The first step in dealing with Aurora's biters was to figure out what exactly is chewing on her. After combing through her hair in bright sunlight for a while, I finally discovered small, slow-moving brown spots. Clipping a bit of hair plus biter then photographing and zooming way in on the resultant image resulted in a diagnosis --- biting lice (Bovicola caprae/Damalinia caprae).

Various natural treatment methods exist for lice on goats, but all either seem too invasive to me or have proven ineffective. On the ineffective front, diatomaceous earth did absolutely nothing to hinder Aurora's lice despite brushing gobs of it into her hair for multiple days running. On the invasive front, soaking your animal in any liquid (including water) and keeping her wet for six hours will kill nearly all lice...good luck with that. Shearing is also effective at removing 30 to 50% of lice, with most of the rest naturally dying as they're exposed to weather...but we have a cold spell coming up and I don't think our goats would enjoy being sheared.

So, chemicals it is. The internet is mixed on mainstream methods of treatment, but one extension agent site says that the ivermectin or moxidectin dosages that work on sucking lice aren't effective against biting lice. Instead, they recommend treating with permethrin, which comes in various brand names and application patterns. Of these, Ultra Boss is labelled for use on goats as a pour-on (meaning you can apply in a strip down the animal's back like cat or dog flea meds). That seems the least invasive, so we're going to give it a shot --- treat once, then wait two weeks and treat again. Fingers crossed poor Aurora will stop stamping and scratching in the near future.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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