The following is an article I wrote a couple of years ago about my own experiences with the disease. The last of the "positive herd were destroyed early in 2003.

Sunday, 17 February 2002

My Experiences with CRV formerly known as CAE

In 1993 I purchased 32 adult milking goats and 20 goatlings all from a couple that were getting out of the industry. There were also 4 kids, 2-4 months of age, one of which I named Lulu and she is now the oldest of my goats. At the time, I had heard of CAE but had been led to believe it was not a problem, not a disease to worry about. I already had 3 pet goats and a little feral doe that I had been given (another story).

Within the first few months I noticed a couple of goats with swollen knees and by the end of a year I realized I had to eradicate the disease. It appeared to be only affecting a few goats and in the begining of my goat dairying days, money was very tight. In early 1995 I finally had enough money to test all the goats I wanted to keep kids from, none of which had any symptoms of CAE.

I was shocked to get the results back and find that the only negatives were my pet goats and the feral. By this time several goatlings had kidded with enormous "hard Udders" and no milk and the few adults who had swollen knees were now wasting away. This was obviously not a commercially viable disease to have present in my herd. Any stress could trigger the symptoms, in particular kidding, so that the doe would not produce the milk expected either because of wasting, mastitis or pain.

Not fully comprehending the work ahead of me, I embarked on a program of "snatching" kids. At that point in time, I only kept kids from does doing 750 litres or more in 300 days. These does were kept fairly close to the house during the last month of pregnancy and for the next 5 years I stayed close to them ie. even grocery shopping was worked in around the goats kidding. If a good goat looked as though kidding was imminent, the groceries had to wait.

We have no school bus run where we live and I therefore had to take my son to and from school every day, which on occasion was a very fast trip. Luckily we only live 10 minutes from town. It was at times like these that my husband also had to do some "snatching". I can remember many times when he would come and watch a goat so that I could have a meal.

I once tried taping up a goats teats to prevent the kids sucking but when I took the tape off after a couple of days, (she still had not kidded) the skin underneath was all whitish like when you've had a bandaid on too long. I decided this was probably a good way to encourage mastitis and gave it a miss.

Luckily most goats kid during the day time. I probably only get a few a year that kid through the night. From memory, I missed only four kiddings (and two of them were the same goat 2 years in a row!). There may have been a couple of others who only had bucks and I've forgotten about. The worst kidding time was actually at milking time because they would always manage to get themselves where you couldn't see them from the dairy and until last year I did all the milking on my own, so I would have to duck in and out of the dairy to check them, grab any doe kids, clean up and go back to milking until the next kid was born.

I always tried to feed the kids within 2 hours of birth and back then believed I had to feed them 4-5 times a day. I was a nursing sister before starting (and during the first couple of years) goat dairying and tended to do things the way they were done for humans. I also made sure udders were stripped soon after kidding to aid uterine contractions, if no bucks were born. The kids were fed cow colostrum from a dairy about 10 minutes drive away. The couple who owned the dairy happily poured the colostrum into 2 litre plastic milk bottles that I provided so that I could get the milk home and frozen. They did this for several years- what wonderful people!

Management of the herd simply involved a mesh fence with a single electric wire between the infected goats and the "clean" herd. Also milking the infected herd last after changing the grain troughs in the bales ie. the infected goats had their own grain troughs. Both herds used the same laneways to get to and from the dairy. The infected herd received vaccinations and drenches last.

Testing was carried out mostly on a basis of when finances were available. This was about every 9-12 months but aimed at the period when most of the young goats were over 6 months of age and the pregnant does were yet to kid. Some test results were inexplicable, such as Lulu who has always had a negative test but was kept with the "positive" herd and has had kids snatched because her dam, on whom she had been reared, was positive. I have probably "snatched" a couple of hundred kids and only 3 ever became positive. One of these was about to kid for the 2nd time when she had a positive test. She was born in 1995 and her twin always remained negative. Another was about the same age and was born 1/1/96 (I remember it well after a "happy" New Year's Eve) and the last one was a goatling born in 1999 who we destroyed.

In 2000, I finally allowed newborn kids to suck on their dams, in the clean herd. On occasion a doe will decide she doesn't like her own kids or a different doe steals them. These kids receive colostrum from a doe other than their dam and have it written in their records from whom they received it, in case in the future I get any positive tests.

I still have 4 "positive" goats left (out of 220) and only 1 of these has actually had a positive test at age 5. The rest were still negative. They are all goats who sucked on positive dams before I first tested. Why do I keep them? They are the top goats in my herd for consistency. All their daughters have also proven to be top milkers.

I must add here (while I'm on a roll) that I think it should be illegal to feed "pooled" milk. Every bacteria, virus etc, that any animal contributing to that pool has, can be transferred to EVERY kid (or calf, lamb etc.) that is fed from that pool. My advice to all of you is never feed "pooled" milk, it may save time now but you may pay for it later.

Also be very wary of purchasing animals, even from accredited herds. Don't allow any new diseases into your herd as they will all decrease your production in some way.