Poor Artie developed a bald spot on one side of her neck a few weeks ago. I assumed she'd just scraped it on something, but the patch got bigger over time and then one popped up on the other side too.

I'm not 100% certain what's going on, but the internet suggests this may be a normal reaction by some does to the hormone changes associated with drying off. Artemesia has been slowly backing off on letting her daughter nurse for a while and now she's pretty close to dry.

It's also possible the issue could be a mineral deficiency or a parasite infection, though. I figure the latter's pretty unlikely since Artemesia hasn't been scratching the bare spots and I've seen no sign of critters. To rule out the former cause, I'm getting some fresh minerals to go with her kelp just in case our doe is unwilling to eat out of Aurora's former sandbox.

Have any of you had a problem with balding does? What, if anything, did you do to fix the problem?

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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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