cl and cae test results - good news/bad news?

[ThreeBoysChicks]

My vet said the same thing. She pretty much said, if you can find some stock that is CAE and CL negative and work from there, you may be able to stay clean, but it is hard. I have a doe that is CAE positive, she was my first doe and will stay regardless. Iwas not going to breed her, but may breed her and plan on selling her offspring for meat. She is 50% alpine and 50% boer. I would breed her to a 100% boer and see what we get.

 

[SDBoerGoats]

I bought 7 new does a couple of months ago and had already planned on testing my herd before their purchase. Found out 4 of them were positive for CL and one also positive for Johne's. I HAD asked if the lady had tested her goats and she told me she bought them as weanlings from a tested herd, had not tested them herself but maintained a closed herd. I took her on her word.
The doe with Johne's/CL was immediately isolated and removed from the property ASAP. I know she had this doe for many years, she was 7 when I bought her, she had told me she was 5 (LOL!) When I got the papers I found out otherwise, but she was a gorgeous producer. Why no more of the goats I bought from her didn't test positive for Johne's I'll never know, since she was a half sister to all of the other does except for one, so they were with her for years. One doe had a large knot on her jaw. None of the others had any signs at all. The Johne's positive doe was in rough condition, thin and rough coated and bare patches on her skin. never could get her to gain weight at all or look better. The titers on these does were really high, so high they told me they were going to run the tests again the next day to double check. Except one doe had a really low titer.

One doe was due any day, I was told to let her kid and take the babies away immediately and cull her. So I did that. Now I am bottle feeding them. Then I was told by others, they don't contract it through the milk, so I could have kept her, let her nurse the babies, THEN cull her.

I don't know what the right answer is, I wish I did. I kept that set of twins and culled the positive does. It was a really black day for me. I have 2 left to kid out of that bunch, all clean. But now my herd is tested and CAE/CL and Johne's free.

Many meat goat herds out here test for all 3 diseases, as they all advertise their herds to be clean. There are of course, some who don't. Probably the cost of testing. I know I will never buy does that haven't been tested again and I won't just take their word, I want to see the paperwork. I lost a lot of money on these does. The gal told me she would replace the does I lost with clean does she would have tested. I have talked to her since, and she now says she is getting a divorce, etc and to give her a couple of weeks to figure things out. She hasn't as of yet tested her herd. I am sure I will never see another doe from her, anyway, that's my story, don't know how much it helps! Cause I was just as confused as you and still am. I still don't know if I really had to cull those does, except for the Johne's doe. But what's done is done.

 

[sandrachx]

now that we know this buck yearling tested positive, we will check his sister as well. the mom doe came back clean. so confusing.

i checked the ABGA papers of my does and:

jack and jane were parents of 4 of my does
these same does were bred with jack (their father) [i did not know this until after the fact]
offspring of one doe tested positive of CL
i'm guessing he (father/grandfather) is the common link


needless to say, we will not be using this breeder for future breeding of our stock.

i will not be culling until i have more information. i just have to get over the crying stage right now.

 

[SDBoerGoats]

I'm so sorry, Sandrachx...... Been there, done that. Still depressed and upset over it.

From what I have been told, CL is contracted through the direct contact with the pus from the opened abscesses. One poster here on the forum, don't recall the name, said they have 3 CL does they have bred for 3 years, the does are kept with the rest of the herd, they have kidded each year and nursed their babies and the babies test clean for CL when they are old enough to be tested. I hope I remembered all that right. If I had known that to be true, I might have kept a couple of those does, they were only 3. And bred them.

But then I am told by others how tough it is to keep a separate herd, and if they abscess you have to make sure you don't carry any of the pus to your other goats. I was told by the tech who drew my blood, who has raised goats for 30 years, that I needed to pull the babies from the doe who was close to kidding and cull all the does. She said it is not worth the chance of infecting my whole herd.
So being a new goat breeder, and being told several different routes to take, the thing that stuck with me most and made my decision was the chance of infecting my other goats and my whole herd ending up with it. Like I said, what's done is done.

