Response to C.A.E.

Both CAE and CL (abcesses) are virus's. I do not believe that CAE is transmitted through breeding. It is transmitted through the colostrum and milk. (Buck we put down last year, bred CAE positive does for 9 years and was still negative at 10). CL is worse. It is not only transmitted through the colostrum and milk but it also infects your intire property, it can stay on wooden feeders for years to infect your next goats. Goats who have external knots, are usually riddled with internal ones also. Once she gets one near her heart or liver she will die from the abcess. My advice on your herd, Jean would be to start yourself a new herd for your girls to show, with your babies born out of your does you have now. As your does kid, take the doe kids away who you catch before they nurse and raise them on heat treated colosturm and pasturized milk. Perhaps in a nice new area on the farm that is not traveled by goats now. CAE testing both at Washington and Pan American, in Austin, TX. both have the same problem. Unless the doe is shedding the titer at a high enough rate, the test will be negative. CL tests are worse because the only way you know a doe is positive is to have the material in the abcess cultured for CL. We had a doe with an abcess, test neg. on blood and colostrum, and positive on material from the abcess. There is always controversy on goat information, because we don't have the tests, or funding to prove anything. I simply don't allow goats who I have not physically delivered, access to my show herd. I do not believe any of the sneeze, cough, mucous spread, I do believe that goats will catch CAE from licking other's placentas, at delivery, why we use maternity pens. I also believe that we all have CAE neg. does at our places who are positive, just not a high enough titer to show up on test. They infect their kids through the placenta, just like a mom who is HIV positive gives it to her child through the placenta. This is where funding for CAE needs to go, tweaking the tests so that we have an HIV test for CAE, we need to know before the doe turns "full blown CAE". Jean, you may want to test for CAE, but what are you going to do with the positive does? What about the ones who test negative? Are they really negative or perhaps just not stressed enough for the titer to rise? And now you are sorry you asked!!!! Vicki (We whole herd test annually, mostly for the buyers, I sell only tested negative does, and I am very upfront about my CAE beliefs. I have been showing for 10 years and I show 3 Nubians, in all of that 10 years that don't carry my herd name. With the purchase of a new doe kid from SAADA in Wyoming, she will be number 4. I do purchase outside bucks from herds who I have a good knowledge of their herd and their management.)

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