Posted by Maggie on January 06, 2001 at 06:40:55:
In Reply to: Goat Testing posted by StacyM on January 05, 2001 at 19:22:49:
Johne's disease is an incurable wasting disease. It affects the small intestinal wall making it become thicker and unable to absorb nutrients. The infected goats continue to eat normally but still waste away. Kids can get it from their dams or through fecal contamination (accidentally eating feces). Adults get it through fecal contamiation of feed troughs, water sources or pasture. It usually starts to show symptoms in older animals, 3 to 5 years. By then though they have been shedding the organism for some time in their feces and comtaminated the barn and pastures. It can live in the ground for years and is very hardy and resistant. CL is caseous lymphadenitis an extremely contagious disease that causes external and internal abcesses on the lymph nodes. The abscess is filled with a cheesy whitish to yellowish material. This disease is contagious to humans. Both diseases can be tested for by blood testing, but a fecal culture is more accurate for Johne's disease. We test our herd for all of these, as our pygmies are expected to be pets and live a long, disease free life. There is at leat one good website on Johne's, Can't remember the URL. Does anyone have that one?