As regularly as clockwork, new medical discoveries and information from research issues forth from research laboratories across the country. These are snapped up by the media, and rapidly find their way into articles in the popular press. Doubtless the older readers can remember many of the medical fads and fancies that have come and gone through the years--from Fletcherism (chew each mouthful 40 times before swallowing) to the national flu vaccine, cholesterol and the avoidance of saturated fats, jogging, aerobic exercises, Laetrile, and AIDS. This is no less true for goats as it is for humans. One gets the impression that for the media, or the authorities, or both, there must be some value in keeping the human population constantly preoccupied with some new health threat and/or modification in diet and lifestyle. Whether this is done innocently by the media to increase sales of newspapers and magazines, or deliberately to distract us from the real problems of our planet (overpopulation, degradation and destruction of the environment, increasing health hazards due to pollution, the threat of nuclear war, depletion of all resources, massive government intrusion into our lives and loss of freedoms, etc.) is less important than the fact that this barrage of bad news tempered by the things we should do to counter these threats has a definite effect on the citizens of the world. It causes the uninformed (which is most of us; we can't all be health and/or medical experts) to react somewhat blindly, following the advise of the experts. There are even jokes about the diseases that are currently 'fashionable' to have in one's own family or goat herd or both! As of 1996, C.A.E. virus and Caseous lymphadenitis are certainly two such!

The C.A.E. virus is no laughing matter--we would not suggest that for a moment. In fact, no disease of humans or animals is; though obviously the severity of some diseases is much greater than others. However, concern about CAE has grown all out of proportion to its severity and incidence, and some suggestions for controlling it appear quite ludicrous when we view the problem from the broader perspective of overall health.

All human and animal bodies contain myriad wonderful defense mechanisms to protect against the constant barrage of bacteria, viruses and other organisms that are an in- escapable fact of life. Billions of these 'germs' assault each and every one of us every moment of every day, and the effectiveness of our many defense mechanisms is shown by the general state of our health--only infrequently are we overwhelmed by some invaders, and become ill.

Illness can be basically divided into three categories--(1) accidents and injuries, (2) metabolic diseases, usually caused or exacerbated by poor or improper nutrition, and (3) the diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and other agents. Accidents will happen, and there is little we can do about them save to be observant, take care, and try to eliminate the dangers in our environment. We could do a lot about nutrition, but social and cultural customs, the fantastically persuasive powers of the media and of advertising, the spread of misinformation and the phenomena of faddism all combine to keep us in a state of malnourishment, even in the so-called 'best-fed' countries in the world--let alone the third world whose primary problem is sheer starvation. The body is equipped to deal with these types of illnesses in a variety of ways--it contains repair mechanisms to heal injuries, and compensatory mechanisms to help against malnutrition, though eventually these will all be overwhelmed if the quality as well as the quantity of nutrition and/or medical care is not high enough.

It is true that individuals may have genetic 'errors' that make them more susceptible to nutritional insufficiencies, or metabolic or pathogenic diseases. Little can be done about these. If the missing elements can be identified and then supplied in adequate amounts, or repair of malformed tissues performed, life may be maintained, though the wisdom of possibly perpetuating these by breeding is open to serious question.

That leaves diseases caused by germs.

Exposure to disease-causing pathogens causes the body to build up blood titers to these. Blood titers are a measure of exposure–they indicate that at some point, the animal has been exposed to specific pathogenic organisms. A high titer may be seen during the clinical course of an illness; aside from that, the higher the titer seen in an animal that is not clinically ill means either that animal has a high level of resistance, and therefore of protection; or that the animal is undergoing exposure and is engaged in battling the invaders. When we vaccinate an animal, we are, hopefully, building up strong titers, without giving the animal the disease we are vaccinating against!

Science is still engaged in research on aspects of disease--why some animals can be carriers of diseases and never come down with them; and can carry and transmit diseases to other completely different species. Measuring blood titers to every disease is not always possible or practical. Scientists do not like to make definite, positive statements unless and until the evidence from research is overwhelmingly in agreement. This sometimes causes them to appear to be 'wishy-washy' or undecided, to the average person, when the media interviews them. This is the result of the practice of the true scientific method–test everything; few things are absolute, and the majority of things are moderately certain only after large bodies of evidence have been built up. Therefore very often the farmer is baffled, irritated and frustrated in his dealings with scientists, since he may have problems with his animals that are immediate and urgent, and wants answers quickly, while the scientist is more concerned with ultimate truth, gained after the expenditure of much time and effort, and unwilling to offer advise or suggestions that are untested, unproven. The frustrated farmer may, understandably, turn to other sources of help. These may range from the 'sublime to the ridiculous.' Often he will turn to other farmers, or those that have dealt with his problems before.

