I know that C.A.E. is spread through contaminated milk, and blood contact but is it spread through breeding? Also I would like to know other peoples opinions on testing or not testing a medium size herd. We use our girls mostly for milk production but our children are starting to show a little too. Thanks!

-- jean (ritz1@fgi.net), March 18, 2000

Answers

Hello Jean,

AHHHH.... you asked the million dollar controversial question. I'll try to help answer you concerns in brief without going into details. Yes... CAE can be spread through breeding if the buck is positive or the doe. It is spread through blood to blood contact. So if you had the buck or doe or any 2 goats in a area and 1 had CAE and the other not any contact between them that would draw blood would cause it to be transmitted. this was the case with a breeder who used a positive buck on her free herd and then she was contaminated and no longer considered CAE free. I'm not sure about semen, perhaps vickie will have some insight on this. I've heard that it can be and then not. I usually go by the safe route and act like it might be. The buck owner never told her the buck tested positive. Note I said tested positive. And the only reliable test is out of Washington St. called the WADDL test. Its a long complicated stastical answer for this which I will only say so far not test is 100% but they are close. We have a medium sized herd now, last yr was small as we had only 6 does and 2 bucks. We tested anyways as we needed to know if our goats had CAE. it was worth every penny. I would recommend testing for peace of mind. Its not too expensive. You can show a CAE positive goat if you don't have the specific test as most shows only call for TB and Brucllosis (sp). I AM IN NO WAY PROMOTING THIS, however, the way the rules and regulations are written you can slip by. Be very careful showing as it only takes 1 drop to infest, especially if the pen neighbor is positive. You can tell a positive goat by the swollen knees. I've seen some does with knees the size of tennis balls in shows. just be very careful and I highly recommend testing. Hope this helps.

Bernice

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), March 18, 2000.

Hi, I have another question regarding CAE. I have an older doe that has never been in great shape (my first goat), she is constantly fighting abcesses in the same spot on her lower jaw and sometimes her right knee swells up. I had her and her kid (just the doe ) tested at the vet for CAE and the test came back negative, however I don't know what type of test they performed. Could someone with more experience let me know what other kinds of tests there are? Also, all of her kids have been extremely healthy and have shown no signs of abcesses at all. I think that perhaps her early care and feeding wasn't up to snuff and that is why she is so delicate. If anyone else has had experience with nearly perpetual abcesses in the same dang spot I would like to know what they have done about it. Thanks! Doreen

-- Doreen Davenport (livinginskin@yahoo.com), March 19, 2000.

Doreen,

That abcess in the lower jaw sounds like CL or Cauceous Lymphitis (I think I have the spelling wrong). Aside form TB, Brucillousis (sp) & CAE you can also test for CL too. What are you doing for the abcess? If its CL you will have to be very careful. Have you had a vet look at it? when you lance a CL abcess it may have pus that looks like cottage cheese, it also smells bad. The pus is very highly contagious so if this is the case you must do it in an area that is isolated, wear old clothes and shoes and then burn the clothes and bleach everything down. Keep the goat isolated and do not reintroduce to the herd. CL abcess can be internal as well. Its not a situation that is good. please have the goat tested for your peace of mind. I hope this helps.

Bernice

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), March 19, 2000.

Both CAE and CL (abcesses) are virus's. I do not believe that CAE is transmitted through breeding. It is transmitted through the colostrum and milk. (Buck we put down last year, bred CAE positive does for 9 years and was still negative at 10). CL is worse. It is not only transmitted through the colostrum and milk but it also infects your intire property, it can stay on wooden feeders for years to infect your next goats. Goats who have external knots, are usually riddled with internal ones also. Once she gets one near her heart or liver she will die from the abcess. My advice on your herd, Jean would be to start yourself a new herd for your girls to show, with your babies born out of your does you have now. As your does kid, take the doe kids away who you catch before they nurse and raise them on heat treated colosturm and pasturized milk. Perhaps in a nice new area on the farm that is not traveled by goats now. CAE testing both at Washington and Pan American, in Austin, TX. both have the same problem. Unless the doe is shedding the titer at a high enough rate, the test will be negative. CL tests are worse because the only way you know a doe is positive is to have the material in the abcess cultured for CL. We had a doe with an abcess, test neg. on blood and colostrum, and positive on material from the abcess. There is always controversy on goat information, because we don't have the tests, or funding to prove anything. I simply don't allow goats who I have not physically delivered, access to my show herd. I do not believe any of the sneeze, cough, mucous spread, I do believe that goats will catch CAE from licking other's placentas, at delivery, why we use maternity pens. I also believe that we all have CAE neg. does at our places who are positive, just not a high enough titer to show up on test. They infect their kids through the placenta, just like a mom who is HIV positive gives it to her child through the placenta. This is where funding for CAE needs to go, tweaking the tests so that we have an HIV test for CAE, we need to know before the doe turns "full blown CAE". Jean, you may want to test for CAE, but what are you going to do with the positive does? What about the ones who test negative? Are they really negative or perhaps just not stressed enough for the titer to rise? And now you are sorry you asked!!!! Vicki (We whole herd test annually, mostly for the buyers, I sell only tested negative does, and I am very upfront about my CAE beliefs. I have been showing for 10 years and I show 3 Nubians, in all of that 10 years that don't carry my herd name. With the purchase of a new doe kid from SAADA in Wyoming, she will be number 4. I do purchase outside bucks from herds who I have a good knowledge of their herd and their management.)

