CAEV–Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis Virus

This is a condition that was almost eradicated in Tasmania a few years back. According to a reliable source, because Tasmania no longer exports goats for meat, the Tasmanian State Government abandoned its CAEV program and allowed a herd of CAEV positive Saanen into the north of the state. Now we have to deal with the virus through careful farm management and quarantining process. Even when we are sure that the farm that our new goat comes from is CAEV free.
CAEV is a disease that will kill a goat. It does it slowly, and painfully. The goat will suffer from swelling of the joints until they are rendered lame. Also, the goat may suffer hardening of the lungs and or stomach this will show as a persistent coughing and sneezing in the goat as well as poor appetite and a failure to thrive. The encephalitis part of the virus causes abnormal growth in the animals’ brain with far greater white matter in the brain than normal. This is shown by the goat being unresponsive, passive and eventually death.
Personally, I cannot accept that our State Government does not have a suitable response to this disease as it affects the viability of the dairy goat, meat, and textile industries in Tasmania. In my opinion, the State Government (DPIW Tasmania) should seek to destroy animals with that are CAEV positive and compensate the farmer. In this way, the farmer would not be financially set-back by the eradication of the disease and we can work toward a CAEV free state.
With a dairy goat’s productive lifespan being much longer than that of a meat goat, CAEV impacts the dairy goat industry much harder than the meat goat industry. In meat goats, the animal may be sold as chevon well before the goat every shows signs of CAEV, so it may never be discovered without an annual blood test (about $35 per animal).
I am now going to step away from the soap-box … I can feel my blood boiling … sorry about that.

Building a Quarantine Pen

Good farm practice gives that the goat-herd quarantines all new herd members for a period of time. There are a couple of considerations here that need to be addressed.
1. Goats are herd animals and separation from the flock is a distressing time for a goat;
2. Goats kept in close confinement are more likely to graze (close crop vegetation) rather than browse (a goats preferred eating style);
3. Grazing goats are more likely to acquire intestinal parasites;
When planning a quarantine area for goats, you need to make sure that you provide the space for the goats to be able to browse rather than graze, so an area of approximately 8sq meters per goat is sufficient if the goat is provided with plenty of hay and grain to supplement their paddock vegetation.
The quarantine area needs to be within proximity of the rest of the herd so that the goat(s) are able to communicate with the rest of the herd. It is recommended that quarantined animals are separated by double fences with an area of at least 2 meters between the two areas.
If you are going to keep goats, it is also a good idea to keep a microscope and learn how to perform simple faecal parasite load testing. This is something that I am learning at the moment, and I will be reporting on this technique in a later newsletter. Basically, you are taking some fresh goat berries, breaking the faeces up in alcohol and then counting the number of cooties in the poo through a microscope. All goats have parasites in their faeces. It is only when the number of parasites get very high that your goat will suffer.
I have started to build a quarantine pen that will provide two 3 x 6 m pens with shelter food and water. This will allow me to quarantine two goats at a time for as long as is needed. The reason that I am allowing for two goats at a time is that I have an immediate need to separate my older goat (Holly) from my new goat (Minnie). My two goats need to be quarantined for 60 days before I get them blood tested again for CAEV. Both Holly and Minnie are from the same goat stud, and are very unlikely to have come with the virus. Holly may have picked up the virus from Mille (the British Alpine), but that is also a low probability. Having said that, I am not going to fool myself into believing that Holly is not infected with CAEV.