust type symptoms that are easily attributable to something else and also easy to dismiss. other symptoms may or may not appear ever. even the athritis doesn't always show up.

it would be only fair to the buyer of her kids to let them know if there is the possibility that they got infected with cae.

I checked tonight and it is both her knees.

What else besides CAE could it be?

Dee

no guessing games. the correct answer is testing.

Dee, can I ask you why you are resisting testing? Other than harvesting the blood, surely you know someone who could pull blood for you, it's $5 in shipping and $6 in testing. A negative would give you a better idea then if it's mycoplasma, and honestly I would rather have a doe symptomatic for CAE that if you really never breed her again can never give this to anyone rather than mycoplasma which is contagious.

If this is CAE the swelling can be sweated out of her knees but her knee size will never go down, eventually she will only walk on her knees as the arthritic form of CAE (caprine arthritis encephalitis) takes hold. Can you imgaine a doe on her knees during your winters? During your mud? Being stepped on by herd mates as they run buy? It's a very cruel life. It's one thing to keep does who are asymptomatic alive, it's and entirely different thing to keep symptomatic does alive. Quality of life.

She came to you with CAE. There are lots of plausable .001% type things, mostly duplicated only in labs that could have given your doe CAE, but the honest truth is she got it from her mom, and her kids got it from her. You need to test your herd and nip this in the bud, it's unethical to breed and sell...sure breed and eat if you want, but once you breed and sell...your selling heartache to new people.

It's like for sale forums, even ones on here. If they don't state the does is tested negative for CAE you can pretty much assume that they are positive, and actually should assume they are positive. Harsh, yes, but we have all been there done that as new folks. Vicki

When you milk by hand, you can wash your hands betwen does. When you milk by machine, you're putting the inflations from one doe to the next and goats can pass CAE through the milk to other does. This is how CAE is spread in commercial dairies. I know of two dairies where this has happened.
While milk/colostrum is the usual means of transmission - and likely the way your goat woukd have been infected, it is said that CAE is spread through white blood cells, so if you were to give her a vaccination and then use the same needle on another goat, there is the remote possibility of spreading CAE. A friend's doe was infected at a goat show after a kid fed her some milk from his sick doe.
As far as symptoms go, some can test positive and remain asymptomatic for many years or even life. The two main symptoms I've seen in positive does are swollen knees and a hard udder. If you're going to dry up the doe and not breed her, the udder wouldn't be an issue. With the swollen knees, if the doe starts showing signs of lameness, it's time for the freezer. You don't want her to suffer. With acute CAE the goat can start wasting away. If you can find a copy of Goat Medicine, there's good info in there.

Yes, the point of my post was to say 'It might be CAE, but it *could* be something else too' you can't really tell if it isn't, I was just letting you know it might not be :) Have her tested to be sure.

If you're going to dry up the doe and not breed her, the udder wouldn't be an issue. >>>

Are their udders and milk supply always affected? Her udder is super soft and wasn't hard right after kidding quads, either. She milks more than my other 2 goats.

It's not that I"m resisting testing....I've been doing alot of reading on CAE. It's very confusing, the different viewpoints.

Dee

you can have super soft udder and swollen knees.
you can have no symptoms at all and the infected animals still can spread the disease.
this is why we test all animals

Tonya, that would be the very nice CannonFarms who was at the Monroe goat show with TSC stuff. :baby04: You can send her a PM, she is quick to respond.

Where are you in Ga? Does GracefulAcresFarm have a website?
Paul

Hi Paul,
I'm in Monroe, GA. I remember meeting you also. I do not have a website yet. I am working on one though. It will be gracefulacresfarm.com

I hope to get it up and running before too long.

Tonya

<<<Also, if a goat has CAE, by the time the knees get affected, it's about time for freezer camp>>

Why would this be? She doesn't act sick. She doesn't limp. She gives more milk than anyone. If I don't breed her again, why would I need to cull her? She doesn't seem in distress at all. If she were suffering, I would put her down--she was our first goat. She's a pet.

