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



## sandrachx (Jun 1, 2012)

we just got the lab results on our small herd of boer goats. we tested the adult does and and one yearling buck - everyone tested negative for CAE - 2 tested positive for CL.
what to do next? no physical signs of CL in herd right now, but am unsure with how to handle this or what to do with this news. we have taken $$ deposits on several of the offspring.

i'm pretty stunned and am having trouble even thinking of the questions/answers i should be seeking. help!


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## Pearce Pastures (Jun 1, 2012)

Sorry for the bad news.  I think if you explain the situation to those that have deposits on babies, and take extra care to remove the kids immediately after birth so they do not risk infection, your buyers will probably admire your honestly and still want the kids.  And if they don't, then go from there.


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## sandrachx (Jun 1, 2012)

the deposits are for kids that had mothers that tested clean, so i'm good there. since i have had no physical signs of CL to date, do i have an otherwise clean herd?
the yearling buck is the one that tested + and i am in the process of drafting an email saying he is no longer for sale.

from what i've read, removing babies immediately after birth is no guarantee - that is for CAE only, since it comes from the colostrum. i cannot have the 2 kids of the mom who has CL tested until 
they are min. 6 months old, so i need to work out a quarantine area for them or just cull them. sad day over here.


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## jodief100 (Jun 1, 2012)

Cl is not as big of an issue in meat goats as it is in dairy goats but it is still a problem.  I would be honest with your customers and let them decide.  There is a vaccine labeled for sheep that is proven to be 80% effective in goats.  It is called Case-Bac.  It is not labeled for goats due to unacceptable injection site reactions but I have never had any serious issues.  Sometimes they get an abscess at the site but it heals.   

I recommend vaccinate your animals, quarantine any that show signs, be honest with any potential customers and go from there.  I don't think it is something you need to cull over.  

Caveat- we have goats that have shown signs but have never been tested.  This is the protocol I use and it works for me and my customers.


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## Renegade (Jun 1, 2012)

Is there a chance any of the positive goats were vaccinated for CL? If they were they will test a low positive. How high was the titer?

Donna


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 1, 2012)

your kids aren't as likely to get cl from the dams as they are to get CAE.  make sure to isolate any animals with an abscess if one occurs. I would also recommend vaccinating your kids that are being sold as breeding stock.


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 1, 2012)

Renegade said:
			
		

> Is there a chance any of the positive goats were vaccinated for CL? If they were they will test a low positive. How high was the titer?
> 
> Donna


Good point.  CL vaccinated goats will test positive.


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## sandrachx (Jun 1, 2012)

Renegade said:
			
		

> Is there a chance any of the positive goats were vaccinated for CL? If they were they will test a low positive. How high was the titer?
> 
> Donna


the breeders we purchased all of our stock from were contacted and we were told they did not test any of their stock for either CL or CAE, nor did they vaccinate for it, yet they sold 4h and breeding stock for 5+ years. hindsight is 20/20. i was so excited about and taken with the boer goat breed, i went into purchasing our herd without knowing what to watch/ask for. our education came from f/u shows and conversations with other breeders.

what is the "titer"?


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## jodief100 (Jun 1, 2012)

Titer is the level of antibodies present.  That is what they test for, the precense of antibodies.  A low titer count could indicate a vaccine as opposed to exposure.  

No boer breeders around here test for CAE or CL, not many meat goat producers I know do.  As I said, it isn't as much of a concern when most of the kids are terminal.  I have seen goats from BIG name, top dollar breeders that have signs of abcesses.  

If other breeders in your area are sucessfully selling goats with unknown status, then I wouldn't worry too much about it.  Vaccinate, isolate and educate!  


*climbing up on my soapbox*  

I think CL is the "dirty little secret"  in the goat industry.  No one wants to admit they have it so they don't test and they don't vaccinate because it could show a positive test.  That way they have plausible deniability.  If people would be more willing to vaccinate we might get it under control but it is easier to stick your head in the sand.  If people would quit panicking over every sign or positive test then producers would be more willing to vaccinate.  

*climbing down now*


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 1, 2012)

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.


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## ThreeBoysChicks (Jun 1, 2012)

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.


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## SDBoerGoats (Jun 1, 2012)

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.


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## sandrachx (Jun 1, 2012)

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.


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## SDBoerGoats (Jun 1, 2012)

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.


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 1, 2012)

20kidsonhill said:
			
		

> 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.


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## SDBoerGoats (Jun 1, 2012)

20kidsonhill said:
			
		

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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?


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 1, 2012)

SDBoerGoats said:
			
		

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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/


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## SDBoerGoats (Jun 1, 2012)

20kidsonhill said:
			
		

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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.....


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 1, 2012)

SDBoerGoats said:
			
		

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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.


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 1, 2012)

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."


