Cl?

[mundamanu]

Okay, so I bought two $25 goats from somebody who had to get rid of them because they had too many goats. So far, I have brought foot scald onto the farm, and now it looks like I might have brought CL too. I know, I know; you get what you paid for.

Anyway, one of the does has developed an abscess. However, it is not in the typical CL places -- that I have seen pictures of or had described anyway. The abscess is on her neck, about halfway down toward the front, just about in the same location (maybe a hair more toward the shoulders) and to the dorsal side of where a man's Adam's apple would be. It has been there for a few days and hasn't changed. About a day ago, I thought I saw the hair starting to slough off, but since then I have decided that I was only imagining it. The vet is coming out Saturday to take a sample, but I would love to avoid a vet charge if possible. Avoiding the charge is only possible if there is a definite consensus amongst you that it is not likely CL given its location. Without a definite consensus, I will have the vet out.

So, any thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob

[Patty0315]

You can take a blood sample and send it out to be tested.

And sorry to say most times you get what you pay for. People will penny pinch and not want to buy a goat from a good clean herd and this is an example of why good breeders charge 200.00 plus for good clean stock.

Sorry , Patty

[chamoisee]

Um, if it were me, I'd get rid of both those goats ASAP and forget bothering with the vet. Send them back where they came from, see if they'll give you a refund.

If the thing busts or drains (and this can occur internally, in the lungs, and be spread via coughing) your entire herd can get it. YOu just got these two, there's a chance the rest of the herd might be OK. I'd unload them just as quickly as I could, and draw blood on the others and have them tested.

[susanne]

unfortunately high priced animals doesn't guaranty you disease free stock either.

please don't let the vet poke in it. have the abscess removed as a whole and send it in for testing. the last think you want is to contaminate your place with the puss for years to come. later you might want to get more valuable animals and risk to get them cl as well.
be wise now

[Feral Nature]

I would assume it was CL and not worry about a general consensus from us here on this forum.

I would return the goats immediately if that is an option. Hopefully, they are not in with your herd already and if they are, isolate them NOW in case that thing burst. There may be an abcess you haven't found that is leaking. Look on the hamstring area in the hair. If that abscess bursts in your pen, it will contaminate that pen for many years rendering it unusable.

I would not let the vet pop that on your property either.

And don't beat youself up, just go forward with a good plan.

[mygoat]

don't let the vet lance it or poke it, only allow him to remove it whole. When he tries to do so, take the goat somewhere where you'll never have livestock just in case the vet accidentally punctures it. Have bleach on hand to dump on the ground if it spills, too. Then send it in for testing. HOpefully someone with more experience will chime in and tell you how to package and where to send the abcess.

Also, try to get the goats somewhere on your property that you'll never have goats. Put them on tie outs if you must... it's not the best option for any goat, but for 25.00 possibly infected goats... If the people won't take them back where you got them, I'd say the best idea would be to put them down. Most likely you could shoot them and still butcher them, so it wouldn't be a total waste... may even be a good deal for 25.00. Once again, butcher them far from where you'll ever have goats. Do all the goats that you got from that place; if it is CL, they're infected. Watch for abcesses in the lymph nodes while butchering.

AFter this ordeal, test your goats every 3 months via blood. Don't freak totally out with a positive indication... The goat could just be exposed to it, which does not neccesarily mean infected, or it could be a false positive (negatives can be false too) If a goat comes out positive isolate it immediately and do another immediate testing. The goat can also take a while to show positives/negatives, so that's why I reccomended the often testing. While you're at it, you may be interested in testing them for CAE and Johne's too.

I would also reccomend that all kids be pulled at birth untill you know your herd is safe, and bottle fed with heat treated colostrum and pasteurized milk. Maybe you could spare them if the herd is infected.

