CL & Drinking Milk

BUT....... for example......

My grandson at age two and a half was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. WHAT IF he had been exposed to CL and then was so sick from the chemo with practically no immune system? My goat partner has scleroderma, an autoimmune disease. My husband is on anti-rejection drugs because he has my left kidney, and he is vulnerable to infectious disease. Yeah, yeah, it's a cluster of special circumstances, but if you are selling milk, you don't *know* what circumstances exist beyond your driveway.

If you have a goat that you don't know is healthy, be careful about who drinks the milk.

I'm not being alarmist. I'm just pointing out that STUFF happens, and you have to be a responsible goat owner. Do what YOU know is right. In my opinion, it would not be right to sell or give milk from an infected goat to anyone. Just my dos pesos.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

It is the same bacterium that causes it in all species though, that is why it is zoonotic. I would not want to come in contact with it, whether it be a goat or a camel. Why mess with it if you don't have to. Google pics of it on the internet who wants that in there animals or on there place. Don't try to tell me you can't get away from it either. I have been in the business for seven years now and have seen very few herds that had CL, and believe me you will know it if the herd is infected, by the knots and scars.

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COSO Farms Web Page: http://www.cosofarmslamanchas.com/

COSO Farms Face Book Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/COSO-F...45087715522558

Have you considered the fact that the reason it is a rare thing is precisely because people obsess about it?

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

Faulty logic and not a fact at all. Just an assumption.

Most people DO NOT obsess over it. Most people don't have a clue what it is and are rather blase' when they do find out.

Having an ongoing discussion is not obsession.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

.....

I have to agree with Alice about do not drink the milk if the goats have CL and You cant see any CL inside of her. U never know if she have them inside becuz sometimes it is invisible. BUT I do know that more accurate way is TEST the pus. If it says postive of CL. Then STAY AWAY from it!!

Thank you everyone for helping me out on this. I am very excited about getting some articles and reviews on the contractions. Thanks again.

I think she was talking to me.

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Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

If I were in your position, with a person in the home on chemo, I wouldn't let him eat or serve him any raw foods at all be it milk, veggies, honey...... I know when my SIL's dad was on chemo, he could only eat cooked, hot foods. I do understand that you are very concerned because you are in a unique, very vulnerable situation. In fact, I wouldn't let him touch the goats, dogs, shopping carts, etc. In fact, I wouldn't even take him into public places where the possibility of airborn germs exist. That is a very different situation than a healthy person with a strong immune system. Chemo is a very dangerous thing that kills people. I personally think it is more dangerous and deadly the disease itself, but that's another topic. I can understand why anyone in that position would be obsessed about everything and every possible situation where germs exist. I would be. In fact, I would do everything in my power to prevent anyone in my household from being on chemo because it is so dangerous to the body. I am much more concerned about chemo than the disease it is supposed to treat and much, much more concerned about it than CL. But, that is another topic. I am very sorry about your grandson being so ill. I pray he recovers fully.

However the scientific studies done on CL and the bacteria that causes it are not based on people on chemo. And the studies do report what they report. It is rare in humans, and the reported cases almost always come from sheep.


I just wanted to add that the link you posted was about animals with the disease, not human spread. What part of it interested you, or were you trying to point out? I know goats can have it, but I just haven't seen any studies on human spread of the disease from goats. The few humans who get it almost always get it from sheep.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...00057-0048.pdf

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Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

The WADDL tests for CL are fairly accurate, by most standards. The reason being, they continue to test for the toxin produced by the specific CL bacterium IF a sample tests positive.

'False positive' means that 'something' triggered the test. Unfortunately, CL bacterium is closely related to many bacteriums that are found EVERYWHERE - and some can trigger the test.

'false negative' is a term overused, IMO. It can be caused by many reasons. first, CL is MAINLY found in the lymphatic system, NOT in the blood system. Occasionally positive goats will test negative because they do not have an active abscess and lots of antibodies in the bloodstream. ALSO, if they are within 6 months of exposure they are still in an incubation period and may not test positive until AFTER the incubation period. This is true for most diseases, including CAE.

Overall, no testing is accurate except over repeated testings. I personally believe that CL blood testing is a worthile TOOL to help resist spread of the disease. Blood testing doesn't mean anything if you don't also use biosecurity too, however.

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As for people contracting it only by lancing abscesses with open wounds on their hands - that is not necessarily how CL is contracted. Goats don't need to rub open wounds with each other to spread the disease. Goats only need to come in contact with an animal with it, usually spread to the animal orally or in the eyes or nose. Hence, the most common lymph node to swell is the one closest to the common infection route - the head.

So, a person need only to rub their eyes or not wash up after lancing an abscess. Or, drink milk from a positive doe, who may have an abscess in her udder.

And finally, HORSES do NOT get the type of CL that goats do. You can house a horse with pidgeon fever in with goats and not worry about transmission. Of course, horses can physically carry goat CL with them on their hooves and hide if they come from an auction or dirty farm, so taht's still a concern. But there is two biotypes of CL bacterium, and goats cannot get the horse kind. Cows can get both, so that's scary.

