Would you buy a ND goat who is Neg, but is in a herd with a Pos?

[AkTomboy]

I am getting ND goats this year, we have been planning for two or so years to add them to the crew here. A person is selling a few of her herd there are two who are Neg but they do live with a few that are Pos.... so what would you goat ppl do?

ETA the herd is tested and two of them are Pos for CAE the two I am looking at are not

 

[abluechipstock]

what disease?

 

[RiverOtter]

CAE or CL?
Are they tested, or just asymptomatic?
You'll get a lot of mixed messages. Also, there's a rumor going around that CL is zoonotic. I personally haven't found any proof in any medical journal except that one of the bacterium (a very common one) that has been found in in a CL abscess in a goat has also been found in an abscess in a human. And people will say things like "if an abscess is on the inside of the udder and it bursts you have puss filled milk." Internal abscesses are pretty rare, and if it's CL it will be in the lymph nodes, but it is a possibility I guess.
If it was me, I wouldn't worry to much about CL as it was managed by goat keepers for centuries and is very common. Deer can give it to your goats even if you only ever have clean ones.
But that is just me and my opinion. There are many goat keepers who test any abscess (goats are very prone to them and they are not always CL) and it the exudate is positive will sell or even have a goat put down.

As for CAE I feel it is the more serious of the two. It is not as contagious as CL, but still pretty contagious. As far as the symptoms go, it is a little like rheumatoid arthritis. Some have no symptoms, some will have a little achy flare now and then. And then you have the whole spectrum up to those who are in out and out pain 24/7 with badly swollen joints.

Your danger with that is there are LOTS of goats out there with no symptoms. That's why you need a test for it. And most people are lucky and never even know they have it because of all the goats who are just carriers and never show a symptom or just get a little achy when they're 12. -But you never know how bad it will be. And it seems like it is always the best and the brightest that you have waited the longest for who comes down with it so bad you have no choice but to put her down before she's 2.

It is passed through bodily fluids. YOU can't get it, and there's a question over if the babies can get it from colostrum, though the general consensus is that they can NOT get it just by being born to an infected mother. So there are plenty of people who just pull kids at birth and feed them pasteurized milk.
And then kind of cross their fingers because even in a negative herd it is hard to never be exposed. And you can't even begin to say you have a negative herd until each and every goat in it has had 2 negative tests 6 months apart.
It's actually a lot like Coggins. The test kills far, far more animals then the disease ever would. But people test and cull infected ones because you can't control which will be the unlucky 5% (not an exact #) who will get it so bad that it cripples them.

So there you go, lol, you're probably more confused then when you started. I just wanted to give you a little info in a non-rabidly-passionate way. Show breeders are heck on it and with good cause. They spend $$$ and don't want to take any chances on any roll of the dice pulling snake eyes on their best critter.
But if you just want backyard milkers....

If it was me I'd look at the overall quality of the animal and decide if I wanted to deal with any problems that come up. Individual stalls at night, most people pull kids anyway because they need the milk for themselves and so on.

 

[RiverOtter]

double post, oops

 

[Lifesong Farm]

RiverOtter all I can say is WOW. CL is soooooo much worse than CAE. CAE isnt as highly contagious to other species as CL is. In my research of CL for my Vet Tech courses there has been suspicion but not conformation of CL passing to humans in New Zealand.
If you have a goat with CL and the abcess ruptures and another goat, horse, cow exc... comes into contact they get the disease. At least with CAE you limit contact and even pasturize the milk to keep the kids from getting it. CL if you touch the goat and if the disease is on your person or another animal touches a contaminated area or item it can get it.

Thinking like this keeps these diseases from being wiped out. And why doesn't anyone ever think about Johnes? It needs tested for also but the only one you hear about the most is CAE.

CL I would euthanize the animal and dispose of it.
CAE I would keep and use procautionary procedures.

ETA: I still feel CL is worse but I did post before reading all of it. You did redeam yourself on the CAE section of your post. IMO all animals testing pos. for these diseases need to be dealt with so we can get rid of the issues.