Now the harder question. What conversation do I need to have with any buyers of her kids this year and last year? I know I need to let them know that they have kids who were exposed to a doe who may have CAE (or does have, if testing showed that). But what does that mean to them? Will their kids get CAE for sure from their mom? If they do, will they for sure get sick? What if they want their money back, etc.....if I have responsibility for the kids I sold, what about the breeder where I got my doe?

What a mess.

Dee

I'm sorry, CAE is no fun. The first thing you need to do is test her and make sure she actually has it.

So....I called the breeder where I got my doe. Basically to ask what she would do or see if she could help with testing (her policy is that they don't test, but will at purchasers expense). They dam raise, and separate at night until the kids are sold and then they're put on the bottle.

Anyway....she said if the doe wasn't suffering, she for sure wouldn't put her down. If the doe seemed otherwise o.k., she probably would not do anything. It was her opinion that it's pretty hard to avoid CAE these days and unless your goats are symptomatic (which she said none of her have ever been), she didn't see the point of testing.

If only 10 percent of CAE goats will ever show symptoms......and 80 percent of herds test positive...It seems that my doe just lost to the odds.

Dee

that was a ridiculous statement made by her and makes me think she KNOWS her goats have CAE. It is quite easy to find goats that don't have CAE. you get them from RESPONSIBLE breeders (unlike this one) who test and cull or isolate. it is a total copout to imply they don't test because you can't avoid it and it is nothing but justification for selling you a doe that is very likely CAE positive. it is easier than ever to avoid CAE nowadays! inexpensive tests are readily available.the knowledge of how to break the disease cycle is common place. there is no excuse for continuing to introduce CAE positive animals into the gene pool.

I am sorry. this is an awful situation. but breeders like her are the reason these awful situations arise! don't be one of them! before I tested I bought 2 cae positive does from someone on this forum. whether or not they knew the status I don't know but you can bet the breeder either knowingly introduced cae pos. goats into the market or were simply too lazy and irresponsible to test. those does went on to infect a total of 6 doelings doelings. I used them to produce some boer crosses then sold them. one went off into oblivion (mark me one of those irresponsilble breeders) one I sold to a freind. later I tested all my does and my freinds. how heartbreaking and gut wrentching to have to call her and tell her the does I sold her were cae positive. to find out my daughters favorite doeling whom we retained was positive also as well as a doeling that had nursed one of the dams as an orphan. three generations down I raised three doelings on prevention and butchered the positive does that I still owned. I am now waiting. waiting waiting waiting to test the doelings I raised on prevention. hundreds of dollars of store bought milk and feed into them. and I may find out that it is all for nothing. two of them got heat treated colostrum from their owner before I took possession of them. I can only hope that it was adequate. there will be a seed of doubt for sometime even after a negative test result.

please please test. personally I don't beleive the 80% are asymptomatic. I believe that the symptoms are easily and often attributed to something else.

if you test. then yes you will have to face it. but isn't that better then being in the dark? knowledge is power even if it is painful.

Yes, but if your goat has CAE, then you can prevent her from passing it on to the kids. And have a few of your other goats in your herd tested too. You can start bottle raising all the new kids, and rid of CAE if your herd is in fact positive.

Anyways, you should test the doe to see if her kids could have it, so you can warn the people who purchased them. I don't think they can force you to take them back (unless if you had some sort of agreement if they had a disease they came with, you have to take them back) but they sure would appreciate the heads up on pasteurizing the milk to bottle raise their kids.

You can stop CAE from being rampant in your herd--or you can ignore it. The better thing to do for all is to stop it though, but it is of course your choice.

please please test. personally I don't beleive the 80% are asymptomatic. I believe that the symptoms are easily and often attributed to something else.>>>

I do know that this doe has always been the one to come down with something. She is the doe who miscarried. She is the one who got Cocci. She is the one who got mites. I never considered CAE until her knees started swelling last week.

And now I am wondering.....we had another doe we got from this same breeder. At 6 months old she got sick and died from, what we thought at the time, was polio. We treated her aggressively with B1 (is that the right B, I can't remember). But I'm wondering now if she had the neurological kind of CAE? Does anyone know the symptoms of that?