[Milk n' Honey]

I'd get them off the property right away. That actually is an area where CL forms. The head and neck region is the most likely area with under the ear being the most common. I'd be worried. They can have abcesses for other reasons but is it worth risking your herd over a $25 goat? I doubt it. I wouldn't be too worried about the hoof scald...it hasn't proved to actually be contagious on my end. I've had some hoof scald here and it never became a herdwide problem. It has more to do with being kept in wet conditions and hooves not being trimmed often enough. I currently have a Nubian doe that has lumps all over her and I have no idea why. She has carried one lump for about 2 years and it has never burst. She is also losing weight and is anemic. She's been heavily dewormed this spring so I don't believe she has parasites. I love this goat but she doesn't have a great udder and she has something wrong with her. Could it be CL that is in the lymph nodes or something? I don't know. I am culling her. I have too many beautiful and healthy goats to take any chances. Good luck to you in whatever you decide!

[mundamanu]

The goat does not have CL.

The vet came and took a sample from the abscess and had it analyzed. They don't know what it is, but it isn't CL.

[waygr00vy]

Thats great news, I had a scare like that myself...wonder what it could be though?

[Milk n' Honey]

Wonderful news!! Did he offer you any other ideas??

[Jim S.]

Great news on the CL! Goats get abscesses from a lot of things, including rubbing on oak planks and barn siding, and getting splinters. Glad to hear yours was cleared. Folks over-react sometimes. I've even had vets jump right to CL at the merest mention of an abscess on the phone.

As far as "you get what you pay for," remember this and avoid many costly lessons:

There is absolutely NO correlation between price and quality in goats.

You can take that to the bank. I had to learn that the hard way.

I have had $300 goats on the place, and I have had $25 goats on the place. As it steps off the trailer, each is just as likely to deliver disease. Why do I say that? Cuz there is NO WAY, other than some words and maybe paper exchanged between an eager seller and myself, that I know what that goat harbors or what its history has been.

A person gets better at looking at goats the more they buy, and my eye over 17 years can pick up a lot of stuff I wish to stay away from, but not all disease is apparent, and some can arise or re-emerge as a consequence of the move.

That's why the best practice is to quarantine any new goats for a month. I also, as a basic intake routine, deworm and feed them antibiotics (choose your brand) in the drinking water for 10 days.

That still doesn't protect against the viral diseases. My entire herd got soremouth from a $300 goat. That'll break ya of the price/quality myth pretty quick.

Always remember the words of Ronnie Reagan; "Trust but verify."

The best way to verify with goats is to isolate them for 30 days from your herd, be proactive about diseases/conditions that might arise from transport and surroundings change, and see what you have then.

Again, there is no relationship between price and quality in goats. None.

[Feral Nature]

Originally Posted by Jim S.

Again, there is no relationship between price and quality in goats. None.

I beg to differ. I appreciate your experience, Jim, but that is a pretty broad statement. I will make a general statement in that a more expensive goat has had a higher quality of care and a more devoted and knowledgeable owner, better breeding, and less chance that it has been abused, neglected or traumatized. So IMO, there is a correlation between price and quality, not every single time, but often enough to keep me away from cheap goats and offers too good to be true from people I don't know.

[Sher]

Gee Jim..that was well said! And..at the moment..can't think of anything I would add to it.

[chamoisee]

Jim, you don't ask to see test results or about their disease prevention programs? You don't ask others who have pruchased from this herd for a reference, opinion?

My experience has been that you will get a better picture of the quality of soemone's stock by asking an assortment of people who've bought stock from them, and observing the amount of returning business they get. Pay attention to herd brochures and websites over a period of years. If they get return business from a herd that has a good reputation itself, and that herd hasn't dumped the animals after a year or two fo ownign them, it's probably a decent herd to buy from.

And of course quarantine is always a good policy to follow.

[DixyDoodle]

Are you going to have the contents of the cyst examined further? To determine what it was, I mean?

My one doe recently had a burst salivary gland but it looked very much like a lymph gland infection. The only way to tell 100% is to have the pus sent out for testing. Did the vet say was the pus looked like, ie, was it green or murky-coloured, or was it clear?

[bergy5]

Well said Jim

[Key]

That has been my experience, too, Jim.

[DixyDoodle]

Well, I guess that getting into goats can be done by anyone, so if a person buys a couple of good registered goats and they become ill, it doesn't necessarily mean that the owner won't still try to sell their kids at a high price.

On the other hand, I also know people who sell "cheap" goats that are ok health-wise.

