In goats and sheep, false-positive results due to antibody produced by Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis (C. PsTB) infection are reported to occur on serologic assays for M. a. paratuberculosis (M. ptb.). This issue of compromised specificity was evaluated by testing 557 adult goats from 8 Midwestern goat herds. Assays for M. ptb. infection include radiometric fecal culture and two commercially available Johne's disease ELISAs: one USDA-licensed for cattle only (ELISA-1) and one USDA-licensed for cattle, sheep and goats (ELISA-2). A case of M. ptb. infection was defined as a fecal culture-positive goat from a herd with known clinical cases of Johne's disease. A hemolysin inhibition assay (HI) was used to detect C. PsTB antibody. A case of C. PsTB infection was defined as a goat with an HI titer ≥ 1:8 from a herd with confirmed cases of C. PsTB infection.Three infection status groups were evaluated. Group A (herds believed free of M. ptb. and C. PsTB infection; 181 goats) tested negative on all M. ptb. fecal cultures and HI tests. Five goats were test-positive on both ELISAs and two goats were test-positive on ELISA-1 only. In Group B (M. ptb. infected; no C. PsTB infection; 41 goats) all animals were HI negative. Six goats were fecal culture positive and strongly positive on both ELISAs. ELISA-1 identified two additional goats as M. ptb. test-positive. For Group C (C. PsTB infected; no M. ptb. infection; 335 goats) all fecal cultures were negative and 91% were HI test-positive with a range of HI titers from 1:8 to ≥1:256. In this population two goats were test-positive on both M. ptb. ELISAs. ELISA-1 however produced 85 additional test-positive results. These data confirm that false-positive M. ptb. ELISA results may occur for goat herds infected by C. PsTB and demonstrate that false-positives arise more often for ELISA-1 than ELISA-2.