Should I call this breeder and see if she will help me pull blood for testing or just try to find someone else? I have a call in to my vet to see if they can do it.

Dee

Of course call her. If maybe even on person made her accountable for passing on this disease from her herd to others, not monetarily because your didn't ask for her to test before you purchased, but now in the heartache of it all. Rarely would a kid who is born at your place, stress enough to become symptomatic and it's why the whole older breeder nonsense of 'I am not testing because I have never seen CAE on my place" is just that, nonsense. Other than the rare 2 year old kidding for the first time and has some swelling in her knees, most stock that shows symptoms do so after they are sold. Ask her to pull blood for you, send it to WSU, and then take the tests with you back to her with tears and how awful this is. With 99.99% of CAE coming from colostrum she also knows that this came from her place. Even then most breeders simply turn a blind eye because there are plenty of new people around to sell to, and why they aren't on the internet answering the hard questions. Vicki

My vet called back...they will draw the blood and send it in for $20. I thought that wasn't bad. So tomorrow at 10 we're taking Lilly in. No idea how long the results will be.

This whole thing has me thinking alot. I know I could be upset with my breeder.....but you know the people I sold my kids to could say the same thing about me. I've sold kids for two years now. We didn't test. The most I knew about CAE was the prevention program some did. We didn't agree with those measures, but also didn't see the need for testing. I wrongly assumed that if you didn't have sick goats (or bought your goats from someone who didn't have sick goats) that you were safe and didn't need to worry about it. I had heard all the controversy about testing....etc. and thought it was much about nothing. I don't know. I guess my breeder should have known more than I did getting into goats. But some could argue that ignorance is no excuse.

We know better now b/c it's happened to us (I assume, we'll see what the test says). But there are tons more people out there just playing the odds, it seems.

This stinks. I was milking poor Lilly tonight. She really doesn't look good. Her coat is dull and mangy. Her hooves have some leftover scabs from the mites. She just doesn't look herself anaymore. I hate to think of the day I have to put her down.

Dee

Dee, Here's hoping the test comes back negative..... I'm glad you're testing 'cause it'll set you straight on your management. Regardless of that outcome, good loose minerals (high in copper), quality hay, browse and BOSS (black oil sun flower seeds) help condition a goat.

Best. Paul

Good luck on a negative test.... I am so glad you are doing it!

Thanks everyone, for your help and wishes.

I'm the Dee that also has the little doeling at death's door from polio or pnuemonia or something that we're fighting.....yesterday was a bad day. I was ready to give up goats. It's so heartbreaking sometimes.

I'll post when we get Lilly's results. Thanks.

Dee

Just hang in there! Even bad starts can have good endings... experience is what you gain, ****hugs****

The vet called today. Lilly is positive. I'm just sick. I don't know what to do. If we keep her (she's not suffering) there is a slight risk she could infect my other goats, isn't there? We would not breed her of course.

If we put her down, shouldn't we wait to test my other does and buck until that is done? How long? Does anyone know the incubation period for CAE?

I called my friend who breeds Nubians (where we got Lilly) and told her. She said she was sorry. I found out that Lilly's mom had recently died (from "worms"). I think she's in denial. I don't know what she'll do with the info. I gave her. Maybe nothing. When I think of how many goats could be infected from just one herd......it's a wonder 100 percent of goats don't test positive. I don't know anyone that tests around here. I also found out that another doe she had was positive--she was the mom of my Mary, who we lost 3 years ago when she was 5 months old from what we thought was polio. Now I'm sure it was CAE. And now I have another 3 month old doeling showing signs of polio/pneumonia.....and I have to wonder--even though Lilly is not her mom.

I think there are two camps of people. Those who think CAE is much hoopla about nothing, and those who used to think that, but have experienced it and now think otherwise. And now....I have to call those who I have sold kids to, including a good friend of mine who bought 3 of Lilly's does.

Tonight I was looking at Lilly and she came up to the fence, climbed the first two rungs to reach my face and put her cheek against mine......just broke my heart right then and there.