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 19, 2000.

Hi, Her abcess does not smell nor does it look like cottage cheese. It is usually kind of a combination of a watery milk ooze. I have treated it with anti-biotics (LA200) and flushed it with a hydrogen peroxide anti bacterial soap water mix and soaked it with hot water and epsom salts. I have been extremely careful regarding the touching of it, I use paper towels and burn them and bleach my hands afterwards as well. I have heard that there are only a few cases of internal abcesses recorded. Is this possibly like some kind of a pre-cancerous condition? My vet knows next to nothing about goats and I have been to two ther vets in the area and they don't know anymore. I have two very good goat books that I have consulted religiously, and have talked to a lady in nearby Bastrop who has hundreds of goats and she said that usually they will just develop an immunity to the virus that causes abcesses. Thanks for your help.

-- Doreen Davenport (livinginskin@yahoo.com), March 19, 2000.

Doreen, Does can get abcesses from shots, stickers etc. They are not all CL. But I can tell you that a lump on the lymph glands (down the neck, flank, point of elbow, udder and rear leg) are probably CL. Especially at the base of the neck. The problem with CL is that she can burst tiny abcesses that you would not even see unless you shave your does. They also can burst them in the mammary and infect whatever her milk touches. We have seen abcesses on butcher goats, so it has to be pretty common. Goat Medicine is the newest Vet Text we have on goats. It does not at all agree that they become immune to it. You do not build immunity to a virus, you either have it or you don't, unless you are vaccinated to build immunity, and we do not have vaccines for CAE or CL. The look of a CL abcess, when ripe is usually cottage cheesey (I have never noticed the smell) it also has layers and layers in it like onion skin. An abcess that is lanced early I have never seen. When we managed does with abcesses we always cut the abcess out whole, you would have to quarnateen the doe with her site draining, until it is completly healed. We are very happy to be CL free. We have all pasturized and heat treated animals on our farm. My oldest doe is 10. I am CAE negative on the animals we have now, not counting the kids from this year. I do not believe that the CAE tests are accurate and I will continue to heat treat and pasturize. Though I only live a few hours from Bastrop (if you are talking about Bastrop in Texas) I do not know who you are talking about. I would be more impressed with how long she has had goats, not how many she has. I do know that when we first started in 86, CAE was mostly about the arthritis part of CAE, now we are seeing the devistation of the udder, hard no milk. CL was thought to be a cancer. Has the CAE virus mutated? Perhaps. CL is easy to get rid of with management. Stress causes CL abcesses to form and is why you see them in does kidding, just purchased, another reason to buy carefully, and to quaranteen new does on your place for long periods of time. We have just now opened back up our 7 acres where our orginal barn was. We ran a group of Boer goats on it for the last 2 years, with not one abcess, not even on butcher. So I am going to pray that this pasture is free of CL now. The barn was removed. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 19, 2000.

I would like to share the following information pertaining to CL from the National Goat Handbook. And there is a vaccination for CL available, however the effect of such vaccination is controversial.

10. Caseous Lymphadenitis Caseous lymphadenitis, also called pseudotuberculosis or merely ''abscesses'' has been referred to as the curse of the sheep and goat industry throughout the world. It is considered by some to be the major disease problem of dairy goats in the United States. The causative agent, Corynebacterium ovis, also called C. pseudotuberculosis, was first described in 1894 from the same disease in sheep. It is a small rod-shaped bacterium which is colored blue (Gram +) by the common differential stain used in bacteriology. C. ovis grows readily on sheep blood agar and other bacteriological media enriched with serum. The organism forms small, dry, white to yellow colonies which are initially very tiny but grow to a pin-head size in about 48 hours. If an abscess has not ruptured and is lanced in a sterile fashion, pure cultures of C. ovis are commonly obtained from the pus.

