# Is CAE sexually transmitted???



## deppo113 (Mar 21, 2012)

I have heard differednt answers on this one and just wanted to see what everyone here has to say....How likely is CAE transmitted through breading?....will a positive CAE doe give it to a neg CAE buck if they breed? and can a Pos CAE buck give it to a neg CAE doe during breeding? Through my research, I have heard yes and no on both circumstances.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

Not likely. The majority of goats get it from infected colostrum or milk. Lots of herds heat treated their way out of it while having to use positive stock both female and male. It would have been impossible if it had been transmitted sexually.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

I have a buck that will try to nurse the does he is breeding. Lol, he's weird (but he is a buck, aren't they all?). I would never breed him with a positive doe.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

Now that is nuts, lol!


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## deppo113 (Mar 21, 2012)

So, not likely that a positive doe will give it to a neg buck......How about a positive buck to a negative doe. I know it will not pass it to the kids, but will the positive buck infect the doe through semen? or is it only carried through blood, colostrum and milk?


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

If they are really rough with each other, then maybe they could infect one another. But, it's doubtful that it's passed through semen. If you have a positive you are breeding to a negative, maybe hand breed them, so they aren't biting, butting, etc.


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## feistymomma (May 20, 2009)

fmg said:


> I have a buck that will try to nurse the does he is breeding. Lol, he's weird (but he is a buck, aren't they all?). I would never breed him with a positive doe.


It's called 4 play :rofl :rofl :rofl


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

feistymomma said:


> fmg said:
> 
> 
> > I have a buck that will try to nurse the does he is breeding. Lol, he's weird (but he is a buck, aren't they all?). I would never breed him with a positive doe.
> ...


 :rofl :rofl :rofl


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I really don't think an adult goat can catch CAE from milk. Babies catch it because they get colostrum while their intestine is gathering immunity from the colostrum and also they do not have developed rumens until eating roughage. I just don't think much of anything really gets past the rumen.

Like was said earlier, how were we able to get from positive to negative with heat treating and pasteurising if CAE was sexually transmitted, or caught easily with saliva or coughing or peeing, like so many talk about? Vicki


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## ChuckAtBioTracking (Dec 7, 2010)

I'll agree with Nancy on this one. There are no studies (and each time I say this I mean published studies in refereed journals) showing that CAEV can be cultured from semen. CAEV is a blood-borne virus, so yes "vigorous" breeding behavior, or open genital wounds or sores could be a source of infection.

The case for adults contracting an infection from drinking milk is kind of iffy - a lot of things come into play there. It's not clear (at least to me) why the caprine and ovine immune system has such a hard time in mounting an effective defense against the virus. Normally some baddy (or comprimised baddy in the form of an immunization) gets in the bloodstream and the immune system mounts an attack for the immediate infection, and the memory T cells are in play for future infections (ah hah! I've seen you before and you're toast!) Not so for CAE. The immune system does mount a defense against an first-time infection, and this can be effective in eliminating a low-viral titer infection, but for some reason it doesn't seem to generate effective memory for future infections. This may be one reason why a full-blown infection can take a long time to be discovered - there is a tug of war between virus titers going up and antibodies going up, "successfully" defending against the virus (but not totally since the virus mounts a second, third or even a forth wave of attack) and eventually (many months down the road) the virus wins. Bio- and Immuno-logically speaking its a real cool thing, but not so much for the sheep and goat breeders!

Happy kidding to every one. See you next season! ;-)

Chuck and Kim


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## H Diamond Farms (Jun 3, 2011)

There is an article in this month's United Caprine News about this. Interesting read.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

Do you have a link to the article, Rachel?


