Got CL...

[TroutRiver]

So I've had my suspicions since the first day on the job, but I found out for sure yesterday that the farm I am working at DOES have CL. The owner told me she brought it in by accident about 10 years ago, when she was first getting started and knew nothing about goats or their diseases. The vet told her she'd have to cull her entire herd, and she decided she'd rather try to manage it. She lances the abcessess when they get really full, never lets them burst on their own, and sprays the heck out of them with antibacterial spray to keep them from spreading. She is seeing it in about 25% of her older goats, and about 10% of the first and second year does.

I've never dealt with CL before, is this the best way to manage it? How careful do I need to be about being on this farm, and going to other farms? Obviously I wouldn't go to any other goat farms without changing my clothes and shoes and scrubbing my hands. But do I need to worry about farms with other animals? What about my own animals (I don't have goats anymore at home)?

[Hollowdweller]

wonder why she doesn't vaccinate?

[TroutRiver]

She does vaccinate all of her kids, but says the vaccine is only semi-effective.

[Alice In TX/MO]

The vaccine for goats is VERY new. No long term success info out there.

Yes, wash hands, change clothes before going ANYwhere else, especially home.

Don't drink the milk.

Is she milking these goats and selling the milk????

[LittleRedHen]

Yes, does she sell the milk? if the goats have CL in the udder areas she is potentially risking CL to her customers. We had a goat here that had CL and we put her down soon after realizing it. I tried lancing but the pus kept coming back before it would heal over and i saw it get smeared in a few spots. At that point, I was done with goats forever. However we had been milking her and drinking the milk. Its been 2 years and I have a son with an enlarged lymph node that has to be tested. We know a family who had goats with CL that they milked and their toddler has an enlarged lymph node that has been tested over and over but yet they refuse to specifically ask about it being CL. They said "well we told them we live on a farm so they "know"" Anyways, I am never again taking any chances with CL in goats. If I ever again get goats, It will only be real young bottle babies who had CAE prevention too.

[mygoat]

To be honest, CL is in many large herds. And the more you learn about it, it is really not *so* big of a deal. It will not put you out of business from a dairying or meat herd standpoint if managed. It is scary for breeding stock herds and should be prevented and managed, but quite simply it is not the end of the world from a production standpoint. It can be highly inconvenient to be managed properly, but with the new vaccine it is much easier. The vaccine prevents abscesses internally and externally - reducing spread and reducing mortality from internal abscesses. You can further your ability to control the disease by culling and isolating positives, or at least isolating as soon as abscesses are noticed. Management of clean facilities and raising of kid separate from adults on pasteurized milk greatly influences exposure of kids. An important factoid for the CL vaccine is that I'm pretty sure it doesn't prevent infection, it simply lowers the number of abscesses that you will see.

As for you, washing hands well and changing footwear/clothes is probably most ideal. Wether they have CL or not I'd suggest that - there are many other diseases to worry about - sore mouth, johnes, even Salmonella or toxigenic E. coli, worms, cocci etc. Don't share equipment, trailers, or vehicles. This should be effective at controlling the spread.

[wmk0002]

I don't want to try to hijack this from the op but I have a question regarding CL maybe someone here can help with without having to start an unnecessary new thread.

One of my does, who is due to kid anytime now, had two lumps/abscesses on her. They were back on her body around where the back leg meets the body. I'm not sure of the correct way to describe it but it is one of the locations you see in diagrams pointing out common spots they appear from CL. But like I said, there is one on each side and seemed to appear about the same time. The one on her right side burst on its own a few weeks back but the other one is still there. Does the fact that one appeared in a that location on each side at the same time send up a red flag? I only have 8 goats right now so I plan on going ahead and getting all of their blood tested for CL plus other things from a vet, I just haven't taken the time to find a good local vet who knows goats. I could post pics later if that would help.

[mygoat]

An abscess that bursts is always suspicious. Personally, I wouldn't waste time on a blood test, but I would get the 2nd one lanced, cleaned, and test the pus for CL bacterium - Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis.

[where I want to]

Ok- trotting out my personal experience again..............
1) there is an older vaccine around for years that had about a 60% effective rate when given to uninfected kids. There is a new vaccine that is supposed to be much more effective but has not had the chance to have anything more than trials as evidence as it's so new.
2) It is not wildly infectious as in like flu. Although there is a possiblity of spreading aerosolly if an animal has an abcsess in their lungs, it really takes an infected goat to shed the bacteria in the pus and the next goat to get a scrape or cut or some break in the skin for it to get into them. I had an infected goat that lived with others. I was careful to drain the pus away from any place where the other goats would ever be. And none of the uninfected goats ever became infected even though they lived together for years.
3) I would have a seperate pair of boots and clothes to use just there- and leave in clothes that were never exposed to the bacteria after thoroughly washing. If it spread really a freely as some people think, then vet would have spread it all over the place already.
4) Avod exposing a cut on yourself to the bacteria, even though it is so extremely rare for people to get it, it can happen.

