sigh... test results are in. My favorite doe is cae pos

[cathleenc]

We have 2 goats, both does. Just had the vet test for Johannes and CAE.

So sad... my favorite, Jessie, is CAE positive. I'm finding it odd that her daughter, the other goat, is CAE negative. How does that make sense?

Both are negative for Johannes. At least that is good.

Both does are due to kid within the next 10 days. I REALLY wanted to keep a doeling from Jessie and maybe even get rid of the CAE neg doe, Sally, who is a pita.

now, to decide what action to take. sigh. sigh. sigh.

[6e]

I believe you can bottle feed the baby off the CAE positive doe and she won't get it.

[A'sta at Hofstead]

Originally Posted by 6e

I believe you can bottle feed the baby off the CAE positive doe and she won't get it.

I think you need to heat the milk- right?

[NYSaanen]

If you use a CAE prevention protocol, you greatly increase the chances of the kids not getting CAE.

You have to be present for the birth, and the kids must be taken away from the mother at birth. You should not even let the mother lick off the kid, or the kid to suck on the mother. You will have to take care of drying off the kid, etc. like its mother would do.

The baby will need colostrum right away. Colostrum can be taken from the CAE mother and heat treated and given back to the kids. However, the time it takes to heat treat colostrum makes this problematic. If you have any heat treated colostrum from an earlier kidding, or from the previous year in the freezer, this will work.

The CAE doe later can be milked, milk pasteurized, then fed to the kids. Follow strictly the guidelines for pasteurizing the milk.

[jordan]

Pull all the kids AT BIRTH from both does and raise them on paturized goats milk or whole vit D milk from the store. Do not let them nurse or touch the dams or the ground in that pen. Get rid of the positive does and go forward with the babies. In all likelyhood the other doe has it but is not testing pos for it yet.
WI law states that any buyer must be made aware of positive results or exposure if you do decide to sell them. Please don't pass on the problem to unsuspecting buyers.
Good luck and I'm sorry for the poor results!

[AtHomeDaughter]

Here is a good link on CAE....http://fiascofarm.com/goats/cae.htm

[BlueHeronFarm]

You'll have plenty of time after kidding to heat treat the colostrum. We did it last year for our first kidding and the babies were able to wait to eat. If you milk right away, the heat treating process only takes an hour (we do 1:10 just to be sure) so it will only be 2-3 hours total --max--before you can feed it back. That delay is negligible. The babies wil probably be sleeping anyway.

How old is the younger doe? You won't see a positive result on kids under 6 months - and it can take even longer than that to show up in tests.

If you only keep a couple goats and you follow the prevention protocol, I wouldn't think you would need to cull this doe, unless you want to. You can still drink her milk and she can be a fine family animal for you.

We maintain a negative herd because goats are our business. (Dairy) We follow the prevention protocol even without any CAE in the herd - just as "best practices" and for peace of mind. Many will say we overdo it, but we don't care. We would rather be safe than sorry.

I'm sorry about your results, but you do have options.

[susanne]

first of all, before you do anything, have her tested again. which lab did you use for cae testing?
it is possible to raise healthy kids from a positive doe. be there when she is going into labor, take kids away as soon as they come out.. no licking from the dam allowed. keep kids separate until they are very dry to prevent sucking on the birthing fluids.
use heat treated colostrum from negative doe. be very accurate with heat treating. 134 to 136 for one hour. use the double boiler method on the stove. don't use thermo bottle because it is too easy to make a mistake.
it is a lot of work, but not impossible.

[cathleenc]

The younger doe is 2 yrs old. I've had her since november and know 'part' of her history.

She, and her mother, the positive doe, were sold to the people I bought her from with both does bred. When the neg. doe kidded last spring (07) she lost both kids, probably to vitamin e deficiency.

It IS possible (though how probable I don't know) that the neg doe was a bottle baby and thus avoided catching the cae from her mother. I would think by the tail end of her second pregnancy that if she were going to test positive she would.

I don't know what testing lab our vet used - I let him do the draw and handle the blood.

