What is this???
 

And how do I fix it?

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...bigmac/137.jpg

What it looks like is mange, caused by a parasitic mite. Treatment is varied:

Ivomectin pours on and rubbed into the area works, as well as oral and injected doses.

When dealing with rescues, I would sometimes get it on my hands. I found that Rid-X (treatment for lice that I had handy from when my grandchildren brought them home from pre-school) also worked fine.

Wouldn't the other goats get it? She's the only one with issues.

So if I had Ivercare paste could I rub that on and give her a dose orally? I haven't noticed hair loss anywhere else. Would I need to put it on everywhere or just her ears?

Sarcoptes mites is what is going on here. They are very prevalent, and your other goats probably DO have them. They just haven't found a good hold in which to colonize.

With the paste, rub it on her ears, (only a bit for a good covering, you don't have to saturate) and give her an oral dose as well. Repeat the oral dosage weekly until it clears up (2-4 weeks)

You might wish to do an entire herd treatment as well, to clear up any that may be hiding.

I really like Cy-Lence for these kind of things. It's a pour on like Frontline for dogs and works really well on mites and blood sucking lice. It's not uncommon for one animal to show symptoms where others aren't. Normally they all have a few mites on them. It's when the immune system is depressed that they start showing symptoms.

MTG good stuff for this, nustock may work as well.

I went out to pick up some vaccines from my vet and showed him the pics. He said it is probably from an auto-immune disorder. We don't have mange here and we don't get the bad, contagious mites here. We just have the normal, "everyone has them" mites here. He gave me some ivomec injectable which I will give orally unless someone here tells me otherwise. He said this should kill it but it will come back if it is an auto-immune issue which means we will be getting skin scrapings and bloodwork. It's okay though. I like being poor. -heavy sigh-

What is MTG?

Also, how would you go about helping a goat with an auto-immune disorder?

mtg will kill mites and fungus and grow hair back. Vit c and promulgate about the only boosters but I'd go with mtg on bottle will last forever.

I'll see if I can find the pics of my mom's buckling that this happened to..... Treated with Ivermectin injections, & coated the area heavily with bag balm..... It was dry, & bleeding..... After a few days of being coated in Bag Balm, we cleaned his ears & started using MTG once a day for about 2 weeks....

Stopped getting worse, after 1st treatment. Gave Ivermectin injections once a week for 6 weeks at the advice of our vet even though the ears looked almost perfect by the end of week 3.

ETA: Here is Houston's ears.... Skin scraping showed mange mites, odd as I had never seen it in goats.... Can happen in any climate, just like dogs who get mange.

http://i849.photobucket.com/albums/a...1011142946.jpg

http://i849.photobucket.com/albums/a...-27-22_208.jpg

andabigmac, ever had, or seen, or heard of, a cat that had ear mites in your neck of the woods? If so, then ya'll can have mange. It is cause by the same mite that causes ear mites in cats. Sarcoptes scabiei can infect dogs, cats, pigs, goats, sheep, and even horses.

Glad the vet gave you some ivomectin. :) Let us know how it works out.

I have never heard of a goat with an auto-immune deficiency. It wuold seem to me that a goat that had one wouldn't last much past baby-hood, falling prey to a host of things that can get goats. :(

Dunno if your goat has had any issues, but this lil buck arrived half starved & in bad shape... Lived on tiny amounts of milk after his first week...... Portions he received were about 1/4 of the minim I would feed a kid......Was an orphan, but was tossed in the herd to fend for himself during the day at 2 weeks old (& of course was bullied).

No deworming, coccidia prevention, minerals ect. ect..... Weaned from his limited milk diet by 6 weeks, but wasn't eating feed well..... He was a mess :( Came home at 7 weeks old & it took us a while to realize he didn't even know how to drink from a water tub, or eat hay....We spent the next month saving him from pneumonia & parasite infestation....

None of my goats ever caught this, despite rooming with him...... So I wonder if it wasn't similar to demodectic mange that dogs with compromised immune systems get?

During treatment we did everything we could think of to boost his immune system too..... He was a fighter, pulled through this like he did everything else & as yet, hadn't had any of this pop up again.

I've seen mange a lot when I lived in WA state. We had the worst time with ear mites there too. My vet just said that He's never treated a case of mange here in the 10 years that he's practiced here. We just don't have rampant parasite problems here. It's too dry and cold for much to survive. We don't have fleas and we rarely get ticks. I've seen 1 tick in 15 years. We also don't have cocci problems here. The trade off is plants just don't grow here. We have sage, some yucca, and pinon trees here. Everything else has to be babied along.

As for the autoimmune thing, 3 years ago I developed Autoimmune Urticaria. That just means I started getting hives from everything. I've had to switch to an organic diet and do a bunch of immune boosting stuff to rebuild my system. I can't be around chemicals or I end up in the hospital with an anaphalactic reaction. It can just happen all of a sudden. You don't have to be born with it.

