HOW WE AVOID DISEASES

Communicable diseases like Caseous Lymphadenitis (CL) make management more difficult and expensive, and can be devastating to production. Some can be difficult or impossible to get rid of once they infect your herd or land. Avoiding infectious diseases is more efficient than treating for them, if the option is available. Minimizing the risk of introducing disease is a top priority for us.

We recommend starting with disease free stock. However, this is not enough. Visitors with muddy boots, flies from neighboring farms with CL, and wild animals can infect clean stock. For this reason, every goat should be inspected regularly. Be on the alert for anything unusual, especially abscesses. Early detection of a disease outbreak is critical.

We have a closed herd with new genetics entering via embryo transfer and artificial insemination only. Our foundation animals tested CAE free. We have never had a case of CL, footrot or soremouth. We tested the entire herd for Johnes in 2013 via the "gold standard" fecal culture method, and all were negative.