One would hope (or want to believe?) that an expensive goat has been maybe taken care of better than a cheap one, and sometimes this is true. But I wouldn't take ANYONE's assurance that their goat is automatically healthy just based on price.

[Jim S.]

Originally Posted by chamoisee

Jim, you don't ask to see test results or about their disease prevention programs? You don't ask others who have pruchased from this herd for a reference, opinion?

My experience has been that you will get a better picture of the quality of soemone's stock by asking an assortment of people who've bought stock from them, and observing the amount of returning business they get. Pay attention to herd brochures and websites over a period of years. If they get return business from a herd that has a good reputation itself, and that herd hasn't dumped the animals after a year or two of owning them, it's probably a decent herd to buy from.

And of course quarantine is always a good policy to follow.

Um, yeah, over 17 years I've asked all kinds of open-ended questions. Some are designed to check the goat's health, some are designed to see if the goat has led a pampered life (which I won't then buy into), and some are designed to see if the goat is yet another substandard goat in mothering ability or some other factors that has been saved and is being passed along just because it is high-dollar. For example, if the goat was a bottle baby, I won't buy. Too much risk. I like to look around the facilities, too, and see if there is an elaborate kidding pen area. If there is, I ask about how they do their kidding. If it is hands-on, we help them every bit of the way, I won't buy. I don't buy pets and I don't buy pampered goats. And etc.

If they have some kind of paperwork, I'll look at it. No, I generally don't ask references, because I have found when trying that that people can say a lot of stuff behind someone's back for a lot of reasons that I am not aware of, that really have nothing to do with the quality of the goats but more with petty personal stuff or whatever. So references are really of not much value in my book.

Every goat I look at off a farm, I view as their cull. If it was not their cull, they'd be keeping it, unless there is an environmental or personal factor involved in the sale.

But when it comes right down to it, as I said in my post before, "...there is NO WAY, other than some words and maybe paper exchanged between an eager seller and myself, that I know what that goat harbors or what its history has been."

Here is what price is, in everything in life from buying a cup of coffee to buying a farmstead:

Price is the amount a willing buyer will give to a willing seller for an item at a certain point in time.

That's it. That's why there is tons of marketing associated with goats, and with a lot of other stuff in life -- to move that price point higher. That's fine, but there is no direct relationship between marketing acumen and quality. And there is no correlation between price and quality. "You get what you pay for" is fallacious.

I trust my eyes and my experience when buying goats. Then I consider price.

You should see the beautiful kid my $25 doe gave me this spring. Wow.

[Milk n' Honey]

I do have to agree with you Jim. People charge a lot of money for junk the same as you can get a good doe, even registered, for cheap. I watched a whole group of registered 88% doelings go through a sale barn, a few weeks ago, for $35 each. The goats were gorgeous. You can tell clean/healthy goats from sickly ones, especially when someone brings 10-20 goats in and there isn't a spot on one of them. The man sitting next to us ended up being the seller and he was an old man who raised Boers for his grandkids and he was really nice. His goat numbers were getting to high for him to care for so he loaded a bunch up and brough them in. They were awesome. I have also bought $375 slow growing with extra teats and wattles goats!! Um, they'll end up being of the first to leave this farm and what will I ask for them? Hmmmm....paid $375....gotta get something. I don't know...might lose my butt on them. I consider them commercial quality, at best. I can't believe the breeder charged us that amount and even more that I was stupid enough to pay it. So far, we are doing great on no CL and no CAE. Everyone looks great. I have cheap goats and expensive ones. Some of the expensive ones are my favorites to look at and they do drop kids with no help but I have those low maitenance, cheapie crosses that never get sick or anything...gotta love that!! So far the goats who have produced for us, came from a sale barn. The others....the ones that we paid all the money for, NOTHING. Well, we bought one bred and she had trips but all the others were sale barn goats. I'm much more cautious now though. I purchased some goats from an individual, whom I know, and brought pinkeye on to our place. It doesn't matter where you go or what you pay, you are going to have risks. People can lie about things. We have bought some nice goats from a production sale, which is almost the only place we buy them now.....nice stock, nice prices (for the seller...LOL) and we hope to be able to compete with those prices some day when we sell ours. We'll see.