Goat Mites

Years ago, I had a young Nubian that was not as thrifty as all our other goats.  She had a ruff start in life and I had to do a lot of extra care to get her growing and healthy.  She lived here on our farm longer than most kids goats because I will not sell a sick or unhealthy animal to anyone.  I finally had her eating and growing well and was about to list her for sale, when I noticed she started to loose hair around her eyes.  This puzzled  me as we had been raising goats a long time and this had never happened before.  Soon she had flaky skin.  Her skin seemed thicker and coat looked a little ruff.  Soon she had no hair around her eyes, mouth and nose.  I did some research and found out she had mites.  I tried diatomatious earth and several other natural remedies to no avail.  Back then the off label treatment that worked was to inject   *Ivermectin ,the Cattle injectable kind, once a week for three weeks. (Do your research and try this at your own risk.  It is an off label treatment.)    Here is the quote from the website I got the information from, Onion Creek Ranch site... "There are several different products that can be used to kill mites on and under the skin of goats. The dewormer Ivermectin can be injected SQ, dosing at one to two cc's per 50 pounds bodyweight weekly for at least three consecutive weeks."         It worked, her hair all grew back in nicely and I sold her as a pet to someone.

Over the years I have had a handful of goats come up with mites.  It always seems like it is the goats in my herd that are not as healthy as the rest.  You know.  The ones that need worming more often.  That were smallish when born or don't eat as lustily for a goat.  I have not had the mites spread to other healthy goats in my herd.  Even if they were pen mates before and the *Ivermectin injected  always worked till this year.

This year one of my does started to have crusty skin on her udder.  I thought it was from the weather or her kid nursing to aggressively last year.  Then she started to loose hair around her eyes, mouth and down the back of both front legs.  She also lost hair in between her front legs, in what would be arm pits on people.  I guess leg pits??? If there is such a thing??    :)    You can see it in the below picture.

 
She also had some sores on the back of her front legs that would not heal no matter what I treated them with.  The sores were from her scratching herself there.  Poor baby.

I had not had a goat with mites in many years, so it took me longer than normal to catch on to what was going on.  I tried the injecting *Ivermectin approach and it did not work at all.  She still was just as bad as ever and for the first time a pen mate that was in with her had them mildly spread to her.  The * Injectable Ivermectin treatment did work on the pen mate.  I was at a loss and did a lot of research and found another treatment that was said to work but was also off label.  It was to use *Ivermectin pour on for cattle once a week for three weeks. (Try this at your own risk.  It is an off label treatment and not approved for goats.)  Here is the place I got this information from and the quote on how to use it....GoatLink.com " IVOMEC® POUR-ON FOR CATTLE
Ivermectin Pour-On for Cattle
NOTE from Administrator: This is a cattle product but is commonly used on goats as Off Label- we use it at the rate of 1cc/20lbs in a syringe with no needle dribbles along the back line from neck to tail- directly on the skin for the control and effective removal of Biting lice and other external parasites. Even though this is also a dewormer, it is not effective as a dewormer on goats- Only as an external parasite control- you still need to deworm your goats for internal parasites. Ivermectin pour-on is the only effective parasite control I have seen that effectively rids the goat of Biting lice- This is equal to Ivomec PourOn"

It worked!  It worked fast and it did not cause her pain like the injections did. 

I treated her about a month ago and now she is slick and beautiful and her hair is all grown back again.

I know as I did my research that was not much out there that seemed to work well for this ailment.  This is what we ended up doing and worked for us.  A light case we used the first forementioned treatment and for the very heavy case, we used the later treatment mentioned.  Once again please do your reasearch and try it at your own risk.  Every goat is different and can react differently to different treatments espeically if an allergy is involved.

Blessings and Happy Farming!