The only issues I've had with her is she had staph mastitis when I bought her. She's overweight no matter how strict of a diet she's on, gives 3/4 of a gallon a milking, and has never been sick with anything other than the occasional snotty nose. She didn't have this when she had her shots and worming 3 weeks ago. I wonder if she could have had some sort of reaction?

~smiles~ I did the same sort of logic in telling myself that Cypress couldn't be pregnant.

I've seen mange in goats before, and it looks just like that. I know of no allergic reaction, hives, or other sorts of weirdness that just effects the edges of the ears like that. If it is NOT mange, I'll be shocked. In goats, especially Nubians and Boers, the edges of the ears is the first place they colonize.

Do the ivermectin rounds. If it clears up (and do the looong dosages, as Crystal said...the little bloodsuckers are pernicious.), then it's mange. If it doesn't clear up within a few weeks, then look at other possibilities.

I'm NOT saying it isn't mange. I'm just relating what the vet said. I don't really care what it is as long as it can be fixed and doesn't spread through the rest of the herd.

This isn't going to make the ends of her ears fall off is it? Did Houston's ears return to normal, size and shape-wise?

Yep, Houston's ears are just fine....

They were bald on the tips for a lil while, but then the hair came back and looking at him now you'd never know he had a problem. His "crustys" were thick & one ear got bad enough it weeped blood....... The thick coat of bag balm softened it up, and the crust came off lil by lil.

He didn't enjoy the weekly Ivermectin injections (8 total), but the vet cautioned that it may come back if we stopped too soon....... Houston was about 4 months old in the pics, and is turning 2 soon and hasn't had a relapse.....

I used the M-T-G on the affected area after putting the Ivermectin horse paste rubbed in when 1 of the bucks had mites like that. I applied both every other day & cleared it up.


M0T-G is sold at TSC & most farm stores in the equine section.

Would Tri-Care work in place of the MTG until my order gets here. Or is there an essential oil I can use? My local feed store doesn't sell it. I just ordered it from Valley Vet.

Tilly's ears don't look half as bad as Houston's did. Her's is just starting. I'm so glad it can be cleared up without permanent damage.

Thanks for all of the info my Goat Peeps.

To be honest, I don't think anything applied topically is essential if you're doing ivermectin injections...... We just did the bag balm to soften things up so he would quit cracking & bleeding........ If I remember correctly, I think mom even put a coating of A & D diaper rash ointment on it because the bag balm ran out.....

She found a small bottle of the MTG at TSC & grabbed it just to see if it would help.

When I didn't have any pastes and whatnot, and was giving injections, I used neosporin on the affected area to soften it up.

andabigmac, it could be *both* you know. The reason that one goat out of a herd might get it is because they tend to get bad on animals whose immune system is compromised. Either they don't get enough food, they have a heavy parasite load, they are deficient in something, or something else is going on that has their immune system working at a lower rate than others of their kind.

Like Crystal mentioned on Houston, he was in BAD shape when she got him, and had a lot of other things going on.

You know your herd best. Is this goat low-goat-on-the-totem-pole and is not getting as much food as the others? Needs more minerals than the others? Has more trouble keeping condition? Anything like that? You don't need to answer here, unless you like to write out your thoughts to get them clearer in your head, because as I said, you know your herd best, and just thinking about it might give you the idea of what is going on with her, and therefore what she needs. :)

Mtg is a sulfur based product tri care will soften the area and help smother the mites. My nubians get this from time to time it's usually in the winter when they get their ears wet.

Tilly does let her ears dangle in the water when she drinks. Most of the others hold theirs back. It is definitely not winter here though. I have Lime Sulfur. I wonder if that would help along with the other stuff.

Tilly has never missed a meal in her life. She's the fat moon-spotted one scratching her belly in my post with all of the pictures. She shows no signs of mineral deficiencies. That's why it shocks me that it's her. I could see a few of the others coming down with something like this but not her. Hmmm. Goats sure can be a head scratcher.....

My one Nubian has ears that look like that, they never got crusty, lost hair or looked like Houston's. I have always thought it is a bit of frostbite/winter water damage.

I got him as a month old bottle baby in good condition, he is four now and his ears look like hers. No change over the two yrs they look like that. The water has a de-icer but when the temp is below zero and his ears get wet I know it can do some damage.

You can try the MTG which should be sold in the horse care area, it is called Main and Tail Grower I think. If it does any improvement let me know and I will try it on him as I do have a bottle. Does not smell pleasant btw :)

Well I went out and bathed her ears in Lime Sulfur, Ivercare, and then Tri-Care. She had her shot last night. This is the face I get.

http://i1184.photobucket.com/albums/...ejpeg_2_25.jpg

They may be brain sucking mites...

Brain sucking mites... :hysterical: :rotfl:

Nah, if they were brain sucking mites, they would have moved on: "nothing to eat here, let's go"