4 baby goats test positive for rabies at petting zoo in North Carolina

Four baby goats at a North Carolina mobile petting zoo tested positive for rabies and have been euthanized, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Health officials are asking those who visited the zoo to check in with their health-care provider to determine whether medications are needed to prevent infection.

On Saturday, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) said it was first notified of a potential rabies exposure among four baby goats at Farm Adventures in Harmony, N.C., on Thursday.

“The goats were most likely exposed to rabies by a skunk that had entered the pen where they were kept in late July. The NC State Laboratory of Public Health confirmed rabies virus in three of the baby goats on August 28; a fourth goat was not tested but is also assumed to have been infected,” the NCDHHS said in a press release .

Officials have been working with the farm and local health departments to gather information about potential exposure dates and locations.

Based on information gathered on Friday, it has been determined that no other animals on the farm pose a risk of rabies exposure to visitors.

Health officials determined that anyone who had contact with the baby goats from Farm Adventures at a location in Harmony or at an off-site event between July 28 and Aug. 27 may have been exposed.

Event organizers are working with health officials to notify attendees who might have had contact with the infected goats at 10 events.

The investigation is ongoing and additional information about potential exposure locations at public events will be released when available, health officials said.

The owner of the petting zoo said she’s “devastated” following the positive rabies tests.

Farm Adventures Mobile Petting Zoo owner Misty Love told WSOC Now that the goats “are my life.”

“Everybody that knows me knows my animals are the most important thing in the world to me, so it’s hard,” she said.

She also noted that the goats were “not showing the traditional signs of rabies.”

The Mayo Clinic describes rabies as “a deadly virus spread to people from the saliva of infected animals” and notes that the rabies virus is “usually transmitted through a bite.”