11 The pus is thick, often dry, and greenish-white in color. Its consistency is best likened to toothpaste or putty. The abscesses formed by C. ovis are usually associated with lymph glands and may be ''external'' where they handily break to the outside or internal where they are not at all visible. In the goat the external abscesses of C. ovis are most often found around the head and neck, frequently below the ear and behind the jaw. They are initially small but invariably grow larger. Because the goat often manages to put a thick connective tissue wall around them, they do not readily rupture until they reach the size of walnuts or larger.

12 Internal lymph gland involvement often affects the mediastinal (between lungs), gastrohepatic (between stomach and liver) and mesenteric (intestinal suspensory) areas. Interference with organ function in these vital areas produces unthrifty and weakened animals which are frequently afflicted with difficult breathing and a chronic cough.

13 Much of our knowledge of caseous lymphadenitis comes from the experience of Australian workers with the disease in sheep. They found that environment contamination with C. ovis was common in afflicted herds and that the widespread distribution of abscesses in the species could be related to contamination of shearing wounds. The distribution of most external abscesses about the neck and head suggests that goats are most commonly infected via ingestion of the organism. Frequently goats are exposed as kids but abscesses don't become evident until the animals are at least a year of age. The disease is insidious in its development.

14 To minimize environment contamination, encapsulated abscesses should be drained before they rupture. The hair should be clipped away around the abscess and its surface disinfected with tincture of iodine or other suitable antiseptic. The abscess should be incised vertically to promote drainage and pus should be squeezed out and collected for destruction by incineration or exposure to strong disinfectant solutions. Since C. ovis has been associated with infections in man, care should be taken to avoid direct exposure to the pus.

15 Following drainage, the affected goat should be isolated from other goats until healing is well-progressed. The wound should be irrigated initially and on a daily basis with an antiseptic solution such as chlorhexidine (''Nolvasan'') diluted 1:10 in hydrogen peroxide. Intramuscular application of penicillin - streptomycin on a daily basis for at least 3 days can minimize complications and continued shedding of the organism. Because of the presence of veins, nerves, arteries, esophagus, and glands in the throat region, abscesses in this area may require professional assistance in lancing. ''Throatlatch'' abscesses are especially serious and endanger the life of the affected individual.

16 Once established in a herd, caseous lymphadenitis is difficult to eliminate. Even goats in which abscesses are properly lanced and treated will often have recurrences, and environmental contamination leads to infection of kids. To remove caseous lymphadenitis as a herd problem, it is best to cull chronically affected goats. Kids should be separated from infected does at birth, given colostrum from clean does, and raised in a clean area on ''clean'' milk or replacer. Some experienced goat people have recommended the administration of bacterins made from C. ovis isolates from the herd in question but this practice remains controversial since no clearly definitive scientific studies have been made. Dr. Sam Guss, the eminent goat veterinarian, recommends initial application of an autogenous bacterin at 3 weeks of age, a second dose at 5 weeks of age, and booster doses at 3 to 6 month intervals thereafter. Lastly, the importance of cleaning and disinfecting premises before repopulation must be emphasized.

17 A bacterin is a young broth culture of C. ovis which has been inactivated with a dilute formalin solution. In this way the organism and its exotoxin are destroyed while the constituents which serve to stimulate the immune response are still active. Bacterins in theory should cause previously unexposed animals to more effectively resist natural infection or infected animals to more readily purge themselves of infection. The difficulty with C. ovis is that infected goats seem to have the ability to wall-off the organism temporarily but mobilize an immune response inadequate to effectively destroy it. Accordingly, recurrent abscessation is common.

18 Bacteria other than C. ovis may be responsible for abscessation as a result of contamination of lacerations or punctures. These are usually associated with poor sanitation. Corynebacterium pyogenes is frequently responsible for abscesses containing yellowish pus of a mayonnaise consistency. Streptococci often produce a watery discharge while staphylococci cause a creamy exudate. Although the nature of the pus can give clues to the cause of a particular abscess, only laboratory cultural methods can give definite information. Commercial bacterins against C. pyogenes and Pasteurella species are available and have been used prophylactically against pneumonia (which often accompanies the stress of shipping) and even against caseous lymphadenitis. Varying degrees of success have accompanied their use but, again, their real value is not well-established.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), March 20, 2000.