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## luvzmybabz (Sep 15, 2008)

I bred 3 of the does I have now to a positive buck, about 3 years ago. ONLY handbred, with buck on lunge line and me close by in case he started to get rough slobber pee etc. I have tested these girls yearly since. All the does have always come back negative. Just my 2 cents. I might have over done the cautious breeding but I was not taking any chances and it worked out for me.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Well let me burst a little bubble here. When this disease was first being talked about in the 1980's everyone was slaughtering does by the dozens but no one was killing bucks. Many breeders used positive bucks over dozens of does yearly for their entire lifespan believing that the does were the most likely vector with colostrum and early milk. The does did not convert from breeding activity and offspring was bottled with heat treated milk. I know of people currently who keep positive bucks. This slobber and head bashing stuff is just a little too hysterical since it never is a proven mode of transmission but only something that should be possible from how the virus acts in a lab and that is true as well of rough breeding. How about a little realism here. How many times have you seen it take more than 3 seconds for a buck to do his job? The receiving organ is lined with mucous. Bucks do not go around _wounding_ does to get them bred. jeepers- what nonsense. 
The things that can happen in a lab are not necessarily possible in a real life situation and so much of our medical science is based on what an organism can do in a laboratory situation people forget to think about what is possible in real life situations.

Lee


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I never had a positive buck after I intially tested, but we had negative bucks who bred positive does, pen bred and never converted, always continually tested.

When we put our bucks back together after rut, they head butt each other, they lose scurs, there is no way this bloody head butting one another couldn't pass CAE why I never kept bucks that were positive. But I agree with Lee on the buck to doe passing it via agression.

There is a French study out there that they did detect the virus in semen, in a lab, not on the farm. It has to be pretty common knowledge and found easily since it usually is the first thing to pop up when you say semen doesn't carry the virus.


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## ChuckAtBioTracking (Dec 7, 2010)

Yes, there are numerous articles of "CAE" being found in semen (predominantly in 'experimentally infected' bucks) and to a lesser degree in naturally infected bucks. I'll see about getting these articles through the UI library and give them an eyeball. However, what jumps out at me is the distincition I made yesterday: I have not seen anything on the culturing of live virus from semen. I did a quick PubMed seach while hanging out in the Denver airport (setting up and training for a couple of affiliate labs in Lincoln and McCook so you breeders in NE and the surrounding area should encourage them to think about preg and CAE testing ;-) ) but nothing of interest popped up. I'll do a more thorough lit search when I get back on Monday.

Point two, the PCR-based papers are looking at presence (alleged presence) of the provirus - the viral genome integrated into the host DNA, specifically in the DNA of PBMCs (peripheral blood mononuclear cells, or more commonly (but not totally accurate) called white blood cells. But this definition works just fine for us. The first question / problem I have with these studies is that, again, there was no effort to culture live virus from the samples. Finding the provirus and finding an infectious form of the virus are two different things. The second problem / concern is that it is not clear from the abstracts what, if any, proper controls were run. PCR uses two small pieces of DNA from the target of choice (CAEV in this case) to fish out the target from the sample. As near as I can tell, the PCR reactions were run using what is known as the gag-gene as a target. The problem is, gag-genes are present in every type of retrovirus (virus with RNA as the genome not DNA) and these gag-genes are highly conserved in sequence. It isn't clear to me if they conclusively isolated a chunk of the gag-gene from CAEV, or if it was from rabies or hepatitis or lukemia virus or mammary tumor virus or infectious anemia virus or from a whole host of other retrovirus these animals could be carrying.

So for now “that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it” but I’ll do some additional digging. But, CAE has been cultured from saliva and nasal mucosa of both lab- and naturally-infected does and bucks, and I have seen does and buck headbutt and draw blood (when you think CAE think Blood). I’ve also seen bucks take a quick nip at a receptive doe and draw blood (salivia-blood transfer). Yes, this mode of infection is probably rare (1%??? 0.1%??) but still probable. Roll the dice on your $$$$$ doe?

One other small note. I did come across a paper looking at the presence of HIV in white blood cells and semen of HIV-positive men. This study looked at isolating live virus from both samples (positive for in both) and by PCR. Again, positive in both, however, the positive results from semen samples were from the provirus present in the white blood cells NOT the live virus in the semen. One of the conclusions of the study is that PCR is NOT a good diagnostic tool for screening semen to detect men with AIDS, but only men carrying the provirus in the white blood cells.

I really need to learn how to cut down on the lengths of my posts LOL


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## H Diamond Farms (Jun 3, 2011)

You definitely shouldn't, they are always so informative!


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Thank you for taking the time to write those clarifications.
Look forward to what else you discover.
Lee


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

Yes, thank you Chuck for all your searches, studies and postings!


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