Chat
11-12-2014, 01:17 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-12-2014, 01:24 AM by Dave-Trinity-Farms.)
Just a few more words then Im done.
Because I have dealt with a vast amount of numbers of positive goats I can tell you a few things that are fact. And if need be I can dig up the records to prove it. When we started the prevention programs at the commercial farm this is how we did it. First and foremost all goats who had grown CL abscesses were moved to the quarantine pasture. This pasture was 50+ feet from any of the other goats. CL being our first targeted disease as it was a visual certainly of an infected goat. We tried the CL vaccine at this time two and after the first 2 years realized it was not only terrible. As any new cases showed up in the rest of the herd, the animal was quarantined in a single pen and when ready the abscess was lanced, cleaned and packed. Then after 2 weeks that goat was moved to the positive pasture. The animals in this pen never got to come out.
Then we moved onto the CAE prevention program. Every single goat was tested. Culls were made where needed but we didnt move the CAE positive animals yet. ALL keeper kids were pulled at birth, washed and raised on heat treated colostrum and pasteurized milk. It was only till later that we realized we had to remove the CAE positive animals away from the negative ones as each time we tested (3 times a year) we kept getting random animals coming up positive. Animals that had tested negative for years would out of no where come up positive. There were only two possible ways these previously negative goats where coming up positive. The first and most likely being from fighting and blood transfer. The second from a positive kid snitching milk off a negative doe. Dont bother with other possible transfer ideas as we had eliminated all other factors. Kiddings happened in clean kidding pens, needles never used more then once... It was only once we fully separated the CAE positive animals from the negative ones did we see a drastic difference on our testing. The last test that was done before we left was on 195 animals. 3 came back positive and 1 suspect. All of which were yearlings out of difficult births that we had suspected they might be positive.
This also brings up the breeding of a CAE animal. It is perfectly fine to breed and kid out a CAE positive animal as CAE is NOT transferred from dam to kid in the womb. When we moved over from the commercial farm to our own, we brought over 6 foundation does that were CAE positive and had been for years. They got breed every year with none of them going clinical. We still have 3 of these animals and non of them have gone clinical. The 3 that died, died of ailments and old age not CAE related. We stopped breeding them because we didnt want to hold their kids for 2 years of negative testing before we would allow them to be sold. AND as foundation animals after 10 years old, they deserved to retire and just enjoy life.
If a kidding goes smooth and the kid is pulled at birth, still in its birth sack or very quickly after its pops, washed with soap. We used dawn dish soap. Raised on negative or heat treated / pasteurized milk, then that kid is 99.9% likely to be CAE free. The risk comes in when the sack is popped and the kid has a chance to get blood into its mouth. In all the years on that farm kidding out positive does where the kidding went smooth, we never had any of those kids come back with a positive test result due to the birth. Now with all this said, I wouldnt suggest anyone who doesnt fully know how to assist with kidding and a full understanding of CAE and how to prevent it, ever try kid out a positive doe. And even if you do know, you will need to do bi annual CAE testing for at least the first 2 years to insure that your efforts worked.
So San I guess we will just have to completely disagree on just about every CAE topic. But thats ok. I am glad your methods work for you and ours worked for us.
Because I have dealt with a vast amount of numbers of positive goats I can tell you a few things that are fact. And if need be I can dig up the records to prove it. When we started the prevention programs at the commercial farm this is how we did it. First and foremost all goats who had grown CL abscesses were moved to the quarantine pasture. This pasture was 50+ feet from any of the other goats. CL being our first targeted disease as it was a visual certainly of an infected goat. We tried the CL vaccine at this time two and after the first 2 years realized it was not only terrible. As any new cases showed up in the rest of the herd, the animal was quarantined in a single pen and when ready the abscess was lanced, cleaned and packed. Then after 2 weeks that goat was moved to the positive pasture. The animals in this pen never got to come out.
Then we moved onto the CAE prevention program. Every single goat was tested. Culls were made where needed but we didnt move the CAE positive animals yet. ALL keeper kids were pulled at birth, washed and raised on heat treated colostrum and pasteurized milk. It was only till later that we realized we had to remove the CAE positive animals away from the negative ones as each time we tested (3 times a year) we kept getting random animals coming up positive. Animals that had tested negative for years would out of no where come up positive. There were only two possible ways these previously negative goats where coming up positive. The first and most likely being from fighting and blood transfer. The second from a positive kid snitching milk off a negative doe. Dont bother with other possible transfer ideas as we had eliminated all other factors. Kiddings happened in clean kidding pens, needles never used more then once... It was only once we fully separated the CAE positive animals from the negative ones did we see a drastic difference on our testing. The last test that was done before we left was on 195 animals. 3 came back positive and 1 suspect. All of which were yearlings out of difficult births that we had suspected they might be positive.
This also brings up the breeding of a CAE animal. It is perfectly fine to breed and kid out a CAE positive animal as CAE is NOT transferred from dam to kid in the womb. When we moved over from the commercial farm to our own, we brought over 6 foundation does that were CAE positive and had been for years. They got breed every year with none of them going clinical. We still have 3 of these animals and non of them have gone clinical. The 3 that died, died of ailments and old age not CAE related. We stopped breeding them because we didnt want to hold their kids for 2 years of negative testing before we would allow them to be sold. AND as foundation animals after 10 years old, they deserved to retire and just enjoy life.
If a kidding goes smooth and the kid is pulled at birth, still in its birth sack or very quickly after its pops, washed with soap. We used dawn dish soap. Raised on negative or heat treated / pasteurized milk, then that kid is 99.9% likely to be CAE free. The risk comes in when the sack is popped and the kid has a chance to get blood into its mouth. In all the years on that farm kidding out positive does where the kidding went smooth, we never had any of those kids come back with a positive test result due to the birth. Now with all this said, I wouldnt suggest anyone who doesnt fully know how to assist with kidding and a full understanding of CAE and how to prevent it, ever try kid out a positive doe. And even if you do know, you will need to do bi annual CAE testing for at least the first 2 years to insure that your efforts worked.
So San I guess we will just have to completely disagree on just about every CAE topic. But thats ok. I am glad your methods work for you and ours worked for us.