The Plan

         
 

Living space:  I feel fortunate that we found out the status of Natasha early.  She shared living quarters with my adult goats for about 5 months and she never showed any clinical signs of the disease. Since an infected animal can periodically shed the disease,  I decided a serious barn cleaning was in order. The goats were taken to a pen Natasha didn’t frequent and my husband and I gutted the barn. We have a dirt floor so we dug out several inches of dirt with all of the old bedding. We then gave it a good layer of fresh bedding.  Ideally, we could cover it with a concrete floor, but funds were running a little low so we will have to make due. The "infected" bedding was taken to a compost area far away from our goats. We moved the hay feeder and mineral feeders up even higher to prevent hay from falling on the ground and the animals ingesting food from off the ground. The water buckets and food dishes were given a serious washing and I have made a commitment to clean out both as part of my daily routine.

Since the ground is about to freeze over in Wisconsin, our next step is going to be to create a few extra pens and fence off sections of the pasture. We will have to create pens where the adults have not been for the kids we expect this year.

A separate kidding pen will also need to be constructed. The kidding pen is going to need to be as clean as a barn can be. I am considering placing a tarp under a layer of hay. I hope that after a goat kids, we can remove all soiled bedding, clean the tarp and get ready for the next kidding.

 

 

Managing the Adults:      Step one in my approach to manage the adults was to assess the risk. There is still the possibility that my remaining goats could have been infected from the farms they grew up on and could also become active. Right now, all but one of the does  that  are due to kid this year have tested negative using  the ELISA blood test. Phoenix and Hazel are 2 yrs going on 3 and I am relatively confident they were not infected as kids.  Sunny was born on our farm with goats that were negative. ( we didn’t have Natasha at the time.) Sunny’s mother is still alive and in good condition. She was moved to a friend’s farm right before I purchased Natasha. 

Maddie has not been tested. She is under a year old and I plan to test her for her first birthday. Maddie was on our farm for about a week before I received the news about the tests.She was not exposed to the adults for more than a few minutes. (Oddly enough, Natasha attacked her the first day I got her so I decided to keep them separate, perhaps that will be her saving grace) She has been moved to a temporary farm until she gets a bit older. I hope to breed her in late December. That way she will be due for her test right before she is due to kid.

As far as  types of tests go, I plan to test all the does using the fecal PCR test. This test is much more sensitive than the blood test and for this first kidding. I want to be sure we start with off with as clean a slate as possible. If they are negative right before kidding I hope to alleviate any concern of transmitting Johne’s disease in utero, and they will be less likely to transmit any of the disease from their milk and colostrum. If any of the pregnant does test positive my husband and I have decided it is best to put the animal down before she gives birth. The stress from giving birth can be enough to prompt more frequent shedding and progress the infection in the animal and there is a possibility that the kids from a doe that tests positive will already be infected. This may seem extreme, but I I think its the best way to  stop the disease before it can be spread further.

 

Just a quick side note: It is not known if infected goat kids shed the bacterium when they are under a year old. It has been detected in the fecal matter of very young cows. The small amount that they do shed is a minimal risk to the other animals.

The management plan is going to be the same for our buck, Hoodie. I plan on testing him with a fecal PCR for his first birthday and will follow up on a yearly basis after that. If he has a positive he will have to be euthanized.

 

The Kids

When the does kid, they will be taken away from their dam as quickly as possible and bottle fed. Since we will only have test negative does I am comfortable using their milk and colostrum. All milk will be pasteurized using a home pasteurizer. When the kids are weaned, they will spend their time in a separate, disease free kid pen. I haven’t decided when they will be allowed to join the adult population. Based on the information I gathered from Mike, the time when the kids are the most at risk for infection is from birth to weaning. My concern with having them join the adult population too early is that they love to put everything in their mouths. I am a little concerned about the kids picking up infected matter from the ground and ingesting it. Since it is somewhat unclear when the kids are actually out of the “danger zone” I may wait until they are at least 6 months old before they can join the adults. If all the adults continue to test negative, that will be about a year after Natasha was removed from the herd.