Goat from possible CL herd

[rondam24]

I am considering purchasing an Ober/Alpine cross. The goat appears to be healthy and is in-milk, something I really wanted, and is easy to hand-milk. However, I am a little hesitant in buying her because the owner told us up front that some of her herd might have had CL. She's not positive though since she didn't test them.

The owner told us that the goat has been vaccinated with Case-Bac regularly. She's two years old and has never had an abcess. Could she still get one, even after being vaccinated?

I don't want to bring CL into our little herd-to-be (don't have any yet). Do you think it's okay to buy this goat or am I crazy for even considering it?

 

[mully]

I would not take chances ...I would not bring her home.

 

[()relics]

In my opinion...If any animals in the herd have tested positive for CL, you should assume that all the animals in the herd have been exposed and could show signs of the disease at anytime....I Would Not recomend buying any animal that has has been potentially exposed without a current negative test result...again JMO

 

[Roll farms]

If you feel her all over, especially in the head / groin / neck areas, and feel no, and I mean NO, lumps...and then bring her home.....and in 2 mos she starts to get a lump....

Would you be willing / able to take her out back and put her down?

If the answer is "No." then don't buy her, b/c there's no guarantees.

My CL positive doe (original spreader on our farm) came from a "clean" herd, AND with health papers...

I wasn't able to cull (kill) the does who caught it from her, so I'm still dealing with it. Vaccinating and isolating has went a long way toward cleaning it out, but we still have 2 old favorites who are positive, and they will live here until they either pass from old age or illness causes us to put them down.

I will say, "good on her" for being honest about it. Honest CL positive herd owners are few and far between.

 

[babsbag]

Couldn't you have a test done on the doe and if it comes back negative then she is cleared? She is old enough that she should give you a reliable test reading. Am I correct?

I have 2 does in my herd that have had a postive titer reading, but no abcesses. I know that it can also be internal. There readings were not high enough to indicate an active infection. I am monitoring the kids. At 5 months they all tested negative. We will test again this summer.

I can't have a vaccine made for my herd if I don't have any abcesses to make it from. That is good and that is bad, so that is kinda a no win as far as the vaccine goes. I don't want to give the generic one, I would rather have the custom one and get it right.

I guess though if the goat has been vaccinated she would have a positive titer so that might not work.

 

[Roll farms]

Take it from someone who spent the 300$ to have the vaccine made, then watch it run rampant in her herd....who then 'gave up' and tried the CS case bac....and had much better results.

Having it made ain't always the best.

 

[babsbag]

That is good to know. Maybe I will start to vaccinate. Do you see positive titers, or do you do the blood tests?

 

[Roll farms]

After 8 years, I don't bother to test...If / when I see a lump, I know who's positive.

I've yet to have a bottle raised kid or goat from the 'clean' pens come up w/ a lump.

Goats that I know I'm keeping forever, get vaccinated and live in 'gen. population', where the 2 positive does live. I think 2 does in the last several years (out of 20 or 30) have gotten a lump.

If there's a chance I may sell a goat (waiting to see their udders, or how they grow out) they live in the 'clean' area until I've decided to keep or sell them.

 

[cmjust0]

Someone mentioned internal abscesses... I remember reading some research at one point about the effectiveness of Case-Bac on goats..

After direct inoculation with CL, there were no external abscesses in like 80+% of the Case-Bac vaccinated herd, and the numbers for internal abscesses were actually better than for externals..

Of the control group, 100% developed external abscesses, but again...the number for internals was lower.

Point being, the chances of finding a goat with internal abscesses...in the absence of external abscesses!...would seem to me to be quite low.

But that's just me thinking..

 

[babsbag]

This is my story about CL. Sorry it is a little long. I would like to hear any thoughts or ideas.

Last year I had a doe (Cola) that had twins in May. I milked her and she was raising her kids. All was well, or so I thought. I had 2 other does, one with a kid, I was milking that doe as well. All the does came from the same place, are sisters, and I had owned them 1 year.

In Aug. I bought a buck and a wether, both were about 4 months old, the same age as my kids. Being a new goat owner I really didn't know about CL but I did know about CAE and the herd where I bought the new boys was clear.

In Sept. Cola had a hugh swollen jaw and was having problems eating. I took her to the vet and she asked me if I ever had any problems keeping weight on my doe (Johne's), and she asked me if I had ever seen any abcesses on her. My answer to both was "no". She pointed out a swollen lymph node that Cola had below her ear and said she suspected CL. Even though I had never seen any open abcesses she thought CL was brewing. I brought my other 7 goats in that day and had blood tests done. During that visit she spotted a swollen lymph node on the wether and again thought it was CL. She said that the new goats were probably the carrier and that I needed to get rid of the wether ( I didn't ) and seperate the buck (I would have soon anyways). We did talk about the incubation time being a little short, but still thought it was the likely source.

A few days later I had a sonogram done on her jaw and it showed a lump, which was a little obvious, but nothing really telling us why. She was started on an antibiotic and Banamine.

Within a week of the first vet visit Cola was dead. I was going to milk her out as she looked miserable, as I stopped milking her when she got sick. All I got from that milking was pus. I ran to TSC and started the mastitis treatment, she was already on an antibiotic and banamine. The next morning she was gone, it was that quick. I regret that I did not have a necropsy done, but I honestly thought that she had CL, but the tests results were not back yet. When the test came back as "negative" I didn't know what to think.

The tests on the boys and my 3 kids came back negative. One doe had a titer of 16, another had one of 32, and the one that was sick had one of 8, which is considered negative.

I started using a natural remedy called Life Cell Support by Amber Technologies which was supposed to cleanse the lymphatic system. Even though I knew my wether had a clear CL test I figured that it couldn't hurt. The swelling in the lymph node went away.

I talked to the people that I got my original 3 does from and they said that they had seen an abcess on one goat about 8 years ago, before my does were even born. That goat had only had one once, and they did not know if it was CL or not. They also raise sheep, but have never seen an abcess. Obviously my goats were exposed somewhere or they would not have had a positive titer, although it was low.

The home that my boys came from has since tested clear for CL. She got scared and had her herd tested, even with no outward signs.

I will test them all again this fall. I wanted to test earlier but time got away from me and when they were pregnant there was no sense in it since pregnancy supresses the immune system.

The original thought right after Cola died was that an internal abcess had ruptured, but the titer showed that that was not the case. She obviously didn't have an active CL infection. We do not know what caused her to die so quickly. I really really regret not getting a necropsy since we can have them done at no cost in California.

It was a sad time, that is for sure, and I always hate dealing with the unknown.

I hope that it is true that you seldom have internal abcesses without external ones. That would be really good news.