# CAE, breeding, mixing breeds, and buck questions...



## romanad (Sep 22, 2012)

Hi! Well I have a lot on my mind as you can tell from the title. We've had a lot going on here. First, to make a long story short, my neighbor and I both bought goats from the same farm this past summer. They were bottle babies for CAE prevention. These are very sweet goats. The place we bought them from told us they do have one doe that is CAE positive, but they bottle raise all the kids anyway so it shouldn't be a problem. Well my neighbor decided to test hers, and she's CAE positive. It was a big shock, but then after we got that news we kind of heard through the grapevine that they have a bigger problem with CAE than they say. So I got mine tested as well and we are waiting on the results. That leads me to my first question: if my goat from that farm ends up being negative, should I breed her with a buck from that farm, or could she possibly catch CAE as an STD? If she doesn't have it I don't want to risk her health with breeding to a goat who could have it. 

Secondly, my doe I have who is pregnant now is a mini-mancha (and she is CAE neg). The thought crossed my mind to wait and see if she gives me a little buckling, and then I could breed my other doe next year with her buckling. But what would a mini-mancha mixed with a full size Alpine/Togg create? Would it just be too strange? What would the ears look like?

And finally, my buck question. I've been thinking maybe it would just be best if I had my own buck so I could know his history and health and so forth. It seems like a lot of work for just a few does, but if it means not having to worry about certain diseases, I might consider it. So, would it be best to get a Nigerian Dwarf so he could breed the minis and full size? I guess I could get a mini-mancha if the mix wouldn't be too strange. And should his buddy be another buck or a wether? I'm not totally sold on getting a buck yet, so if you have any experiences to share about getting/keeping a buck, please share!

One more thing about the CAE. From what we have read, we do not want to breed CAE positive goats. Do you agree with this? And what should be done with a CAE positive goat who shows no symptoms? Is it ok to let them be with the negative goats and just keep them as pets? I'm guessing since it seems to mostly spread through milk, as long as they aren't bred, other goats shouldn't be able to catch it, right? 

Thank you so much!


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## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

ok there's a lot of information in there and a lot of questions so I'll try to write in some sort of order and logic. 

Re the CAE + doe. You are correct in that it generally spreads through milk, second most common is through blood, and there are suggestions but no proof that there is a very small chance it could spread via other body secretions eg. saliva, snot, urine, semen. Generally speaking, it is reasonably safe to house a positive, non milking doe with negatives, and this is what I would do if she is just a pet; you can simply monitor her and put her down when she becomes symptomatic and it affects her quality of life. However, if you want to breed from her (and raise kids on CAE prevention), show offspring or other members of the herd, or are not prepared to do whole herd testing yearly, she is best separated, or even put down.

Re the other doe from the CAE farm. I hope she is negative for you. It could be that the CAE prevention they were practicing wasnt exactly good enough or strict enough, in which case I would worry that the second one will be +ve too. However, there is a small number that contract it in utero, so even when you are snatching kids and rearing on replacer etc you can still sometimes get +ve kids, which might have happened in this case if their prevention management was up to scratch. 

Re breeding to a buck from a CAE +ve herd. Theoretically it should be ok, since CAE is not known to spread readily through mediums other than milk and blood. However, I wouldnt risk it UNLESS the +ve goats were housed separately to the -ve ones and the buck had a recent -ve test. It is not generally known to be an STD though. 

Re keeping your own buck. It just isnt worth it for only a couple of goats. Bucks are difficult to house, can be difficult to handle, eat a lot and dont produce a whole lot in return. There's also the consideration as to whether your mini-mancha is worthy of keeping an intact buck kid. Then if you did that he couldnt go over his mum so you would need to find another buck etc. If you only have a few goats it really is best just to take them to an outside buck for breeding. 

Re breeding +ve CAE goats. You are correct, this is something you do not want in your herd. If dairy goats are scare to come by in your area, or the +ve doe is an outstanding example of the breed, you might consider breeding from her and raising kids on CAE prevention. However, I believe in most cases the CAE +ve individual is usually just a run of the mill goat, and there are plenty of other good quality healthy animals out there. 

Hope that helps.


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## romanad (Sep 22, 2012)

Thank you, that does help. I'm trying to make sure I have everything straight and that I am handling things the right way. I was just about ready to breed her. I had picked out the buck and everything. I don't want to risk getting mine sick and I certainly don't want to produce possibly sick kids, so I'm glad my neighbor found this out when she did. 

Thank you for your advice on the buck. I still don't know a lot about what is good and what is bad in a goat, so I don't know if I could tell if her bucklings would be worth keeping. She is registered, and her buck was registered, but I'm still not sure exactly what that means really. We aren't planning on showing, we just want the milk for family use, and I enjoy having the goats. But like you said, we couldn't use him for her anyway, so it really wouldn't be worth it. When you take a doe to get bred, is it okay to ask to see health papers? 

Your advice on what to do with the CAE positive one is very helpful. I should get the results for mine any day now. After that my neighbor and I are going to sit down and decide what to do. We don't want to risk any others getting CAE, so we need to decide if it is worth the risk to keep them as pets. It sounds like minimal risk, but my neighbor was even saying what if we clipped hooves too far on a positive one and got some bleeding, or something like that, and then our others would be at risk. So...that just got me wondering. I was thinking it would be fine to keep them together. Hmm.


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## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

Yep theres definitely a risk. If she cuts herself on the fencr. If she is in milk and leaks milk on the ground. Etc. 

