Dealing with an unhealthy goat, or any pet, is never fun.
You can’t tell them everything’s going to be okay, or really comfort them.
It’s especially bad when it’s something like CL, where you have to quarantine the infected so it doesn’t spread.
When one of my goats came down with CL for the first time recently, I was really concerned about what would happen.
I quarantined the goat and luckily it didn’t seem to have spread, but I was worried—how long would it live?
So, how long can a goat live with CL?
Goats will usually not die from CL. One study showed that only 3.9% of infected goats died from the infection. That said, it will take quite a long time to even show—two to six months before you’ll see any signs. They could live with the infection for another 6 months.
So, the big takeaway is that CL is typically not fatal.
This is not a cause for you to relax and not take the infection seriously, but ultimately, it’s very unlikely to kill your goat.
In the time that it takes to cause fatal injury, you should really be having it treated anyway.
Let’s look further into this.
Will a goat die from CL?
Typically, no, goats won’t die from CL.
It can nonetheless be extremely difficult and unpleasant, but the fact is that the mortality rate for this infection is very, very low.
As I said, one study showed that it was under 5%.
That said, it can certainly kill your goat.
This bacterial infection causes painful cysts and inflammation of lymph nodes, and that can get to the point that it kills the goat by causing major internal organs to fail.
If your goat shows signs of CL, you need to separate it from the herd immediately.
It isn’t very highly transmissible outside of the goat species, but internally it can be a problem for the whole herd if you don’t separate the infected animal.
With proper care, treatment, and diligence, your goat should pull through the CL.
How long will they live with the infection, then?
How long do goats live with CL?
It depends a lot on the individual goat.
The infection should typically run its course within a few weeks—6-8 at most.
The infection should be out of the system by this time.
It can last a lot longer, though—several months, for particularly lingering infections.
The longer it lasts, the greater chance it has of killing them.
If the goat has CL for more than 12 weeks, then the infection is lingering in an unusual way.
It’s always a good idea to speak to a vet, but the thing to be aware of is that there really is no outright cure.
There are things you can do to give the goat a better chance of pulling through, but there’s no cure.
How long does it take to show, then?
How long does CL take to show in goats?
This is the strangest part, in many ways.
It can take as much as six months for there to be any physical sign of the infection.
CL in particular is highly physical once it presents.
It will erupt in pustules and boils on the goat’s skin, as well as leak pus.
A very unpleasant image, so you can imagine how unpleasant it is for the goat.
However, again, it may take anywhere from two to six months before any signs of the infection shows up.
If one of your goats comes down with CL, then quarantine and carefully monitor every other goat in the herd for the next six months, at least.
Is there any preventative medical treatment for it?
Can you vaccinate for CL in goats?
Unfortunately, at the moment, there is no vaccine or way to prevent the infection of CL beyond careful due diligence.
It is a big problem for large-scale goat and sheep farms, so a solution is indeed being worked on.
At the moment, though, there is no vaccine for CL.
Your best hope, then, of protecting your goats is going to be quarantining the infected, and administering general treatments like painkillers, and things to reduce the fever.
Vets can advise you on this, and though there is no clear treatment, you should always talk to a vet about this.
What are the signs of CL in goats?
Most of the signs are pretty unpleasant, to say the least.
It presents itself mostly as a discharge of fluids through cysts and boils.
There will be a lot of pus and blood from the sites of infection.
The goat will also show signs of coughing and nasal discharge, as well as fever, tachypnea, and increasingly labored breathing.
A fully infected goat may have lost large portions of its hair at the sight of infection, and this is where you will really be able to see the infection.
If you notice any of these symptoms, be sure to quarantine the goat immediately and call your vet.
As long as you take the basic, necessary precautions, then, and as long as you do what you can for the goat, the chances of it dying from CL are quite low.
It’s not impossible, and you should prepare yourself for that, given that there is no outright cure for the infection.
You can treat it, though, as I’ve said, and reduce your goat’s risk of dying.
If you take this into account, your goat should pull through.