Abstract
In June 2006, five goat kids showed signs of stumbling and astasia at a farm that kept 68 goats. Three of the five affected animals were submitted for examination. Virologically, the Caprine arthritis-encephalitis (CAE) virus gene was detected from the blood of one kid. The histopathological findings of the three animals, however, were different from those of CAE, and consisted of axonal degeneration of the spinal ventral root and central chromatolysis of the ventral horn neurons. The concentrations of copper in their livers and sera were very low. Based on these results, the disease was diagnosed as copper deficiency. The serum copper concentration survey of the remaining goats on the farm was low overall, but the copper concentration of the feeds was normal, so it was suggested that this disease wassecondary disease resulting from copper deficiency. Since this farm applied lime to the pasture soil in April 2006, we conducted a test lime application on the pasture to confirm the effect of liming on soil trace elements. Of the elements measured, the molybdenum concentration, which is known to affect the copper absorption of grazed animals, the limed pasture was higher than the nonlimed pasture at the end of the test. We therefore assumed thatthe 2006 liming might have been the major contributing factor to the present copper deficiency.
