CAE Free!

The company that ran the pregnancy tests on our goats' blood samples also offers CAE testing without the need for an additional blood draw.

CAE stands for Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis.  Sounds bad, huh?  It is. 

According to The Backyard Goat,  "CAE is a goat-specific disease  . . . that is a progressively crippling disease caused by a retrovirus.  Unfortunately, there is no vaccine against CAE and no cure. . . . The virus that causes CAE is transmitted to a kid from its infected dam through her colostrum and milk."

In other words, CAE is VERY bad news.  But, the only way a kid can get it is from her mother's milk, so if you can verify that the mother is CAE-free, you can verify that her kid will be CAE-free.  Above are our girls' results: NEGATIVE!

Reputable and registered dairy goat breeders test their herds regularly for CAE so that they can guarantee that any animals they sell are CAE-free.  Yep, that's us -- we are reputable and registered!

So, should we decide to sell our kids this spring, we'll be able to verify that our herd is CAE free.  It sure has been a week of good news for our little goat herd!