Absolutely you can ask for proof.of herd health when breeding yiur doe to another buck. I require any does wanting to be mated to my buck to have a current (eithin a year) negativr test for ae and johnes


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## ThreeHavens (Oct 20, 2011)

If my favorite little doe was to get CAE, I would separate her with a wether son and she would live out her life with him, apart from the breeding herd, as long as she was comfortable.


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

CAE isn't something anyone wants for their herd, I would not take that risk, to the rest of my herd. CAE makes the goats life very painful and is so crippling at a young age. This is just how I feel about this. But other breeders, can make a decision, whether or not to keep them.


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## clearwtrbeach (May 10, 2012)

I personally agree with Pam on this. I am limited on space so I also don't have room to separate a + animal. I also couldn't swear beyond a reasonable doubt that someone may kid while I'm standing there to grab the kid before even a sip of colostrum. Things do come up, running 10 min to pick up a child from school would be my luck that is when it would happen. I personally (since I'm not just having pets) wouldn't buy from a farm that had a + CAE/CL/ or Johnee goat- again that's just me- if I just wanted a few pets that would be totally different.


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## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

WAIT WAIT WAIT...Romanad, how old are these kids? If they were fed heat-treated milk from a positive doe, chances are they will test positive _even if they are negative_. You have to wait till all the antibodies from the milk leave their body before the test will be accurate. I believe 6 months is considered the cutoff point.


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## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

I assumed they were at least a yr old since she is ready to mate. But good point.


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## romanad (Sep 22, 2012)

Milkmaid, my neighbor's goat (who we were not going to breed this year) is 6 months old. Mine is 9 months old. So maybe the six month old should be tested again when she's older? It sure would be great it it was a false negative. I don't know if that is too much to hope for. If mine ends up negative then maybe we will test the other again just to be sure. 

I like your idea, woodhavenfarm, but I am not currently set up to easily separate the goats. We only have females that we were hoping to eventually breed. The positive goat and my goat are best buds. But I agree with many of you that it isn't worth the risk. I was talking with someone who had a pet goat many years ago, and she was fairly certain her goat had CAE, though she didn't know it at the time. The poor animal was lame in one back leg and hobbled around and she just treated him as best as she could until he just got too bad. It was very sad, and I don't want to have that in my small herd and I don't want to produce possibly sick kids. Toth boer goats, I totally agree, and I don't want to risk getting all my animals sick and having them all suffer like that.

clrwtrbeach, I'm in the same situation. I have a toddler and I can't always be down with the goats at a moment's noticee.

I just wish the results would come in. The vet told me it usually took a week, and it has been 10 days now. I might call him tomorrow if I don't hear anything. He said it could go slower because the mail is slower this time of year, but right now, this is all I can think about!

I'm thinking that maybe someone who just wants pets or "weed eaters" might be ok with a CAE positive goat, so maybe we could try to rehome the positive goat? She isn't showing any signs of it at all, so she could live a happy life at least for a while.


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## MsScamp (Feb 1, 2010)

keren said:


> You are correct in that it generally spreads through milk, second most common is through blood, and there are suggestions but no proof that there is a very small chance it could spread via other body secretions eg. saliva, snot, urine, semen.
> 
> Re breeding to a buck from a CAE +ve herd. Theoretically it should be ok, since CAE is not known to spread readily through mediums other than milk and blood. However, I wouldnt risk it UNLESS the +ve goats were housed separately to the -ve ones and the buck had a recent -ve test. It is not generally known to be an STD though.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately, CAE is a non-discriminatory disease that does not limit itself to 'run of the mill' goats. While I cannot provide links to prove it, I can tell you that it is spread by semen. I purchased 21 head of does - some bred, some open - from 3 different sources some time back and made the mistake of putting a buck that was not mine in with several of the open does. Several months later the buck was sold, his new owner had him tested for CAE, and he tested positive. Roughly a year after that, I had 3 does showing all the symptoms of CAE - all of which had been bred by this particular buck. Every one of these does came from different owners, and had nothing in common EXCEPT for the fact that they had been bred by this particular buck. All 3 of them were put down, their kids were sold, my herd was closed, and I have had no problems with CAE since. Are you going to tell me it was coincidence?


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## clearwtrbeach (May 10, 2012)

Goat Crazy, wow I'm sorry that happened, although thank you for sharing.


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## clearwtrbeach (May 10, 2012)

On the subject of CAE/CL/Johnne-- not a problem for us- but curious for maybe someone who has had a problem. If someone had an animal test positive and removed the animal, would bleaching work. IE- of course a large pasture would not be feasible; but if they had a smaller type area- could they go through the time, effort and expense and use a bleach water on EVERYTHING including the ground??? Obviously the bleach would taint the ground and you wouldn't want goats in there at that time- but would it work for someone who maybe had to find a solution???
Just a thought.


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## MsScamp (Feb 1, 2010)

clearwtrbeach said:


> someone had an animal test positive and removed the animal, would bleaching work. IE- of course a large pasture would not be feasible; but if they had a smaller type area- could they go through the time, effort and expense and use a bleach water on EVERYTHING including the ground??? Obviously the bleach would taint the ground and you wouldn't want goats in there at that time- but would it work for someone who maybe had to find a solution???
> Just a thought.


Bleach and water, Lysol and water, and most other disinfectants will kill bacteria on feeders, fences, waterers, etc., but when they come in contact with manure they are rendered ineffective. Learned that when my herd started aborting a couple of years ago and I discovered they had Q Fever. At least I've got most of the major issues out of the way!  Ag lime is a good disinfectant that does not seem to be negated by manure. The only drawback that I have found is that it is hard on the goats feet.


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## cybercat (Oct 18, 2007)

Hmm I was going to suggest AI for breeding. But if they facts are wrong on transmisson of and it does cross threw semen then it would not be worth it.


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