04/04/10

OUR HERD HEALTH STATUS

Thank you for choosing Slate Brook Farm and making Slate Brook Farm myotonics part of your family.  It is understood that knowledgeable goat buyers are very interested in the health status of the goats they are buying.  Our goal is to produce healthy, structurally correct myotonics with great dispositions.  Our approach at Slate Brook Farm and our status with each disease is discussed below. 

Slate Brook Farm aims for a disease-free herd.  Myotonics do have a good resistance to parasites and disease, making them easy to maintain and on the way to becoming a very desirable and sought after breed!  Along with sensible health management, these goats  are also calm and well-natured.  All you need is hay,  water, grain and an occassional animal cookie and they will be most grateful.  We are dedicated to preserving this wonderful breed and helping them become the best they can be.  

Caprine Arthritis Encephalomyelitis (CAE)is usually transmitted through milk from the dams to kids.  Tennessee Myotonic Goats are a low-risk breed unless housed with other goats, or are part of an embryo transfer program involving dairy does.  To further ensure that our herd is healthy, we had our herd tested in Spring 2008.  We are pleased that our results show that none of our herd carry CAE.   We will be blood testing biannually for CAE at the recommendation of our veterinarian to continue the provide assurance that our herd is healthy.

Footrot is a bacterial disease that is usually brought in with newly acquired goats.  We have never had a case of footrot.  As we purchased our goats they were quarantined for 30 days and foot trimmed until we were sure that we were not introducing the bacteria into our farm. 

Caseous Lymphadenitis (CL) – is a bacterial disease that causes abscesses.  It lasts in the environment up to 6 months, and the incubation in an exposed goat can be up to a few years but it is usually 6 months or less.  We have not tested our herd but were careful in our selection and feel very confident we do not have this organism on our farm.

Pinkeye organisms can survive in a herd, though, and infection may break out when goats from different herds are mixed together.  While we have never had a case of pink eye on our farm and there is no test to show if the organism exists in our herd.  We feel confident we are at low-risk for pink eye. 

Contagious Ecthyma (soremouth) is a viral disease that causes proliferative, crusting lesions, the majority of which occur on the mucocutaneous junctions of the mouth and nose.  Lesions also may occur on other areas of the body, especially the udders of females nursing affected young.  We have never had a case of soremouth and now that our herd is closed we are confident that we are low-risk for this disease.

We manage our parasites minimally.  Animals are generally dewormed before kidding, and then on basis of the FAMACHA system.  We are trying to avoid making worms resistant to wormers.  We have never had goats show signs of the meningeal deer worm that causes brain or spinal damage. 

We have not had any cases of pneumonia.
 

We have never documented an infectious cause of abortion on the farm from 2005-2010.

Our goats are routinely vaccinated for “CD&T” at age 4 weeks and a booster given at 8 weeks and then revaccinated annually.

Scrapie is a slow infectious disease known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) found in sheep and occasionally in goats.  It is an afebrile, chronic, progressive, degenerative disorder of the central nervous system.  The disease has no effective treatment and is considered fatal.  It is also a reportable disease that results in depopulation of affected flocks.  Slate Brook Farm has registered with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) identification program but is not certified.  Each animal is given an identification number and records are kept on each animal.  We feel goats are such a low risk for scrapie unless housed with sheep that certification is not necessary at this time.   

Johne's Disease is an insidious bacterial disease that causes chronic wasting and diarrhea. This usually occurs in middle-aged animals, although the course of the disease varies considerably and it should be considered whenever a goat has chronic wasting. Johne's is generally spread from a dam to her kids. The disease can spread to older animals but with much more difficulty than to youngsters a few days old. The most susceptible time period is the short time span right after birth, and the environment needs to be heavily contaminated so that oral exposure occurs. Infected does generally have the organism on their udders, which is how the kids get an early and infectious exposure. The organism can last in soil up to a year, which represents a certain but low risk in extensive pasture-based systems. This is in contrast to more closely housed dairy situations (especially cattle) where significant environmental contamination is assured throughout most facilities, and most youngsters are closely housed in confined groups.  The tests for Johne's disease all have drawbacks, but are useful if used appropriately. The AGID blood test is very specific, meaning that animals that are positive by this are nearly all infected. This test does miss some infected goats, however. The ELISA blood test, in contrast, picks up more of the infected animals (not all) but also tends to pick up as positive some that are not infected, especially if they have been exposed to or vaccinated for Caseous Lymphadenitis. There is also a fecal test that can take up to 14 weeks to complete depending on which method is used (there is a liquid test and a solid test). A negative fecal test is not definitive as the animal can be shedding the bacteria intermittently, or not shedding at all when they are not exhibiting symptoms. A positive fecal test, however, is considered the "gold standard" in testing for Johne's, meaning a positive fecal test result means the animal is infected. The status of the tests is important to consider when evaluating the status of a herd - a negative test coming from a herd with a number of positives is much less reassuring than a negative test coming from a herd of all negatives. Animals are also only likely to be positive by either test if actually shedding the organisms. So, an animal with an early, non-contagious case may well be negative and then become positive only later as it develops the clinical disease and becomes infectious. It is therefore important to evaluate test results on the basis of the entire herd and not only the individuals in the herd. In addition, testing should be done regularly so that those animals that convert to positive status late are culled prior to becoming overly contagious.  To further ensure that our herd is healthy, we had our herd tested in Spring 2008.  We are pleased that our results show that none of our herd carry Johnes.  We will be blood testing bianually for Johnes at the recommendation of our veterinarian to continue the provide assurance that our herd is healthy.

We advise all customers to have their animals tested on a routine basis to verify that none of the more insidious diseases have been unknowingly brought into their herd, especially if they are buying from multiple sources.  Our herd was carefully selected from other respected breeders whose herds were negative or at low-risk for any of the disease listed above.