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## babsbag (Jun 1, 2012)

I think I am the person that has the CL+ does. I have 2. They have kidded 3 years, keep their kids on them, the kids test clean, and so do the kids kids. I have never had an abcess and have not vaccinated, my + does are not vaccinated for CL either. It has never been shown to pass through milk unless there is an internal abcess. A titer over 1:256 is a good indication that the goat has an internal abcesses. According to UC Davis a titer up to 1:128 can be seen in both positive and negative does, even though anything over 1:8 is considered positive. Mine are 1:16 and 1:32. 

As far as testing a meat herd...it is not all that uncommon in California. I know of at least 8 herds that test annually for CAE and CL; and I don't know a lot of breeders. Their herds are clean. A few of these also have dairy stock so they test those as well. I know of a few herds that are working on getting clean, and they do vaccinate. The biggest challenge is catching an abcess before it breaks and spreads in pens that your clean stock is in. 

It is a decision that each breeder has to make. If someone offered me a kid from a + doe and I trusted that person to tell me that there had been no abcesses that the kid was exposed to I would have no problem buying them. It is spread by direct contact with the exude of a abcess, or from the environment where abcesses have drained in the past.


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## SDBoerGoats (Jun 1, 2012)

babsbag said:
			
		

> I think I am the person that has the CL+ does. I have 2. They have kidded 3 years, keep their kids on them, the kids test clean, and so do the kids kids. I have never had an abcess and have not vaccinated, my + does are not vaccinated for CL either. It has never been shown to pass through milk unless there is an internal abcess. A titer over 1:256 is a good indication that the goat has an internal abcesses. According to UC Davis a titer up to 1:128 can be seen in both positive and negative does, even though anything over 1:8 is considered positive. Mine are 1:16 and 1:32.
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> As far as testing a meat herd...it is not all that uncommon in California. I know of at least 8 herds that test annually for CAE and CL; and I don't know a lot of breeders. Their herds are clean. A few of these also have dairy stock so they test those as well. I know of a few herds that are working on getting clean, and they do vaccinate. The biggest challenge is catching an abcess before it breaks and spreads in pens that your clean stock is in.
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> It is a decision that each breeder has to make. If someone offered me a kid from a + doe and I trusted that person to tell me that there had been no abcesses that the kid was exposed to I would have no problem buying them. It is spread by direct contact with the exude of a abcess, or from the environment where abcesses have drained in the past.


Thank you babs, yes it was you.  I almost got it all right! I was very interested that your does never had abscesses and their kids always tested negative. I don't quite understand the numbers yet, but I am looking at the blood tests on the does that were positive, and 3 of them were 1:128 and 2 of them were 1:64. So do you just test your does yearly and if so, has their numbers changed since the first time they were tested?


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## babsbag (Jun 1, 2012)

I do test them yearly and yes they have changed; one did anyways. It went from 1:16-1:32.

Here is the newsletter from UC Davis with some information about CL.

http://www.cahfs.ucdavis.edu/local-assets/pdfs/CAHFS Connection Small Ruminant edition final.pdf

The numbers are basically the number of times the blood has to be diluted before no trace of the antibodies are found in the sample. So the higher the number the more antibodies. The more antibodies the more exposure to CL. That is it in a nutshell.

As I stated before, if I ever have an abcess on a doe then some hard decisions will need to be made. I run my hands over them frequently to look for lumps.


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## Renegade (Jun 2, 2012)

We give all vaccines in the armpit except CL. A big breeder recommended to give the CL vaccine over the ribcage. We have not seen any reaction to it since we started doing this. 

Donna


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 2, 2012)

Renegade said:
			
		

> We give all vaccines in the armpit except CL. A big breeder recommended to give the CL vaccine over the ribcage. We have not seen any reaction to it since we started doing this.
> 
> Donna


I forgot about that, Thanks for reminding me. 

Do you give your CL and CD &T at the same time?  Not in the same place, just during the same time frame?


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## Renegade (Jun 3, 2012)

Hey 20kids,

In most cases we do give everything at the same time. We have a few does that can be difficult about needles and I would rather only fight with them once. I give Pneumonia and Cavalry 9 in the armpit. Then give the Case-Bac over the ribs. We have had good luck since we started doing it this way.
If we find a doe that seems a little depressed we will give them Banamine and they turn right around. We only had one doe (out of 24) last year that was a little off after vaccination.
We also give our big buck all of his vaccines at the same time and it has not phased him at all. He has even bred does the day after vaccinations with no problem.  

Donna


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## 20kidsonhill (Jun 3, 2012)

Renegade said:
			
		

> Hey 20kids,
> 
> In most cases we do give everything at the same time. We have a few does that can be difficult about needles and I would rather only fight with them once. I give Pneumonia and Cavalry 9 in the armpit. Then give the Case-Bac over the ribs. We have had good luck since we started doing it this way.
> If we find a doe that seems a little depressed we will give them Banamine and they turn right around. We only had one doe (out of 24) last year that was a little off after vaccination.
> ...


At what age are you vaccinating you kids? And are you vaccinating your does with all of that 30 Days before kidding?  
Thank you for sharing your experience.


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