CAE Positive?!

christelle · #1 03/13/15, 06:57 AM

I bought my starter herd from a CAE negative herd. When I bought them, there were 2 doelings and 4 kids. I tested the doelings for CAE/CL- negative. I couldn't test the kids because they were too young. I just had the kids tested (they are no 11 months old) and one of them came back CAE positive. She (Clover) is sisters with one of the doelings (Chloe) who was negative. All of the goats were dam raised by the breeder.

I am getting Clover retested. I am so frustrated because we took all the precautions to purchase goats from a CAE free herd. All of my other goats tested negative. Since Clover's sister is negative, is there a good chance that Clover doesn't truly have the disease? Or that the test was wrong? I don't know what to do with her now. Ugh

myheaven · #2 03/13/15, 07:08 AM

I would retest. You did everything correct.

mzgarden · #3 03/13/15, 08:53 AM

We would retest - possibly twice - with two different labs. Also, if you are totally in love with Clover and want to keep her, I found this at

http://www.goatworld.com/articles/cae/cae.shtml.

Not sure how many people agree - experts? what do you think?
To date, all published reports suggest that goats become infected with CAE virus as newborn kids. Experimental evidence for this is persuasive. Kids delivered either naturally or taken by cesarean-section, but deprived of colostrum and fed cow milk remain free of the virus despite the fact that their dams are infected. If taken by cesarean-section or delivered naturally, but allowed to nurse colostrum or milk from an infected doe, kids will show evidence of virus infection. These findings indicate that kids are not infected in utero or during passage through the birth canal; but do pick up infection when nursing colostrum or milk from infected dams. This suggests that control of the spread of new infections might be achieved by separation and artificial rearing of kids at birth.

farmmaid · #4 03/13/15, 07:29 PM

I once had a positive doe that had twin doelings. Tested at 8 months....one + & one -. I retested four more times same results. Parted with the positive one. The negative one is 9 this spring and is still negative. Both raised on their dam, go figure!

**mygoat** · #5 03/13/15, 08:11 PM

May I ask where you tested? Some people report false negatives/false positives at an elevated rate when testing through PAVL. Use accredited labs when testing.

There is a chance with ELISAs to get false positives/false negatives due to cross reactivity. The CAE ELISA is quite a good test. There is stats on the WADDL website for the specificity/sensitivity of the ELISA.

christelle · #6 03/14/15, 05:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mygoat

May I ask where you tested? Some people report false negatives/false positives at an elevated rate when testing through PAVL. Use accredited labs when testing.

There is a chance with ELISAs to get false positives/false negatives due to cross reactivity. The CAE ELISA is quite a good test. There is stats on the WADDL website for the specificity/sensitivity of the ELISA.

I'm not sure where it was tested...my vet drew the blood and sent the test. I will find out though.

christelle · #7 03/28/15, 08:47 AM

Got the results back of the ELISA- NEGATIVE!! Wahoo!