 

[20kidsonhill]

I have never been to or visited a farm that tests. Our vet said, good luck finding a negative CL herd anywhere. I am sure there are a few, but not many. You would have to test constantly, pretty much be a closed herd, and even still you can get it from the deer population.

I should ad that several of the farms that we have toured and purchased from do vaccinate for CL. Since we were bringing vaccinated animals into our herd we decided to just go ahead and start vaccinating. Plus I feel like Jodie that vaccinating is really the answer to slowing down CL.

 

[SDBoerGoats]

I have never been to or visited a farm that tests. Our vet said, good luck finding a negative CL herd anywhere. I am sure there are a few, but not many. You would have to test constantly, pretty much be a closed herd, and even still you can get it from the deer population.

I should ad that several of the farms that we have toured and purchased from do vaccinate for CL. Since we were bringing vaccinated animals into our herd we decided to just go ahead and start vaccinating. Plus I feel like Jodie that vaccinating is really the answer to slowing down CL.

So fill me in on the vaccinations. I thought I had read that the vaccinations weren't fool proof or caused bad reactions in the goats. And that it's a vaccine for sheep? Am I remembering correctly? If you vaccinate, then do you no longer test, since you do the shots?

 

[20kidsonhill]

I have never been to or visited a farm that tests. Our vet said, good luck finding a negative CL herd anywhere. I am sure there are a few, but not many. You would have to test constantly, pretty much be a closed herd, and even still you can get it from the deer population.

I should ad that several of the farms that we have toured and purchased from do vaccinate for CL. Since we were bringing vaccinated animals into our herd we decided to just go ahead and start vaccinating. Plus I feel like Jodie that vaccinating is really the answer to slowing down CL.

So fill me in on the vaccinations. I thought I had read that the vaccinations weren't fool proof or caused bad reactions in the goats. And that it's a vaccine for sheep? Am I remembering correctly? If you vaccinate, then do you no longer test, since you do the shots?

There is a site reaction on occasion, like a swelling from a bee sting. Seems more likely when you give the 2nd shot(booster). It says on the bottle not to give the vaccine in the same place twice, so we gave the first shot on the left side and the 2nd shot on the right side. the one we are using is for sheep. I do know a source where they are making it for goats, but you had to get larger batches at a time and the sheep vaccine is still more affordable for a smaller farm like ours.
Also the farm that I know that is selling the vaccine that they helped produce, is recommended that a cl positive animal be vaccinated and if a abscess appears at any time go ahead and vaccinate the animal several times until the abscess is absorbed into the system. It was like one time a week or something like that. I can't remember exactly. They said this method allowed them to stop worrying about purchasing CL positive animals and ad any genetics they wanted to their program.
We haven't been vaccinating long enough to tell you a lot about it. But I haven't had any fall over dead from vaccinating them. some of the farms that I know are vaccinating are using a vaccine that was designed by their vet specifically for the strain of cl that they have. The sheep vaccine is made with several strains of cl.
http://www.jefferslivestock.com/case-bac/camid/LIV/cp/16736/cn/3301/

 

[SDBoerGoats]

I should ad that several of the farms that we have toured and purchased from do vaccinate for CL. Since we were bringing vaccinated animals into our herd we decided to just go ahead and start vaccinating. Plus I feel like Jodie that vaccinating is really the answer to slowing down CL.

So fill me in on the vaccinations. I thought I had read that the vaccinations weren't fool proof or caused bad reactions in the goats. And that it's a vaccine for sheep? Am I remembering correctly? If you vaccinate, then do you no longer test, since you do the shots?