OK, my turn! :-=) CAE, the great neglected disease...if only cattle could get it too, then they would have spent millions finding a cure or prevention or at least would have researched it much more. BUt since it is only a "goat disease" it continues. Seems like everyone has different, yet similar views of it.

To add to the confusion, I have been told by a person who works at an Ag. research University in Australia that in places like New Zealand and Australia they don't even bother to test for CAE until the animals are one year old. The thinking being false + can occur since the young often carry the dam's antibodies up to 6 months. Also, false + can occur in 1st freshners up to 3 months after kidding. Who knows for sure. Some does can test negative for years and then with no outside exposure, show up positive. Many others can be positive for their entire healthy life and not show one symptom. I have seen goats with clinical symptoms and it isn't pretty. I think it is very well documented that the surest way to spead it is through feeding kids unpasturized milk and non-heat-treated colostrum. Even housing dry does + and - together isn't a sure method of transmitting. Housing lactating + and - has more of a chance for transmittal. Breeding a + buck with - doe isn't likely to infect the doe. I know of a National Champ buck who has been + all his life (with no symptoms) and has sired over 200 kids, all CAE negative without infecting any of the does...so I guess that is pretty good research in itself supporting not transmitting through semen...now if their are open wounds on either, then all bets are off. My personal opinion is that some goats carry the antibody (and that is what they test for) but don't have the disease...kinda like Magic Johnson and AIDS. Since it is a retro virus, it can lay dormant forever and I think very often does.

I think we should be more concerned with CL as someone has mentioned. CAE in many cases, has ended up being a witch hunt...but still needs to be eradicated or at least find a treatment...I think anyone who has kept goats for any length of time has knowingly or unknowingly had CAE + goats in their herd at one time or another.

I have my goats tested and I TRY to stay under 6! Just to know and to be able to sell kids/adults knowing I'm not selling my CAE + problem to another person...I won't do that. Had that done to me and I won't soon forget it. I'll cull first symptoms or not.

All is just IMHO. Notice the heavy use of "I think" throughout my post! ;-) Oh yeah, another opinion, I think it is more widespread in certain breeds than in others, not because some breeds are more susceptble, but because certain breeds just lack numbers so are more likely to encounter a + goat in its travels for breeding purposes or shows, breeds like Oberhasli, Nigerian Dwarfs, Fainting goats, etc...

-- Jim Roberts (jroberts1@cas.org), March 20, 2000.

Hi, Jean. As to testing in smaller herds, I can only share my experiences. Two Saanen dairy goats I got from a CAE-prevention farm, and I trusted the seller, so didn't test. One yearling doe and kid I got for a bargain (!!!) and didn't feel comfortable about, she was thin, licey, had unkempt hooves, and I had her tested and I quarantined her. The kid died, after being at the vet, and the Nubian was CAE +.

The six Angora goats I got this year I quarantined, and tested and all were CAE neg.

Better safe than sorry. I will also bottle all the kids, even though they have been tested, as CAE prevention. Also, my vet believes that CAE is often spread across (not vertically from mother to kid, but to other goats) by healthy animals stepping in and eating near the placenta and goo from kidding. Good luck!

-- Rachel (rldk@hotmail.com), March 20, 2000.

I guess I'll add my two cents worth of experience with CAE. It is a very controversial thing because there are people who do not want to make the necessary sacrifices to eradicate the disease. I think that if it is spread as we have been told, it could be gotten rid of within ten years if everybody really got to work on it. But even if there were laws there would always be those dishonest folks who just didn't care. So your best defense is to be VERY careful about who you buy from (don't buy unless there are negative results on the entire herd and you see the results with your own eyes),and also what animals yours are exposed to. If you test your does every six months and they test negative for a few years it is a pretty sure thing that they are going to stay that way.If the herd you bought from also were to test and come up negative for several tests in a row you could be even surer.If your does test negative,they are good quality and what you want, then keep them,just keep testing them at least once a year.One thing I noticed that the others left out is the importance of preventing blood transmission of the disease.This means,don't use the same needle for all the goats to give injections,and rinse the tattoo gun in a bleach solution between animals,etc. Anytime there is any kind of blood involved,rinse the instrument in bleach solution between animals. With needles,buy a needle and syringe for each goat.The savings by using the same syringe and needle are not worth it if you have to get rid of them all later because they are all contaminated.I use seperate needles even if they are all negative,just in case.If you can get someone to show you how to draw the blood yourself and send it in to Washington State University,it will be a LOT cheaper than if your vet does it.If a doe comes up positive the best thing to do would be to put her down or sell her to someone you KNOW is going to eat her.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), March 20, 2000.