Mites(?) on goat

[gronhomes]

We have an approx 3 month old baby goat that the kids love to hold but we have just found that she has some sort of mites. They are black/brown and are about the size of a flea but are not fleas. I first thought they were just seeds of some sort that had fallen on her coat but they have a movement.

Anybody have any advice as to what they are. They are definitely visible to the naked eye.

Also, what should we put on her to get rid of them so that the kids(human) can enjoy petting her again.

Scott

[Wendy]

You can dust them with Sevin dust that you should be able to get at a feed mill or animal supply store.
You can also worm it with Ivomec 1% injectable. It will usually help with lice & mites. You can give it as a shot or orally. 1 cc per 50 lbs. of body weight. Some say it needs to be injected to work on lice & mites, others say giving it orally also works.

[Mrs_stuart]

If you can see them, i would think that they are lice, not mites. Mites are usually too small to see with the eye like that. We use ivomec for lice. It works well.

Belinda

[wwoodacres]

one of mine had something like that and i was told they were chicken fleas have they been around any poultry

[Jen H]

The sevin dust works really well for mites, lice, and fleas. You can also get permethrin dusts and sprays that do the same job at feed stores.

- the lice and mites that goats get don't infect humans (it's just kind of icky to think about). They might crawl on us, but wont start an infestation at all. So it really is safe to let the kids keep petting the goat.

[dragonfly65]

We found them on one of our babies when we took her to the vet to be debudded. He told us they were lice. I mentioned our chickens and he said that lice are species specific (goat lice only like goats, chicken lice only like chickens, etc.). He suggested the injectable, but it was a little more than I was able to spend. I did some online research and we ended up using a pour on cattle delouser. It was half the price and it will probably last me for years. I just ran a line of it down their backs (according to their weight) to their tails. A couple weeks later I didn't see any living on them, but did a second treatment to get any eggs that might have hatched. I saw a lot of reccomendations for the dusting, but our goats are pygoras (part angora) and I knew I would never be able to get the dust past all that mohair to the skin. If you have more than one goat, if one has them, then all of them have them.

[Tricia]

Is the lice treatment chemicals safe for a pregnant doe?