Annual Biosecurity Panel

We take herd health seriously here at JK Herd It All. To help make sure that all of our goats are healthy and happy, we do an annual biosecurity panel to test for the most common dangerous diseases. We’re not brave enough to draw blood on our own, so we have a friend or our vet pull it and we send it to WADDL. WADDL is one of the most trusted labs in the country for the accurate health testing of goats. Please note, though, that blood tests are not foolproof and may be prone to false positives AND false negatives. If we ever get a positive blood test, the next step would be a second blood one for CAE, a fecal for Johne’s, or an abscess test for CL. We’ve only ever had one goat with an abscess, though, and it was not in a CL location and was filled with translucent bloody fluid – we’re pretty sure it was from Heartbreaker ramming the poor guy with his horns. Goats are jerks!

Now that our herd has grown, the testing is very pricey (about $50 per goat altogether), so we plan to test EVERYONE at least 2-3 years in a row and then start doing it more intermittently – maybe the does one year and bucks the next, or a select few from each group, rotating each year. 

CAE Test

The CAE panel is one of the most important health tests because a dam can transmit CAE to her kids via milk. We bought all of our goats from herds that either test or raise their goats on CAE prevention. Just to be safe, we are doing the test here every year, too, at least until we close our herd.  After we have a few years of negative health tests under our belt, we will consider dam-raising our goat kids. Until then, we’ll keep bottle raising them!

Johne’s Disease Test

Most people only test for CAE, but since we have so many cattle farms in our area, we also do the panel for Johne’s. Johne’s is spread through manure, including through hay that has been fertilized by infected cattle.

CL Test

The CL blood test has debatable accuracy with a lot of false positives and negatives, but we do it anyway because it’s part of the panel through WADDL. If one of our goats ever develops an abscess, we will test that for CL, as well. That test is the only truly accurate one for CL. 

Other/Future Tests

We’re considering adding tests for Brucellosis and TB next year in 2024, once we have more does in milk. Those diseases aren’t very common in our area, but since we have brought in livestock from all over the country, we want to make sure all of our bases are covered! Both of those diseases can spread to humans through unpasteurized milk. Wisconsin doesn’t allow anyone to sell unpasteurized milk and also forbids the sale of ANY milk without extensive inspections and expensive licensing, so we only use it here for personal use. We drink it, cook with it, use it in our gardens, and give it to our animals. Because of this, we want to make sure we’re as safe as possible by testing our herd. 

2024 Annual Biosecurity Panel Results - Negative for CAE/Johne's/CL

* Note that we skipped Vera – she’s heavily pregnant and was FREAKING out at being restrained and even shaved in the neck, so for her safety and that of her kids, we couldn’t draw blood on her. It’s a risk, but her breeder’s herd has always tested negative. We’ll test her in 2025 (or sooner if she shows any symptoms of being unwell). 

Late 2023 Annual Biosecurity Panel Results - Negative for CAE/Johne's/CL

Early 2023 Annual Biosecurity Panel Results - Negative for CAE/Johne's/CL