I hate this.

Dee

Dee there is no reason at all to put this doe down if you have not tested the rest of your herd. Test the rest of your herd, find out the status of them, if all positive what is the point of only putting down one? Either deal with them in quaranteen like 99% of us did back in the 80's, or put them down and start over. But why single this one doe out when in reality they are likely all positive.

Sorry for this result, and I know this is calous but you can pretty much be assured that if you don't see the test result in your hand from the breeder that your goats you purchase are negative for CAE, that they are in fact likely positive. So, few of us are suprised with the results of this test.

Now it's up to you to form your management from this point forward...will you continue with how the person you purchased from does their goats...selling does with infectious disease that shortens their lives and dibilitates them with hard udders, lower immunity that triggers pnemonia or arthritis? Or learn to deal with this disease, test, heat treat and pasteurise and quaranteen kids from adults. Stop the cycle of disease and unethical sales. Vicki

But why single this one doe out when in reality they are likely all positive>>>

I thought that 99.9 percent of the time goats get CAE from the mothers. Why would it be likely that my other adult does have it too? I'm not saying they don't....of course I'll test them. But isn't adult to adult transmission not that likely?

And thanks, Vicki....I never thought about "what if I put Lilly down and the others then turn out positive?" I was more worried about the others getting it from her somehow after they had tested negative.

So how likely is it that my other goats can get this from Lilly--or have gotten it?

Dee

Where did you get your other does from? If no one in your area tests then it's more likely they are all positive. That's where I think Viki is coming from.

Personally I think there should be a regulation on selling kids without testing them for CAE. If one of the kids coming straight from another breeder is positive, they should be inspected and fined for not testing before selling.

Course we would have to make sure people no about the regulation before hand!

I am sorry for your positive results, Dee. Hey, I have posted the same idea that locally goatherders are in the same two camps that you describe in CAE with their views of CL. They don't see selling from a positive herd as unethical but knowledgable buyers don't want it in their herds.

Now, you can determine your management in a combatative manner which will eventually eliminate CAE on your farm. I wish you the best.

Paul

Where did you get your other does from? If no one in your area tests then it's more likely they are all positive. That's where I think Viki is coming from>>>

Two of my does are not from this breeder where I got Lilly. But I bought another doe from this breeder at the same time as Lilly. She's the one that died of what I assume was CAE at 5 months old. My buck is from the same breeder. I have another doe, Grace who was given to me by a different lady b/c she wa attacked by a dog and was about to die. I nursed her back to health for a year........but she too, originally came from the herd I got Lilly from. It's a small world where I live. I've checked pedigrees, though and my 3 does from this breeder do not share the same mother or grandmother.

Which leads me to the question: how likely is it that if one or two of my breeder's does were positive that her whole herd is? She told me originally she started with two does from a CAE negative herd. But one turned out to be positive (my Mary's mom). I can only hope she found out about this later and didn't sell Mary to me knowing this four years ago.

Let's assume that my other does are negative. Do I keep a CAE positive Lilly in my herd if she is otherwise healthy and I never breed her? Could she give CAE to my other herdmates?

I was reading Fias Co. Farms website. Does anyone have any comments about what they do there? It sounds like if they ever had a CAE case, they would not put them down unless they were suffering. They don't test, but supposedly started with a clean herd and bred up and they keep their herd closed, except I assume, for kids they sell from their stock.

I'm sorry for all the questions and second guessing. I'm just trying to figure out what is what in the midst of this heartbreak.

Dee

dee, i'm very sorry to hear about your result.
for your peace of mind, keep this doe isolated from the rest until you have them all tested. she already has big knees, which means it is painful. how long can she goe with that? how are your winters? you might think about to dry her off now, bred her again and take the kids right away before she can lick or nurse them. this way, you will have something from her to keep.
i would not want positive and negative animals together. even though, transmission is rare bebween adults, it is possible.
if you test more frequently (advisable until you have the negative and positive identified, which can take a while) you would always wondering where the positive result came from.