The diseases ‘caprine arthritis and encephalitis (CAE’, ‘caseous lymphadenitis (CL) and paratuberculosis (paraTBC) are the main reason why commercial dairy goat keepers don’t supply their female lambs with colostrum from their own herd. Even though this colostrum is very important to give the lambs a good start for a healthy live. Despite the impact of these 3 diseases in the herd management, there is few insight in the prevalence of these diseases in the herds. Therefore this research project starts to sample 12 organic dairy goat herds to determine the herdprevalence. Simultanuously a risc factor analysis will be taken. Based on the herd prevalence and the determined risk factors, management recommendations will be formulated to enhance the reduction or elimination of CAE, CL and paraTBC on the herds.

Good diagnostics are primordial during disease elimination protocols. Therefore the use of milk as possible sample for the detection of CAE will be validated. We will evaluate if the ease of milk sampling can compensate the eventually loss of sensitivity and specificity of the diagnostic test in comparison to diagnostics on blood samples.

During a third part there will be sought for on herd applicable methods to make the goat colostrum of the herd germ-free. Main attention will be payed to the infectious agents CAEV, Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis and Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis. These methods should allow the goatkeepers to supplement there female lambs with colostrum of the own herd.