CAE Negative!

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

San I want you to think about this for a second before you just cast it aside.

You are suggesting that because something you have tried and seemed to work that the rest of us should cast aside what has been tested and proven across the goat community to factually work. I am not saying your method of dealing with CAE is stupid but it is dangerous and miss leading. Dangerous in that you leave at risk your other goats to possible CAE infection. Miss leading because you speak as if the "accepted" methods are wrong and talk down to people who follow them as if they are dumb. The accepted methods to deal with CAE are accepted because they not only work they and are common sense based but have many years of factually evidence to back it. Have an infected goat? Remove said goat from your non infected goat. Done.

[Nanno]

I don't think Sabine talks down to people like they're dumb. If anything, Dave, it's me and you who have that problem.

Still, there's no reason for Sabine (or anyone) to get huffy just because people don't agree with them on the internet. Some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history came about in the face of almost overwhelming opposition from the "establishment," so I'm a big believer in airing ideas and experiences no matter how contrary they run to conventional wisdom. However, if you air your opinions and experiences on a public forum, you should expect public criticism and not get offended when people disagree.

[Sanhestar]

no Dave,

you are the one that is talking me down. Have you even stopped for one minute or even second before you "put your foot down"?

You compare CAE with AIDS and yes, it's a slow-working retrovirus like the HIV-virus. And I believe that you are old enough to remember the AIDS histeria in the 80s and 90s and how much the first victims suffered - often not from the disease but from the people around them. And that there was a time when strategies in dealing with the real and imagined dangers where developed.

And it sure would be great if "cull or seperate" would become a piece of the past in the goat world because the goats that carry the CAE-virus deserve a chance for treatment, too. Which won't happen until goat owners are willing to think outside the established lines of though.

Nanno: huffy is it? I thought years about sharing my experiences with the CAE-treatment and even asked Larry if he would be interested in posting something in Goattracks. Don't think he ever did after receiving my article. Because I knew that I would face critique. But I kept the hope that it would also spark a discussion about current handling of CAE goats and owners fears to even hear the word "CAE-positive".

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

Goat disease topics are always a strong subject for me. So ill take as much guilt as needed on the talking down to part but I do like to leave the door open for others to make their own choices. And as must of us know or will learn to know, its a two sided coin to just about everything goat related. From feed to worming to vaccines. Long time goat people find what works for them and get pretty defensive when its suggested they are not doing it right. Its not cause they are not open to other methods but most goat owners are fiercely passionate about their goats and to say they are doing it wrong is like saying they are not caring for their goats right and thats just not acceptable

For me I went from never having livestock to being thrown into a commercial sized dairy at just about the time CAE and CL were coming to light and the herd was heavily infected. Spend a decade of your life fighting CAE and CL on well over a thousand goats and I can guarantee you will have a rock solid, no holes prevention program in place. I can factually testify to what works and what doesnt and to whats safe and whats not. So when I hear someone say its ok to keep positive and negative animals together just because it worked for them, I think of the newer people who dont know better who will read it and think its ok to follow suit. So I do get a little more vocal when taking the other side of the coin. For that I do apologize. But knowing how difficult it is to deal with these disease and how much people love their goats, I will always preach that people error on the side of caution and to ignore more dangerous methods that have worked for others.

San, like I said. I am not saying your methods are stupid or that they didnt work for you. But you are putting other peoples animals at greater risk by suggesting your methods work the same as or better then what is basic prevention knowledge. Suggesting that others are hysterical in there beliefs by following that basic knowledge is pretty much talking down to them. The math is simple. Keep positive animals in with negative animals and they will be at risk regardless of what you do. Separate positive animals form negative animals and you completely take that risk away. There is nothing else that needs to be said. And as for AIDS, I know more then most about that. My brother died of it. I can guarantee if you had a close family member died of it, you wouldnt be so quick to bring up the hysteria card I can tell you that for sure.

[Nanno]

Nanno: huffy is it? I thought years about sharing my experiences with the CAE-treatment and even asked Larry if he would be interested in posting something in Goattracks. Don't think he ever did after receiving my article. Because I knew that I would face critique. But I kept the hope that it would also spark a discussion about current handling of CAE goats and owners fears to even hear the word "CAE-positive".

Yes, I thought you sounded huffy. I apologize if I read you wrong.

I'm thrilled that you want to spark a discussion about handling CAE+ goats, but in order to have a discussion you can't bow out or become defensive at the first sign of disagreement. Feel free to post anything you know about the subject here. I can guarantee it will not be censored or removed. What I can't guarantee is that everyone will agree with what you have to say. However, I will reiterate that criticism is never a reason to keep silent.

I tend to think that we here in America have a rather grandiose view of our own opinions and research, particularly when it comes to medicine. I would not be surprised if there actually were a cure for CAE (and a lot of other "incurable" diseases), but as long as that cure is not known by Americans or discovered in an American research lab, then (in our view) a cure does not exist. Cures are seldom allowed to be natural in our chemically obsessed culture. Every cure must be patentable, manufactured, and produced by a large, faceless corporation to be taken seriously in this country. I feel we miss out on a lot of good medicine that way.

On the other hand, there will always be (and should be) suspicion of any supposed cure for anything based purely on anecdotal evidence, which is all you have given us at this point. We're glad that your methods worked for you, but is there any way to prove that they will work for everyone else without the risks that Dave outlined? Your methods would have to be studied at length under controlled circumstances in order to be proven effective for general use. I hope that can happen one day. In the meantime, we must all exercise caution. Just because something worked in one circumstance does not mean it will work in all others.

[Sanhestar]

well, the "anecdotal" evidence has been backed by regular testing for CAE antibodies. And there was a definitive spike in the antibodies at the start of the treatment when the immune system actively fought the virus which remains mostly undetected by the immune system until it's overwhelmed. I also worked in conjunction with an experienced vet from Sanum-Kehlbeck who has experience in what the remedies can do and what not and who advised me on when to dial back dosages or switch remedies. She predicted the rise in antibodies as she had already seen similar development in other slow virus infections (treating CAE was a first for her back then but there are other chronic infectious diseases in cats and dogs and horses that respond to treatments according to Dr. Enderleins foundings).

I also provided links where more details about Enderleins treatments and research can be found because my English simply isn't good enough to explain the medical background.

I'm aware that this is something that might be unpractical for larger goat operations and a CAE positive doe shouldn't be bred - here I agree completely and the fate of our first diagnosed CAE positive doe proved that - because of the tendency of the virus to go active during/after pregnancy.

But knowing that a positive tested, not breeding goat - a wether for example - can be treated and remain in the herd could be an alternative for small goat operations where the goats are loved pets.

And no, I still don't believe and think that a positive goat without clinical signs is a risk to otherwise healthy goats, WHEN all are kept in proper surroundings, being well cared for, etc. and I'm not alone in this. I recall several people on the old packgoat forum which has been move to goatspot talking about keeping positve goats for years in the herd without these goats infecting other animals.

---

http://www.mastavit.de/prescription.htm

Handbook of isopathic/homoeopathic therapy in veterinary practice

Basic information on the teachings of Dr. Enderlein and how to apply the remedies

[Nanno]

That's very interesting. That's some pretty heavy duty reading in that link you provided!

[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.