[TroutRiver]

She does not sell milk, but does make aged cheese, and pasteurized fresh cheese (award winning and nationally recognized cheese, I might add). All milk fed to kids is pasteurized.

How prevalent is the actual bacteria? If I milk the goats, and don't touch any abcesses, will it still be on my hands afterwards? (Not advocating not washing my hands, I'm just curious)

I will definitely designate a pair of boots to wear only there, and not wear them at home or anywhere else. Is CL really infectious to other animals? Could I possibly give it to my dog, or my rabbits? I suppose either way I don't want it on my property, because I do plan to have goats again someday. How long does the land need to lay dormant to kill the bacteria?

[Alice In TX/MO]

How do you know there aren't ruptured abscesses in the udder. That's the problem. The abscesses can occur anywhere in the body.

[TroutRiver]

Originally Posted by Alice In TX/MO

How do you know there aren't ruptured abscesses in the udder. That's the problem. The abscesses can occur anywhere in the body.

True, wow that is scary

[mygoat]

It's pasteurized milk, plus then further processed... It's probably extremely low risk.

There is VERY few incidences of CL in humans, and from what I know, NONE from pasteurized milk. Ever. There are hints of reports of CL in humans from goats - but ONLY from UNPASTEURIZED milk is from what I've ever found. Believe the one hint I found long ago was in a child, too. None from handling of livestock that I've ever found. Shepherds in Australia, I believe, have a few reported cases of CL in shepherds, probably entering their skin through cuts while shearing through abscesses (which is a main way it's usually spread in a sheep flock, too - nicked abscesses and then same shearer knicks another sheep later) Keep in mind Coryne pseudTB is also pretty commonly found in dairy cattle and horses. Think of how often you hear of humans infected, it's possible but extremely unlikely.

Rabbits can get it, but I cannot recall if it is just experimental infection or not. A change of clothes/shoes and handwashing is likely adequate.

How prevalent it is is extremely, extremely variable. How many abscesses? How recently popped? How/where/when handled? What kind of management practices do they follow for abscessed animals?

As for dormancy, that's also variable. People here (including me) used to say stuff like 10 years. I've since seen studies and veterinary resources saying a year or two MAX, most being less than 8 months or so in the environment. Understand how variable it would be with different management and climates, and how that would play a huge factor. The fact that it's isolatable from the environment also doesn't mean it's present in sufficient quantities to cause infection, either... Most bacteria must enter the body at a certain 'load' to cause infection - this varies with the disease/organism/health of the host though. Some diseases require innoculation with hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of the infectious medium before disease occurs. Some, like Q-Fever bacterium, it just takes ONE - but that's unusual.

[where I want to]

Originally Posted by TroutRiver

She does not sell milk, but does make aged cheese, and pasteurized fresh cheese (award winning and nationally recognized cheese, I might add). All milk fed to kids is pasteurized.

How prevalent is the actual bacteria? If I milk the goats, and don't touch any abcesses, will it still be on my hands afterwards? (Not advocating not washing my hands, I'm just curious)

I will definitely designate a pair of boots to wear only there, and not wear them at home or anywhere else. Is CL really infectious to other animals? Could I possibly give it to my dog, or my rabbits? I suppose either way I don't want it on my property, because I do plan to have goats again someday. How long does the land need to lay dormant to kill the bacteria?

From what my vet said, dogs and horses do not get infected from goat CL. I was very careful to check this out because I have horses (and a dog too but dogs are so resistant to everything) and he said that Davis had actually injected horses with goat Coryne and couldn't get them infected.
I also checked out human infections and the few that existed were amoung sheep butchers in Australia and it is thought that they got a pus in a cut.
If it was easily spread to humans or other animals, then I think the vets would know.
Re: bacteria on the land, the most authoritative thing I have read is that the bacteria don't survive more than 2-3 years outside a host.
But I don;t have much respect for your boss. Unless every single kid or doe is kept on her place forever, she is only spreading the problem to someone else. The same way I got it.

[Hollowdweller]

Originally Posted by mygoat

To be honest, CL is in many large herds.

I've seen it in a lot of commercial herds.

A friend of mine alway says, "If you stay at the Nationals all week you can see them starting to form on does"

I've never been to the nationals for a week, but I have been to the nationals a few times and you will see a LOT of does if they are clipped off that have scars in the right places for them to be abcess removal scars.

Best thing you can do to avoid is to buy only bottle babies at a young age and avoid buying animals that are adults, dam raised, or have been on the ground a long time.

[Creamers]

Best thing you can do to avoid is to buy only bottle babies at a young age and avoid buying animals that are adults, dam raised, or have been on the ground a long time

Agreed!

[Donna1982]

Originally Posted by Hollowdweller

=
A friend of mine alway says, "If you stay at the Nationals all week you can see them starting to form on does"

=.

Oh that just about freaked me out. I was thinking about showing there this year... don't think that will happen.

[Cyngbaeld]

Very good reason to never buy from the auction too.