There is a site reaction on occasion, like a swelling from a bee sting. Seems more likely when you give the 2nd shot(booster). It says on the bottle not to give the vaccine in the same place twice, so we gave the first shot on the left side and the 2nd shot on the right side. the one we are using is for sheep. I do know a source where they are making it for goats, but you had to get larger batches at a time and the sheep vaccine is still more affordable for a smaller farm like ours.
Also the farm that I know that is selling the vaccine that they helped produce, is recommended that a cl positive animal be vaccinated and if a abscess appears at any time go ahead and vaccinate the animal several times until the abscess is absorbed into the system. It was like one time a week or something like that. I can't remember exactly. They said this method allowed them to stop worrying about purchasing CL positive animals and ad any genetics they wanted to their program.
We haven't been vaccinating long enough to tell you a lot about it. But I haven't had any fall over dead from vaccinating them. some of the farms that I know are vaccinating are using a vaccine that was designed by their vet specifically for the strain of cl that they have. The sheep vaccine is made with several strains of cl.
http://www.jefferslivestock.com/case-bac/camid/LIV/cp/16736/cn/3301/

So it's given IM? Do you give it to young animals, or wait til they are older? And that is interesting, to be able to give it to a goat with an abscess til it is absorbed. So....are you saying that if you had a CL positive goat, but no abscesses, you would vaccinate it anyway for CL? And keep it?
Very interesting info and a vaccine I would definitely use. I need to look further into this.....

 

[20kidsonhill]

So fill me in on the vaccinations. I thought I had read that the vaccinations weren't fool proof or caused bad reactions in the goats. And that it's a vaccine for sheep? Am I remembering correctly? If you vaccinate, then do you no longer test, since you do the shots?

There is a site reaction on occasion, like a swelling from a bee sting. Seems more likely when you give the 2nd shot(booster). It says on the bottle not to give the vaccine in the same place twice, so we gave the first shot on the left side and the 2nd shot on the right side. the one we are using is for sheep. I do know a source where they are making it for goats, but you had to get larger batches at a time and the sheep vaccine is still more affordable for a smaller farm like ours.
Also the farm that I know that is selling the vaccine that they helped produce, is recommended that a cl positive animal be vaccinated and if a abscess appears at any time go ahead and vaccinate the animal several times until the abscess is absorbed into the system. It was like one time a week or something like that. I can't remember exactly. They said this method allowed them to stop worrying about purchasing CL positive animals and ad any genetics they wanted to their program.
We haven't been vaccinating long enough to tell you a lot about it. But I haven't had any fall over dead from vaccinating them. some of the farms that I know are vaccinating are using a vaccine that was designed by their vet specifically for the strain of cl that they have. The sheep vaccine is made with several strains of cl.
http://www.jefferslivestock.com/case-bac/camid/LIV/cp/16736/cn/3301/

So it's given IM? Do you give it to young animals, or wait til they are older? And that is interesting, to be able to give it to a goat with an abscess til it is absorbed. So....are you saying that if you had a CL positive goat, but no abscesses, you would vaccinate it anyway for CL? And keep it?
Very interesting info and a vaccine I would definitely use. I need to look further into this.....

I was told to go ahead and vaccinate the entire herd, including any animals that are suspected or known to be positive. We vaccinate the kids at 5 and 9 weeks of age. We don't vaccinate the show wethers, or animals that we are sure are terminal with in the first 6 to 8 months of life. It is given sub-q. We give all our vaccinations in the arm pit.

 

[20kidsonhill]

This is from a contact of mine a very big breeder in Texas: the dosage is different on the vaccine she is using, the vaccine I am using is 2cc and a booster in 30 days.

"We use the autogenous vaccine that we have made from the pus of an infected animal. The normal routine is a SQ 1 cc shot and a 1 cc booster 10-14 days later, then an annual booster. If we have a goat with an outbreak, we give it a 2 cc dose and repeat it every couple of weeks until the abscess recedes. We've gone as long as 4 shots before the lump goes away. Occasionally, we're told, you'll have a goat that is too far gone for the shots to help, but we've always been able to control it with continued innoculations. We bought a billy goat a couple of months ago and a few weeks ago we noticed he had lumps under both ears, so we started on his series of shots. He got his second shot Friday and his lumps are already receding"

My question to her: "would you recommend we vaccinate the entire herd, even if we think an older doe is positive. Or would you start with just the younger animals? would you vaccinate all your kids, even if you think they are going to be wethered and terminal in 4 to 6 months?"

Her reply: "If it was here we would vaccinate everyone and then booster them. Keep them up to date on their shot and everything new coming in.

Anything terminal we would not vaccinate when we wean. We usually take them right to the sale then."