I have absolutely no intention of culling. I think of my goats as pets, more or less. Their offspring are destined for the table - at least that was the plan, with perhaps a doeling kept for production uses.

I think 2 local goat dairies with whom I have visited might be willing to share some heat-treated colustrum with me so I can start off correct.

Gotta think this through. The plan was to leave the kids with the moms during the day, separate at night and milk only 1x a day. Making a commitment to exclusive milking by me is huge. Hate the idea of separating the moms and kids. Sad......

[jBlaze]

Seperating and milking may be hard, but it is better that eventually having a CAE symptomatic animal, espically a kid. Have you read how the CAE kids that get symptoms suffer? I have not had any experience with it, but from reading about it, I would rather avoid it.
How about you raise the kids CAE free, and put the doe 'in the pan,' as you had planned for the kids?? Sounds like the best option to me. Sure it's hard when you are attached, but it is best for all the others. (the old sacrifice one for the good of the rest..). I don't want to sound mean, it would be hard for me too, but that's what I would do.

[GG]

Originally Posted by cathleenc

I would think by the tail end of her second pregnancy that if she were going to test positive she would.

If this test was done late in her pregnancy, the results are questionable. From the Merck Vet Manual:

Negative test results do not reliably rule out CAE virus infection, because the time for postinfection seroconversion is variable and occasional goats have a very low titer that may not be detectable. Low antibody titers are common in late pregnancy. [emphasis added]

Read the rest here:

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/in...m/bc/55000.htm

The advice to test again (I'd do both does) is good advice!

[mygoat]

I'm kinda going through this right now. My two older alpine does are isolated in a pen, both are positive. Come spring, I will be butchering them out. I have several well thought out, good reasons why maintaining both a positive and negative flock is not a good idea for me:
1. I'm off to college next year and It's gonna be hard enough as it is
2. building a 'proper' pasture for the pos. does is gonna add to my expenses
3. keeping a 'positive' herd just has a bad connotation

I refuse to sell them or continue to breed them because:
1. I cannot guarantee that the does won't end up in a neglectful or ignorant home, no matter how hard I would try to place them appropriately
2. I cannot guarantee that all offspring would be pulled AT BIRTH and raised on strict isolated cae prevention.
3. I cannot guarantee that by selling them, they wouldn't infect another goat or herd just through daily contact or by them drinking positive milk.
4. more kids may be born positive and have to be butchered, spread the disease further, or end up in a neglectful, irresponsible home.

So, due to my time restrictions, the cost, and the spread of the disease, I have decided that come march when both does kid out, they will be butchered. All kids will be raised on strict, isolated CAE prevention. They won't even be in with other kids out of neg. does. They will remain isolated thus until I get at least two neg. tests on each of them. NONE will sell until they test negative twice.. At 6 mons. of age I plan to do their first cAE test, and again a couple months later. Only then after two successive negative tests will I incorporate them into my herd or sell them.

[susanne]

Originally Posted by GG

If this test was done late in her pregnancy, the results are questionable. From the Merck Vet Manual:

Negative test results do not reliably rule out CAE virus infection, because the time for postinfection seroconversion is variable and occasional goats have a very low titer that may not be detectable. Low antibody titers are common in late pregnancy. [emphasis added]

Read the rest here:

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/in...m/bc/55000.htm

The advice to test again (I'd do both does) is good advice!

i found this text a bit questionable. have you seen the picture from the goat with the abscess? also it might be true that the virus is difficult to be detected in late pregnancy if the agar test is used. the elisa test is very sensitive and can tell even in late pregnancy if the doe is positive or not.
it might be a good idea to call one of the labs and talk to a technician there.

[moonspinner]

Please have this doe tested again. I cannot tell you the number of goaters I know who got a positive first test and then on the second and even third tests were negative.
I wouldn't do anything until I got results of that second test.
I do know of people from acclaimed farms who maintain positive goats and have successfully bred them, of course faithfully following CAE preventative methods on the kids.
I doubt I would keep a positive doe, but just stating it hasn't been the end of the world for those who've chosen to retain a positive.