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Dona Barski

"Breed the best, eat the rest"

Caprice Acres

French and American Alpines. CAE, Johnes neg herd. Abscess free. LA, DHIR.

My point was missed. I'm not talking about giving goat milk to people on chemo. I'm talking about providing goat milk to people outside your immediate family whose health situation is unknown to you, and may yet be undiagnosed as well.

What I said was .... well..... never mind. I'm tired. Need to go outside and look at goats.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

I agree with you on that. I wouldn't provide goat milk to people outside my family. The liability is too great. It doesn't matter what their health situation is. If they catch the flu and upchuck, they could blame it on your milk. It doesn't matter how healthy or unhealthy the goats are. It is just too much of a liability issue.

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Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

I have read that about horses too, but in one study it specifically mentions that a human with the disease worked with horses-- a farrier I believe it said. Perhaps it was a coincidence? or perhaps the horse had the bacteria on their body.

Cows rarely get the disease according to all the studies. They are mentioned with humans as "rarely in cattle or humans" when talking about corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. It's interesting to take the time to read the scientific studies though. They are so much more precise than the "he said, she said" stuff we usually see.

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Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Those who have it in their herds justify why it isn't as bad as the obsessed claim.

It has been my experience that those of us who obsess over no allowing CL in our herds become the obsessed. As for me and mine, I've seen CL & I don't want it here.

For one to take comfort in the attitude about CL of a paid vet is a choice. It could make one wonder what his/her attitude would be with a paying customer like me.

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Paul Bridges - LaCabra Farm; Uvalda, Georgia - USA

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

I'm not sure but you may be confusing the ELISA CAE test with CL. I could be wrong but I thought ELISA only refers to CAE, there is no such thing as an ELISA CL test, as far as I know?

Both my Vets told me that the CL test is worthless and not to bother testing. The only accurate way to test for CL is to test puss from an abscess. Which I would only have done by a vet, personally.

Just for me personally, I wouldn't drink milk from a positive CL animal, pasteurized or raw.

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Idleness is leisure gone to seed

ELISA simply refers to a testing technique.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELISA
I am unaware of any ELISA CL test.

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I'm an environmentalist, left wing, Ron Paul loving Prius driver with a farm. If you have a problem with that, kindly go take a leap.

My family got 3 pygmy goats about 10 years back (only one is still living). We got them for showing and to possibly breed. Problem was that about 6 months after got them and showed them the breeder that we got them from had a farming accident and was killed. After that we found that the family taking over her heard saw that some of the heard had CL. So we did the responsible thing and kept out goats on our own property and did not breed them. One goat developed an external abscess- that was lanced-before the vet knew what it was. She died a few years later most likely from internal abscesses. The Second goat was put down due to an abscess in the neck that prevented her from eating. They now have one remaining goat- that seems to have no abscesses- but is starting to slow down from old age.

I guess my question is can they even think about getting more goats? My mother would like some for dairy purposes. The goats where confined to one area of the 7 acres that they own. So if they were placed farther away from the original pen would this be an option? Or would it be better to consider a dairy cow instead?

Raw milk is the reason for having the goats.

They would also like to keep chickens in the area that the goats were in. There is no problem of then having CL in the soil with chickens is there?

Thanks all!

Catherine

Hi Catherine!

There are different beliefs on how long the CL bacterium can live in the soil. Some say 2 weeks, others say your ground will be infected forever and ever, amen!

The latest I have found on it is here:

http://lavavet.com/client-education/...otuberculosis/

Now, if it were me, I would build another pen away from where the infected goats stayed, with another shelter, etc., and I'd attached one of those garden sprayers for fertilizer to my hose, fill it with bleach, set it for 3 ounces per gallon, and spray be bejeezes out of the new pen, just in case.

In fact, I'd do the same with the old pen. Just because goats, especially younger ones, can be such escape artists and get where they are not supposed to be. In the old pen, I would up the amount of bleach to kill microbes in the soil, turn the soil over, bleach spray it again, let it sit two week, then introduce garden microbes, grass seed, earthworms, etc. to it. I bet it would make one HECK of a garden plot.

Or, you could put chickens in there. Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis, the bacteria that causes Cl, does not effect chickens.

Me, even with chickens, I'd STILL sterilize the heck out of it. But I am one of those "obsessed" people when it comes to disease.

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

Yup, you're right - no ELISA on CL. But, ELISA is just a test method used for many other diseases. For CL, it's a SHI test, I always forget that.

Here's a nifty abstract. I can't get to the full paper because I'm not on MSU's internet system. I love going to a university, though being able to access these kinds of papers distracts me from study often. Oh well, I'm here to learn about livestock care anyways.

Obviously a culture of the abscess is accurate. Blood testing has it's faults, true - but wether it's because of false positives or if the animal actually has been exposed is to be debated. I've had false borderlines - even a positive - on a goat I KNOW is negative. Upon retesting (and ever since) they've been negative. I remember reading goats naturally test 'higher' than sheep (I think in Mercks vet manual?), anyways. I've never had an abscess, or any reason to even suspect CL in the least.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3740616

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Dona Barski

"Breed the best, eat the rest"

Caprice Acres

French and American Alpines. CAE, Johnes neg herd. Abscess free. LA, DHIR.