 

[()relics]

Quote:
CL is absolutely a zoonotic. Any puss drained from ANY abcess should be considered so and CL heads the list. ANY drainings from any abcess should be handled with gloves, contained, and disposed of properly. Want to infect your entire herd ? Let the animal with the abcess mingle with the rest of your herd so they are sure to be in the area when the abcess ruptures. If you haven't read that the drainings are potentially dangerous I included a link. May want to read it to clear up any "conventional wisdom" untruths....
http://www2.luresext.edu/goats/training/herdhealthII.html#cl

 

[RiverOtter]

I will be more then happy to retract if you can give me a link to any medical science (as opposed to goatkeeping) literature anywhere that states that CL is a danger to humans. As Lifesong said, suspicion, yes, proof, no. And seeing as how some 70% of the world's herds (the whole world, not the US) are infected and how the vast majority of milk drinkers worldwide drink goat milk, I think that if it posed a serious danger to humans we'd know. Just like EVERYBODY knows you have to cook pork so you don't get trichinosis, etc. You don't hear about goatkeepers lymph nodes swelling like balloons on a regular basis. Actually I've never known anyone who has, have you?

I did say that it was highly contagious (sorry if I didn't point out how) and of course all abscesses are very nasty things that need carefully cleaned out. But having dealt with both diseases (and if you're interested I test before bringing an animal home and then I quarantine anyway) CL is relatively easy to manage. You look over a dairy goat Every Day as you're milking and if there's an abscess you take care of it. That's why here in the US it is getting rarer and rarer in dairy herds and is still a pretty big problem in meat herds.
But the simple fact is that CL has been managed for years. Even the old "goatkeepers bible" by David Mackenzie(sp?) mentions that you'll have abscesses in goats and you have to carefully clean them and if you have an animal that just gets abscess after abscess after abscess then cull. That book was from, what, the 20s? This is not a new thing.

I'm not saying that it's not a serious disease.
But lets ease up on the panic attacks, k? If you are cleaning out ANY nasty thing on ANY critter wear gloves.

As to which is worse ... it's a matter of opinion. I stated which one I (in my personal opinion - which I made clear was my personal opinion) would hate more to deal with. And deer can pass both of them. So just because my goats are tested clean doesn't mean they'll stay that way. Just a fact of life.
Lifesong has a different opinion. I'd never keep a CAE animal, I'd worry all the time about my buck getting or passing it. Not through sperm, it doesn't pass that way, but they will lick urine. Or does nurse off each other. Or my hubby thinking it's a waste of time to pasteurize milk to feed to goat kids. But I rub my hands over my goats every day.
About Johnnes, it is so rare in goats that some will tell you it doesn't happen. It does happen, just very, very rarely. Many vets won't bother testing for it. But you can always insist or find a different vet

 

[lasergrl]

CL = corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis yes, zoonotic. rare yes, but possible.


http://www.springerlink.com/content/n37w21851t20h027/


http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2562974

 

[lasergrl]

To answer the question about CAE. I would feel comfortable buying the negative goats. Its actually very very rare to get CAE in any other way then drinking colostrum. Its even common practice to breed neg bucks to pos does and never get a + buck after.

 

[Lifesong Farm]

mmm Thanks lasergrl. I didn't find that link (http://www.springerlink.com/content/n37w21851t20h027/

) when I did my paper a couple years ago. Interesting read.


Caseous lymphadenitis has also been reported in humans and is therefore regarded
as a professional zoonosis (Radaelli, 1998; Pepin et al., 1999). The prevalence of the
human disease is also probably underestimated, considering that only 22 cases of
lymphadenitis due to C. pseudotuberculosis were reported from 1966 to 1995. The
limited number of cases observed in humans has been attributed partly to the fact
that many laboratories do not have an interest in identifying and typing the causative
agent and simply make a generic diagnosis of ‘skin diphtheroid’ (Peel et al., 1997).
Eight of the 22 cases mentioned involved people who worked in the meat industry
(Peel et al., 1997). In these people, skin wounds and scrapes on the hands are the
most important portal of the infective agent, but the possibility also exists that the
bacterium penetrates through intact skin.
The potential transmission of pseudotuberculosis by ingestion of raw milk derived
from infected goats and cows is also of great concern for human health (Goldberg
et al., 1981). The ingestion of raw or nearly raw meat that has been contaminated
might also cause infection. Carcases can be contaminated with pus from fistulas or
ruptured abscesses.