goat lice?? help!

[jackrooster]

I think my pygmy/nigerian dwarf goats have lice??? I do i give them to get rid of them?? Someone told me to give them Ivermectin horse wormer?? She told me it kills the worms and lice/mite they have?? Please if you have had this problem tell me what you did for it and where i can fined the answer??? thank you!

 

[mercedes]

Ivomec pour on probably would work better.Check tractor supply and/or goggle ' lice on goats'

 

[apdan]

Our vet gave us a ivermection pour on shot for each one of our pygmys. It was for lice and fleas. We haven't had an issue since. It wasn't injected though

it was just put along their back on the skin.

 

[cmjust0]

Quote:
Pour-ons are designed to soak into the skin, which puts the medication in the bloodstream. Having the medication in the bloodstream is what kills the parasite -- not simply putting the medication on the skin. In other words, whatever way you can get the medication in the bloodstream is going to work equally as well as a pour-on.

Moreover, pour-ons are usually designed for cattle, which have tougher hides than goats. There are some pour-on medications out there that, when used on goats, cause SERIOUS skin irritations...like, big chunks of hair come out, sometimes taking the hide with it, leaving big weeping, painful, oozing sores. Not great. I've also read reports of neurological issues with some pour-ons, though I haven't been able to personally confirm that.

What I can tell you is that there's one pour-on that I've personally used with success...it's called CyLence. It's a synthesized pyrethrine, and I've actually used it on weeks-old kids without any adverse effects. Not only does it kill lice, but it also helps to control flies.. It's fairly cheap (relatively speaking, anyway) at about $20/pint, and the dosage is 1ml/25lbs. For lice, you'll want to repeat the treatment in about 3wks.

The other option, as you mentioned, is ivermectin. Whether or not the ivermectin horse paste dewormer will take care of lice in goats depends entirely on how much of the ivermectin actually makes it into the bloodstream. And that, in turn, depends on the dosage. Generally, people give an ivermectin 1% injectable as a drench at about 1ml/25-50lbs, and that's usually enough to kill external parasites -- but not always. It seems especially hit or miss with mites, but lice are generally easier to control..

Again, it all comes back to blood levels.. For my money, the best way to ensure that blood concentrations of ivermection reach sufficient levels to kill external parasites is to INJECT the goat with ivermectin. That runs counter to a lot of what you'll read, and if we were talking about deworming a goat here, I'd absolutely recommend giving ivermectin orally...but we're not talking about worms. We're talking external parasites. And, like I said, the best way to get it in the blood is to inject it -- period.

I've personally injected a big, heavy doe (probably 16-170lbs) with a scant 2ml of Ivomec 1% injectable and successfully killed mites. And, like I said, mites are generally much, much tougher to kill than lice. If she had any lice when I injected her, she didn't shortly afterward -- that much, I can gaurantee.

But...again...if we're strictly talking *lice* here and nothing more, I'd go with CyLence pour-on. Cheap, easy, effective, safe, and there's no injection or drenching to fool with.

Just my $.02.

 

[michickenwrangler]

I used injectable ivermectin when my old goat had lice and it worked nicely.

 

[jackrooster]

Quote:
So just like ivermectin horse wormer??

 

[michickenwrangler]

It was IM injectable. Use the same dosage as swine. You can get syringes and needles at TSC. You don't need a terribly large needle for goats.

 

[glenolam]

I use the 1% ivomec injectible for cattle (I'm not familiar with the horse wormer version) - it's locked up at TSC and costs a bit of $, but I also use it for worming, when necessary. People use it at different dosages, depending on what they're dealing with. From what I understand, if you choose to inject the cattle 1% ivomec, a dosage of 1ml/50# or even as much as 1ml/25-30# might do the trick for mites/lice. If you do the smaller dose and it doesn't work, you might have to try increasing the ml/#. I'd do it subq with a 1/2" 20 guage needle.

Another option is to sprinkle Sevin dust or a livestock lice/mite dust. I used some random brand from TSC, cost me $6.99 for a bit bottle of the powder and for me and my situation it worked fine. It was strong, and I only had to sprinkle and work in a little bit for my tiny pygmy, but it worked.

 

[cmjust0]

Quote:
Not exactly...actually, you gotta watch about injecting really high doses, because at really high blood concentrations, ivermectin WILL cross the blood-brain barrier.

Not sure what problem that creates, exactly, but...well...suffice it to say that ivermectin isn't really meant to cross the BBB.

So then.. What I'd say is that if you're using an ivermectin 1% injectable for the purpose of deworming, you'll want to up the dosage to 2..3..4x the label recommendation for cattle and give it orally. This may or may not treat external parasites, depending on the dosage you use, how much of it passes from the GI to the bloodstream, what type of external parasites you're treating, etc.. Using oral ivermectin for external parasites seems, to me, to be a hit-or-miss kind of a thing.

If, however, you're strictly using ivermectin it to treat external parasites, the dosage can be lowered significantly and it can be (should be, in my opinion) given as a SQ injection. I successfully killed mites -- which are much more stubborn than lice, as a general rule -- in a 160-170lb doe with only 2ml of Ivomec 1% injectable, given SQ. I have a feeling I could have used the on-label cattle dose of 1ml/110lbs and given her +/-1.5ml and had the same result, and I will verify that at some point in the near future. Injecting SQ at the labeled dose for cattle WILL NOT deworm the goat, though...at least not in any meaningful way in the vast majority of goats.

Another option is to sprinkle Sevin dust or a livestock lice/mite dust. I used some random brand from TSC, cost me $6.99 for a bit bottle of the powder and for me and my situation it worked fine. It was strong, and I only had to sprinkle and work in a little bit for my tiny pygmy, but it worked.

I've used Python and some other kind of generic 'dairy dust' or whatever on lousy goat babies before...like, hours-old newborns...and it works great. Very easy on the animal, too.