The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: fifixx on October 01, 2013, 03:58:41 pm

Title: Itchy goats
Post by: fifixx on October 01, 2013, 03:58:41 pm

I let the 8 month old kids into the woods with me for a couple of hours, then called them out and they went ballistic with itchiness - could it be Harvest mite? 

Title: Re: Itchy goats
Post by: Anke on October 01, 2013, 10:06:53 pm

Could be anything, from nettle stings to harvest mites.... have they settled down?

Title: Re: Itchy goats
Post by: fifixx on October 02, 2013, 09:01:39 am

ah, nettle stings - hadn't thought of that!  Yes, calmer yesterday evening.  Tried to pen them in using sheep hurdles - bit daft - they just hopped out....plan B this evening with double height ones!

Will take specs and catch one to have a look - vet gave me some Dectomax injections, worth doing possibly  if they go back in against mites and ticks but in muscle ones and I HATE doing that!

Title: Re: Itchy goats
Post by: Anke on October 02, 2013, 03:56:43 pm

Well one of my greedy BT's last year went for some freshly cut nettles as I was carrying them past the fence.... she was then blowing raspberries all evening and had a sore mouth... drank lots of water too... but no lasting damage.
 
Hope they settle down...
 
 

Title: Re: Itchy goats
Post by: Dogwalker on October 04, 2013, 02:32:54 pm

Well my goats must have tough mouths then.
 
I've just seen a wether kid standing in a patch of nettles up to his tummy, eating big mouthfuls of growing nettles and not appearing to have any problems.
 
I'll check later.

Title: Re: Itchy goats
Post by: fifixx on October 05, 2013, 07:47:07 pm

So the vet gave me the wrong thing....according to the "goaty" vet in the practice - Dectomax will not get rid of external parasites...

So today a 3 hour stint catching each kid, finding any ticks and removing, spraying with blue spray and giving antibiotic if the bite is swollen. Scabs too (possibly ex-tick bites) got the blue spray.  Plus 5ml Spot on.

Next year I'm going to keep up with Spot on through the summer and autumn as we are in the ideal place for ticks and mites.

We learnt 2 new goat-catching and restraining tricks though - first when penning them, make the pen smaller once they are caught so they can't really move - no more rodeo moves to catch them, it also stops them bashing each other!  And - when caught, one person hold the 2 front legs and the other the 2 back legs and lower onto side, then after initial kicking, put hand gently over eyes - and they just zone out!