This is listed under "Goats", but could reside in any category dealing with breeding age livestock.

A Catch - 22 situation if ever one existed, what to do to safely deal with toxoplasmosis.

Transmission: It is transmitted via the feces from cats. They, themselves are immune to the disease, or very tolerant of it at any rate.

If your operations require you to store feed or hay for your livestock, you are going to run into a vermin problem unless you poison heavily. At that, you run the risk of your stock becoming exposed to the poisons, or the other dangers of chemicals in your soil and groundwater, so often this is not a choice stock producers are willing to make.

Cats have been around the farmstead as long as there has been farm dwellings. Usually, barn cats are half wild and rarely depend on the farmer for the main portion of their feed requirements. They catch rats, snakes, small feed birds and often, just the existence of cats on a farm will discourage a large rodent population.

Utilitarian but deadly:

This very utilitarian skill is the culprit of toxo contamination. Usually toxo is most prevalent in half-grown kittens when fed a mainstay diet of raw meats, particularly rodents.

Cats are clean with their litter, soiling an area then covering it up is quite normal. However, if their litter is contained in an area where your pregnant animals are routinely housed, they are bound to come in contact with some fecal matter.

For example, goats, sheep, llamas, etc., are close herd animals by nature, and where one makes her bed, several will join her to lie in it. Eating a wisp of straw that a cat recently walked across, after having scraped over a fecal site is another way to develop toxo in an animal.

Outward signs:

The outward signs are similar to a mild case of the flu. Dullness, aching, watery eyes, slightly elevated temperature, etc.

But, in the case of early pregnancy, it is a known cause of abortion.

Some Immunity:

Young livestock, having grown up around cats, probably have been exposed to toxo before breeding age, and are often not adversely affected during pregnancy.

Importing and quarantine:

Any new importations should be given a quarantine period so they can adjust to the current living conditions before beginning a breeding program.

A Solution:

Most recommendations are to spay and neuter even your wild barn cats. Eliminating the cat population from your property is not going to solve the rodent problem, so other solutions need to be sought after.

There is not an immunization method for toxo at this time. Keeping your adult cat group as nonbreeding stock will eliminate the important half-grown cycle that is the main problem.

Yes, Humans Too:

People are cautioned against handling litter boxes because this can be a cause for early abortion in pregnant women as well.

Flylo's Incidence:

We normally maintain a closed breeding herd of dairy goats, but in 1995, we freshened an unusually large number of young does and purchased animals. Within the second month of pregnancy over 75% of them had aborted.

We had Tx A&M Diagnostic Clinic run tests on some of the placenta material and fetus', and the conclusion was that it was a Toxoplasmosis outbreak. We allowed most of the does to rebreed with no ill effect except a delay in the kidding season for that year. The animals that aborted as well as those that were exposed yet went full term pregnancies have never had a recurrance.

If you have valuable breeding stock, or your farm family relies on a solitary dairy animal for milk, you will want to monitor the stock loafing sheds and contact areas for cat contamination. Especially control any young cats from soiling the loafing areas if possible.

Spay and neutering are the only real methods of insuring the cycle will be broken, as the young cats mature and the disease becomes less severe in their systems.

For up-to-date information about toxoplasmosis from the Feline Registry standpoint, check out the following website:

FELINE HEALTH