The practicing veterinarian, like the doctor, stands between these groups. His extensive training coupled with his years of experience allows him to both sift through and understand the research papers that regularly cross his desk, and deal with the clinical problems that he faces in practice. Veterinarians and doctors are humans too; and no one, no matter how experienced, has all the answers–and there may come times when the professional is baffled. At these times, therapies that the research scientist would say are 'unproved' may be tried and may work. Having something that works in one's storehouse of experiences is certainly better than not having anything. The more often such an 'unproved' therapy is used and works, the more comfortable the professional feels with it, and a body of evidence is therefore built up. The scientist calls this 'empirical' evidence-- meaning that it has not been tested under strict, scientific, laboratory-controlled conditions; but the veterinarian and the farmer are both glad to have the therapy that works. When farmers on their own try things that work, or that appear to work, they also build up a body of empirical evidence. The difference is that the things the farmer may try may be based on superstition, myth, illogical reasoning, lack of education, and/or out of desperation; the farmer does not have the veterinarian's hard-won knowledge about the functioning of organisms, the possible long-term effects, and the operation of the scientific method.

For hundreds of years, men cut off the tips of the tails of cows to 'let out the bad' and to cause 'downer' cows to rise. Undoubtedly this would indeed often cause a cow to struggle to her feet to get away from the pain–and since this was coincident with the era of bleeding patients with leeches, the opinion developed that cutting off the tail tip was letting some harmful element out of the body. Today we laugh at such practices and think how ridiculous they were--all the while drinking our soft drinks, taking drugs, eating sugar- and salt-laden, over-processed foods, and doing a host of things that are much more harmful in both the short and long run. Today there are still many people that seriously believe that goats can eat tin cans and other inorganic substances, and that give them chewing tobacco to 'deworm' them; just as there are still people that practice vegetarianism out of a belief that eating meat somehow causes the consumer to acquire a more 'bestial' nature, or for religious reasons.

What is the 'bottom line' in all this? Simply this: that increasingly, scientists are coming to the conclusions that in all probability, the more diseases an animal has been exposed to without developing the clinical illnesses, and the more titers to these that are found in an animal's blood, the more this indicates that the animal has good resistance to disease--that is, the better the animal from the practical, the keeper's, the genetic, standpoints.

Some pathogens are more virulent and deadly than others. It is true that many tribes of people in isolated cultures were wiped out by being brought into contact with other civilizations which carried diseases that they were immune/resistant to. Any nation, country, or other isolated group that has never been exposed to any given disease is in effect a 'sitting duck' for it. Why is this important? Well-do we never learn anything from experience, from history? When you try to eliminate the CAE virus by pasteurizing the milk and colostrum you feed to kids, you are creating an animal that is a 'sitting duck' for all the common as well as the uncommon goat diseases! How, then, to eliminate CAE? The answer is, don't try to eliminate the virus itself--rather, eliminate the animals that are susceptible to the virus; that become clinically ill. And that does NOT mean every one with a titer to CAE! You would be far better off with a herd of healthy adult animals, most or all showing a positive titer to CAE and without any of the clinical signs, than you would with a herd of CAE-negative animals obtained by pasteurization and isolation, unless these are maintained on your farm for their entire lives. To really eliminate the CAE virus from this country would require drastic and probably unwarranted measures. It would mean that every goat would have to be tested for CAE and every goat with a positive titer to it would have to be destroyed. If statistics are accurate, that means that about 80% of our goats would have to be killed, no matter if they are permanent champions, breed leaders, or whatever. For a disease that is not any more destructive or virulent than CAE is, these are pretty drastic measures. They have not been suggested for diseases that are more serious and devastating--so why pick on CAE? Why not Mycoplasma, or Johnes, or peracute mastitis (the Swedes have undertaken the elimination of every doe that develops clinical mastitis) or pneumonia--or Brucellosis, or TB in cattle? And who is going to carry this out on a national level? Unless some government agency undertakes it and with vigor, the volunteer actions of individual breeders are in the long run a waste of time and effort.

Select and breed and feed for good disease resistance--not just to CAE and CL; to all the goat diseases. This is exactly what nature has been doing for millions of years–through natural selection, the strong survive, the weak perish, and over the millennia, what is left is a group of very tough, resistant animals. At Pine Cone Valley we have been following this course of action for many years now. We have deliberately bought (and been given) very old goats, many that have lived in a number of different herds, and that had been exposed to a great variety of pathogens over their lives and survived them. We have fed these goats all the known vitamins and minerals and the best diet we could afford, and bred them. On infrequent occasions, a few of the offspring have come down with clinical illnesses. Some of these did not respond, or did not respond satisfactorily, to therapy; and we allowed nature to take its course and eliminate them from the population; at the least, we can assure that their final days are as free of pain and suffering as possible. The result? We have a herd full of healthy animals with titers to a great variety of diseases, and yet very little clinical illness. These goats are survivors! They carry good genetics for resistance; they can go anywhere, into anyone's herd, and not contract and maybe succumb to some disease--chances are they have either already been exposed, or are of such genetic strength that they can fight off a 'new' disease threat. This is 'our' kind of goat--is it what you want, are looking for, also? We laugh at the business of fitting all visitors to the farm with disposable plastic boots so they won't bring in any diseases. We don't fool around with pasteurizing milk and colostrum; our kids nurse their dams (thereby contributing to the mental as well as physical well-being of both) and run with them. With over 300 goats, we have only so much time and less inclination to 'baby' any one along, unless it is to try some new therapy; we like our animals to be as trouble-free as possible. We give the goats the best diet we can, prompt treatment at any signs of illness–and nature and genetics take care of the rest. The result? We have many bucks and does that are considerably older than the supposed statistical average, and yet are not old wrecks staggering around, but healthy and vigorous animals, still breeding and enjoying life. We have some does 12 to 16 years in age; some bucks 8 to 11. There are a few--a very few--swollen knees in the herd; not always both knees. One 18-year-old Togg doe has completely 'clean' limbs; but she has a positive titer to CAE! A 10-year-old has two swollen knees from what has been diagnosed as 'arthritis' (no CAE test) but she gets around as well as any. We have a 10-year-old doe that was diagnosed by bone marrow assay as having aplastic (irreversible) anemia and whose packed-cell volume fell to 9! This doe lived 5 years after she was discharged with the comment that she was being 'sent home to die in familiar surroundings.' She is alert, active, and kidded 3 months after she was discharged! Some things surpass our present understanding; but apparently there are indeed hardiness factors at work; and always remember that much, perhaps most, human and veterinary medical research is carried on by drug companies all seeking something to patent and sell - NOT necessarily something that will cure!.

