Thanks, Peg

Also, is Goodwood King Sunny Ade the same goat as the son of Pine Cone Valley Black Satin, who I believe is a Sunny Ade?

Stress does cause CAE to flare up at times, so it is possible that a previously unsystematic doe could become symptomatic when moved to a new home.

Yes, I believe that nutrition plays a very big role in a goats health and it’s resistance to all diseases. A goat with deficiencies will have many more problems. Feeding a balanced diet is key. Browse is very good for goats, but a goat that is being asked to give more milk than her kids require also must be supplemented with grain to keep her in good health. A skinny goat also gets sick easily. Goats are not able to eat enough green roughage to produce the extra quantity of milk we ask them to give as dairy goat. Dry roughage – hay – is important for good rumen function. Giving goats access to hay year round helps with overall digestive health. Our goats eat very little hay during the months that they are able to browse, but they still eat a little and stay much healthier than they did when they had no hay at that time. While overfeeding of grains can cause health problems, underfeeding can as well. Balance is the key.
Minerals are also very important in a healthy goats diet.

If CAE is a big concern for you and only pos. stock are available you can also opt to buy some bred pos. does and then pull the kids and feed them on pasteurized milk of formula and sell the mothers. The kids then ought to be neg. and you should not have a problem allowing them to raise their young (I feel that the evidence shows that raw milk is much healthier for kids than is pasteurized).

I have raised sled dogs for ten years having to cull many disease prone dogs after loosing many of them to common dog diseases, even after expensive treatment. After ten years we now have dogs that don’t get sick, let alone die, even with minimal or no medical intervention. In the beginning we had a lot of losses but now we have tougher dogs. Dogs are not goats though, but it seems to be similar to your experience raising goats.

What would you do if in our situation? If they appeared generally healthy would you buy them or look elswhere? And what are some indications of good clinical CAE resistence? Are certian diets better for resistence than others, etc.

I have noticed with the two goats we have now that if given willows to eat, they will not even touch hay. They eat hay only when willows and other browse are not there to eat. Could it be that a diet heavy in hay and grain is not the natural normal diet of goats, and that it is like a goats version of a junk food diet? I doubt that a wild goat would ever be able to eat large quantities of grain in a natural environment. Perhaps a lack of willow browse causes many nutritional defeciencies.