The end was in sight on the DIY, and the male goats moved into their new home – and then 5/6 original goats failed one out of three annual blood tests that  I commit to with them.

I thought it was a laboratory mistake. As far as I knew all the goats were from herds who annually tested. Long and short of that is they all only tested for one of the three diseases and I hadn’t picked that up from the paperwork or in the hassle of COVID Lockdowns etc etc . None of them committed a crime, and I did my best to buy from people who I felt knew what they were doing, and who understood when I said I would be annually testing for CAE, CLA and Johnes, that there would be implications for them if  I did…

I did not know, that in the twenty years since I last kept goats, that the British Goat Society and the Goat Veterinary Society had totally concentrated on only one disease, CAE. Neither did I appreciate that Goat Keepers often only have those two organisations as their guides and not wider farming experience or education – to show goats at BGS shows you only need a CAE certificate. You do not need a Johnes or CLA’. The organisations have been completely focussed on the potential for an Accreditation scheme, that would not necessarily include CLA, and nor could most non-land owning goat keepers comply with boundary rules for.

Ironically I can still show my goats! Yet, CLA is the only zoonotic disease of the three. This is one of those ‘if you don’t know what to do with the answer don’t ask the question…’ moments and I did not know what to do with the answer…

Shock and then grief and rage all came into play – this just hadn’t happened!

But it had. It has. It is.

The advice of the vets was ‘cull and don’t restock’ or operate a ‘clean herd and a dirty herd’ but as 5/6 of my adult goats were positive and 14 were not tested/couldn’t be tested, due to being too young, I couldn’t see how I could separate them and we certainly weren’t going to cull them.

I informed the breeders and received bemused and embarrassed comments when they realised what the implications were for them and their goats – some were able to find the money to test all, or some, of theirs’ and one connection volunteered. One was outraged at me as if his complacent failings were my fault and another decided it wasn’t them yet neither of them had provided any evidence of whole herd CLA testing over any years or Johnes testing, and they will carry on being complacent or delusional and blaming others and victim shaming me.

I will never know where this came from – and it may have had more than one source – but the effect is the breeders will mostly carry on but my goats and I will stay here – a now closed off and self-contained herd not selling breeding goats or mixing with other goats and me not wanting to mix with other goat keepers. An accidental pariah. 

If I had wanted to go back into meat sales I would have bought sheep. Dairy goats are not ‘beefy’ and require housing and year-round feeding and they get all the problems of both dairy cows and sheep. The only good point is that I have finally found out my local abattoir has reopened under another firm so I can at least give the culls and meat kids only a short journey at their end.

So, it has been absolutely shit few weeks. First I felt like a Time Traveller coming back into goats from a more innocent time before hygiene regs and movement regs and CAE and CLA and now I have become an accidental pariah for the belief and actions that an annual blood test for every animal is the only way to control the diseases. And then, when out of control of culling, and this is endemic now, then vaccinate. LOL Not. On their watch, this happened and I am the pariah 🙁

2021 sure hasn’t turned out to be a year I have enjoyed much, and as the year fades, Bird Flu is stalking us all again – as if we needed another Panto villain Boo Hiss!

Next year we will try to get the garden going again and deal with these meat kids and maybe get that ‘produce area’ done… We plan and Gods laugh.