Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis (CAE) is caused by a
pathogenic virus. The virus can be tested for with a simple $4 blood test. The
virus can be prevented from spreading by separating newborn kids from infected
moms, feeding the kids heat-treated or cow colostrum, and then bottle feeding
them pasteurized milk until weaning. It’s cheap and it’s simple to test and
prevent CAE so why do many goat owners allow their goats to live untested and
allow them to continue to spread the virus?
The first reason is most people do not know what CAE is.
They are new to goats or haven’t heard about the virus. Many meat goat growers
do not know about CAE because due to its subclinical nature, it does not cause
economic losses in the meat goat industry and thus can be ignored. The dairy goat
industry pays more attention to CAE because dairy goats typically live longer
than meat goats and the chances of showing clinical symptoms of CAE are
increased with age. Most pet goat owners or hobby farmers do not know about CAE
because they haven’t been educated about it.
The second reason people ignore CAE is because there are a
lot of myths about what it truly is. Any time you post a question about CAE on
an internet goat forum you will get a barrage of BS by people who insist that
CAE isn’t a big deal or that it doesn’t need to be prevented or that it doesn’t
exist.
A third reason is CAE is a very subclinical disease. One
statistic I have read is that 70-80% of the goats in the world carry the virus;
10% of those goats will die from it. A 10% fatality rate is pretty low when
compared to other more deadly diseases. CAE is an immune deficiency virus. It
operates much like HIV. Many people carry HIV but do not have AIDS. The same is
true for goats. Many goats carry the CAE virus but do not die from it. Does the
low fatality rate of CAE make it okay for goats to live untested and able to
spread the virus? Does the fact that not all cases of HIV turn into AIDS make
it okay for more people to become infected? Sounds pretty ridiculous when you
consider it that way.
The fourth reason is that people simply say “My goats look
healthy, so they must BE healthy”. Again, because CAE is highly subclinical,
people do not associate goats that “look” healthy with goats actually carrying
a pathogenic virus and spreading it. I was of this camp for a long time. I
assumed that since my dairy goats looked healthy, had kids and gave milk
normally, and didn’t have any symptoms commonly associated with CAE, that the
MUST be healthy. Well, I was terribly wrong. When I finally tested my herd for
CAE, every single goat was positive! I have seen this happen time and time
again to people who test their herds for the first time. They assume their
goats will be uninfected, only to find out that most, if not all, of the goats
are actually infected.
A final reason people ignore CAE is that the classic,
documented CAE symptoms are similar to symptoms caused by other goat diseases.
CAE can cause arthritis in the front knees, but not all arthritis is because of
CAE. I have seen goats with cracking knees and other arthritic symptoms that
tested negative for the virus. CAE can cause sudden encephalitis and death in
kids. Well, so can most other fatal kid diseases. CAE can cause hard udders at
freshening. This can also be caused by mastitis and udder edema. Of course, I
wonder if the actual number of CAE positive goats who succumb to the virus is actually
a lot higher than 10% because of symptom/causal confusion. Many goat owners do
not have post mortem examinations or necropsies performed on their goats so there
is rarely confirmation of cause of death beyond the owner looking at the
symptoms and drawing a straight line to the most logical cause. Also arthritis
and hard udders aren’t typically fatal. They can both be mitigated and the goat
can live just fine. Thus people don’t always take the next step from symptom
treatment to looking for the cause, which is often the CAE virus.
Bottom line – CAE is a disease that can cause illness in
goats. Your goat may not die from CAE but your goat’s health may be impacted
dramatically. Why would anyone spend time, energy and money caring for their
goats, only to have them be potentially sick from an easy to test for and easy
to prevent viral pathogen??? It is not acceptable to pretend that CAE is not a
big deal and that CAE infection status does not need to be documented in every
goat.
Please test your goats for CAE and please take the necessary
precautions to stop its spread.
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