Page 8 - Agriculture Magazine, March 2020
photo Courtesy Jeff Johnson, Burnt Fork Veterinary Clinic Client
With spring comes lice in the goat barn Christin Rzasa, Burnt Fork Veterinary Clinic
If you’re lucky enough to own a goat or two, you may have recently noticed them rubbing—on everything! They lean into fences with their shoulders and backs as they walk along. They scratch their heads and necks on barn walls or feeders. You might see this behavior in one or two animals and then suddenly, nearly everyone is joining in. This isn’t some behavioral anomaly or a sign your goats are going stir-crazy. Late winter in the Montana goat barn is when the lice you didn’t know your goats were carrying become most active.
While a new goat owner may be shocked and disgusted by this turn of events, most seasoned producers have experienced an infestation and know what to do about it. Novice producers need to educate themselves about external parasites— like lice—because they are just another aspect of goat husbandry. The first thing that a new goat owner should know about goat lice is that they don’t like humans, and although on a rare occasion, you might find a louse crawling on you, they don’t want to be there and definitely won’t stay. Lice are “species-specific,” meaning they can only complete their life cycle if they’re on the right
