To me, it sort of looks like a molt, but if he is molting just on the ears, that seems odd. He is not showing any other symptoms and does not have this condition elsewhere on his face or body. He is a wether.
This was our first winter with Nubians so we are still learning. Any advice appreciated!
11 comments:
What? No Luna updates? dang
sorry, don't know anything about goat ears
Can you take a little scraping to your vet?
Is he the only one with any hair loss?? That's odd. My guess would be parasites, like the mite or lice, but you didn't see any lice. Maybe he isn't getting enough of a vitamin...Vit A can cause hair loss. Not sure what to tell you, does he do anything differently than the others? Rub something with them? Play in water? (fungus infection) is he the only nubian on your place? Maybe it's because his are pendulous that he has and the others don't. My vet blog has how to check for skin mites on it, that's a consideration too. Some mites burrow into the skin and you wouldn't see them on the surface. You can get goodwinol at some feed stores. I'd ask your vet to make sure it's safe on goats, but I've used it on dogs to get rid of dermatitis caused by mites. (that particular mite is the demodex and can only be seen with the microscope but tend to cause hair loss on the head areas first)
Made a special post on my vet blog with info I found on goats, please go check it may help, I would say probably ear mites, but of course I'm not there examining your goat fully either. :) Good luck hope it helps some. Would also suggest contacting your vet.
Yes, he is the only one with the hair loss, and only on his ears. We have 6 Nubians, none are showing any sign of it. He does not appear to be scratching at them or anything. He doesn't play in water (unless he does it when we are not watching!). He i getting the same feed as the other Nubians, and also Tulip the boer cross is with them.
As mentioned in my comment to JLB on her fabulous vet info blog, we don't have a vet. Iowa has a serious shortage of large animal vets and none in our area are taking new patients except for 1, who we had out here, who we really didn't like, and have since been warned away from by several other livestock owners. Our other option is to drive Zak out to Iowa State University clinic (1 hour plus drive) but I prefer to avoid that when I can. I will try the initial treatments JLB found (VetRx and iodine) and if no improvement, I'll call the university and see if they will let us take in a scraping, instead of the whole goat!
How do you get to JLB's blog? Sounds like a great blog, but when I click on her name, all I get is a "profile is not available" page?
JLB's blog is Bedtick Farm, which is on my list of blogs on the right, and then she has two other blogs (including the vet one) that you can link to from the main blog. :-)
WHOOPS! I fibbed! You can't get to the vet blog from Bedtick Farm. I'm not sure why. Here is the link for the other one.
http://vetwork.blogspot.com/
Poor Zak! I do know how you feel, though. Poor Emma (cat) started losing her hair on her back half - flanks, bottom, belly, etc. The vet suggested stress! Emma and I have a mostly stress-free life, unless she's ticked off that I'm away from home more than when she came to live with me. Anyway - I changed kitty litter to a non-scented one and, as I told her original foster Mom a couple of days ago, she is re-furring! I hope you find Zak's problem so easily.
Nancy
Hmmmm, sorry about that, I didn't realize that when I shut my profile off from one blog it would block them all :( I'll put links up to the vet blog and the other on the bedtick farm blog. The other still doesn't have anything in it though and it is requiring a lot more research and work so it will take longer. If you guys leave me a comment on what you want me to do posts on I'll look up specific dog or cat breed health problems for the one and work on those first, or work on specific things for the vet blog. I'll start working on goat kid vaccination stuff now and hopefully have one up for you Claire by this afternoon.
Okay, there should be links on my bedtick farm blog on the right at the top to the other two blogs. There is also a new post about goat vaccinations and the Bo-se shot on the vet blog. :) Enjoy. Claire: If you're anywhere near a highschool ask the science teachers there and they might let you use there microscope in exchange for their students being able to view the slide as well ;)
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