After ten years on this type of program, we can draw some conclusions. Yes, they are only empirical–the scientist would not accept them without much more in the way of controlled laboratory studies. However, on the farm level, we know that these practices, which emulate nature, are working, and none of them are based on therapies or theories that don't have some scientific backing behind them. Some of these conclusions:

(1) Epidemics do not run rampant through our herd. In prolonged dry, dusty weather, we may see a couple of cases of pinkeye. In theory, in a couple of weeks, it should go through the whole herd rapidly. It never does. We have brought in animals from herds where there were known cases of Leptospirosis, Listeriosis, various pneumonias, orf, IBR, PI-3, BVD, Mycoplasma, Salmonellosis, Caseous lymphadenitis, staph abscesses, and a host of others. These caused few clinical cases to appear in our animals. We have not had our whole herd tested for CAE virus; a few have been tested and some found positive, some negative. One doe rubbed noses with another one with an active case of orf, at a goat show, and neither contracted it, nor brought it home to the rest of the herd.

(2) When a clinical disease appears, it usually appears either in such a benign form that often it is hardly even noticed, or, per contra, it appears in a very virulent form. We have little mastitis ever show up; but have had a couple of cases of peracute gangrene (Staph aureus) mastitis, that despite heroic therapy cost the lives of a couple of does. We have also lost a couple of goats to Mycoplasma--always adults, and with septicemia the usual cause of death; we know, therefore, that Mycoplasma exists in our herd. Out of a population of 300+ goats, the overall incidence is very, very low. One possible conclusion is that good nutrition and genetic resistance leads to goats that shake off disease unless and until they are really overwhelmed.

(3) When disease strikes, often it is something very unusual. We have had goats become ill with unknown diseases that baffled our local veterinarians, yet most responded to symptomatic treatments and made full recoveries. We do not see many of the 'common' goat diseases that fill the magazine articles and veterinary columns. With such a large goat population here, is it safe to conclude that they are resistant to common goat diseases, and that only the uncommon, that they may not have good titers to, strike with clinical symptoms? Since the cause and identification of some of these we have had are unknown, it is pure speculation at this point. Some few, in kids, have been diagnosed as genetic problems. One day a young, apparently healthy doeling (age 15 months) struggled for breath and died very quickly! We suspected some fast-acting poison; though their pastures are free of wild cherry and other plants known to be toxic. We had her necropsied. She was found to have a large growth on her heart, and had suffered a heart attack! It was not a malignant tumor, nor a Coryne abscess; she was otherwise 'clean.' One of those mysterious things that will occasionally strike the best cared-for herds.

(4) We almost never see metabolic diseases in our herd--i.e. milk fever, ketosis, urinary calculi, etc. We have seen two very mild cases of ketosis that responded quickly to therapy and did not recur. We attribute this to good diet. 'Hard udder' has been nonexistent in our herd for eight years now.

This is not to say that we don't believe in isolation of new animals; that's just a sensible precaution anyone can and should take. However, there are times when such was not possible here--such as when we took in a herd of 33 Toggenburgs at one time!--and another time, when we had to board 45 Pygmies. We brought in 12 San Clemente Island goats, and feared more for them, and what they might pick up here, than what they might be carrying; they nonetheless mixed right in with our goats and remain healthy--(and interestingly enough, they didn't run for shelter when it rains as the other goats all do.) Bear in mind, though, that there are several 'slow' diseases (such as Johnes) that wouldn't show up in 30 days of isolation; and there can be internal abscesses that are not visible.

Feed and breed for important traits - health, longevity, kidding ease, production - and not for the ego-gratifying but damaging ones that the show ring promotes. Your own common sense is often worth a lot more than articles written by well-meaning but poorly informed individuals who have an 'agenda.'