CAE Negative!

[Taffy]

WooHoo! Received the test results today and my entire herd is CAE Negative again this year! I've never had a goat with CAE but it's still nerve wracking waiting for the test results every year.

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

Woot! Well worth the piece of mind though

[sydneyjd]

Great thing to find out

[Nanno]

Getting those tests every year is worth every penny for the peace of mind it gives.

I was wondering something about CAE. A lady at the state fair was giving me grief because I dam raise my babies. She said I'm for sure going to give them CAE, etc. I was talking with a friend of mine, though and we were discussing that CAE is hardly an issue in Europe, and one reason Europeans often don't like importing goats from the U.S. is the prevalence of CAE in this country. In Europe it's more common to dam raise kids than in the U.S. I know people in this country often bottle raise kids on pasteurized milk as a way of preventing CAE, but I wonder if the risk is actually higher with that practice since even one single accidental feeding of improperly treated milk could infect an entire crop of kids. What's worse is that all of these kids would be sold as "CAE free" since the breeder wouldn't know that they'd been infected.

With dam raised babies, unless a mama lets anyone's babies suck on her, only her own babies are at risk, minimizing the impact of having CAE in your herd. I can't bottle raise babies to prevent CAE because I know I'd mess up the pasteurization process at some point (that's just me). In my case a better prevention program is to make sure and get my mamas and last year's kids tested every spring before the new crop comes. If a doe turned positive I could take measures to separate her kids at birth and then I would cull her from my herd before the next year and no babies would drink her milk. I don't trust myself to pasteurize it adequately all the time, every time. I'm too much of a screw-up in the kitchen.

What do ya'll think?

[Dave-Trinity-Farms]

You will not for sure give any babies CAE by damn raising. But I like the fear the lady has because if someone doesnt appreciate CAE and what it takes to deal with it, they wont do the extra steps to prevent it. CAE does have a 6-12 month gestation period thats why its best to test twice a year. Actually thats kinda false. Its more that the teeter level takes time to rise high enough to be detected but close enough.

Is the risk higher if you dam raise? Yes, but thats only if you are placing your animals at risk of getting it from other infected goats. This is assuming that you have tested a few times and know for sure you are clean. CAE is a blood born retro virus and doesnt live to long outside the body. Minutes at most. So contact needs to be with fresh body fluids. Blood and milk being the most likely. A couple of goats fighting, drawing blood or a kid nursing. The think with kids, they will snitch drinks off just about any udder that stops in front of them. If only for a suck or two. But thats enough for them to catch it. This is why its a must to separate positive animals from negative animals. Using the same needles to give vaccines is another way CAE can be transmitted.

We tested for 5 years, twice a year before we started to trust enough to feed raw milk. And this was after the 10 years we spent at the other farm working to eradicate CAE and CL from that farm. And we are a closed herd with no outside contact of any kind cept from new bucks that we only purchase from top known breeders. So the easiest way to think about it is, if you put your adult animals at risk by letting them hang out with possible positive goats, then you are putting your babies at risk by feeding raw milk.

[nebs]

Way to go Taffy! That is welcomed news.

[Nanno]

Thanks for all the info, Dave. I know the risks of CAE infection to kids from raw milk. I also appreciate the concern of the lady I met at the fair. The question came up because there was also concern from some of the Europeans there that our mass feeding of kids from a common milk supply is actually spreading the disease more than if we were dam raising because of improperly treated milk. All it takes is one slip-up. It seems I've heard this nightmare happen from several people who have kept CAE+ does. They thought that because they were pasteurizing, the kids were safe. But I've heard several people come away from that with an entire batch of CAE+ kids because of a pasteurizer going bad, or they accidentally didn't heat the milk long enough, had a miscommunication with the hired help, etc. It makes me wonder how many have done this and haven't even caught it.

The lady getting after me was one I wouldn't trust to do her CAE prevention correctly because she looked like she was pulled in too many directions to be conscientious, and she hires high schoolers to help with her chores. Someone like that who is feeding dozens of kids, if they have a single mistake it's going to infect a LOT of baby goats and a lady that distracted would never even know it. She'd go along thinking she'd done the goat world a favor by doing CAE prevention when in fact she could be letting all kinds of infected goats out into the world. I'm not saying she's ever had this happen, but it just kind of struck me as we were talking that the CAE+ does in her herd pose a pretty big risk in the event of some human error in milk handling.

[Duck-Slayer]

What is CAE? how does it affect a goat?
Matt

[Taffy]

Duck-Slayer - CAE stands for Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis. Here is a link from the WSU website with information about CAE. http://waddl.vetmed.wsu.edu/animal-disease-faq/cae

[Duck-Slayer]

so its basically a joint problem? and there's no treatment?
Matt