Sucking Lice - A Hidden Killer in your Herd

We have always tried to be careful about the health of our goats.  We do yearly tests for CAE, Johnes and CL.  We make sure they are wormed regularly, have their three-way shots, trim their hooves when needed and provide good feed.    So it was a shock to us when a hidden killer visited our farm. 

 
This past winter we added a lovely doe to our herd that came bred to a fantastic looking buck.  We were so excited we could hardly wait for spring to come to see the outcome of this pairing. 

 
In early January we received word from the breeder that she was ready to come home. 

 
We decided to keep her segregated from the herd because our matriarch doe is known to assert her dominance over new arrivals. 

 
We did not keep her separate because of the possibility of her spreading disease, because she had been tested at our request for Johnes, CAE, and CL and also had a certificate of good health from her local vet.  It was more for her protection than for the protection of our herd. 

 
We placed her in one of our birthing pens and made sure she received good alfalfa and a small amount of grain for the remainder of her pregnancy. 

 
During this time we did not notice any of signs of distress on her part.  About the only thing we did noticed was that she seemed to spend a lot of time lying down.

 
At the appointed time she gave birth to three lovely but small kids.  Her milk was in and all appeared well; however the next morning one of the kids was found dead in the manger and the other two could barely stand on their own.  Upon inspection of the doe we found she had no milk. 

 
We immediately called our vet who determined that the doe and the kids had a severe sucking lice infestation. 

 
We brought the two remaining kids into the house and began to feed them a goat milk substitute, but it was too late.  One of the kids made it another day and by the third day the last of them had passed. 

 
Needless to say, we were shocked at the deaths and we were in denial as to the cause.  We simply could not believe that a lice infestation could have taken all three kids in such a short time.  As a result, we asked our vet to perform an autopsy on the last of the kids that had passed.  She confirmed that the death was due to an almost complete lack of blood in the kid’s system.  She also said that the doe probably lost her milk from being anemic due to the lice.  She also indicated that kid deaths due to lice was not at all uncommon, but very often went undiagnosed.

 

This was a hard lesson for us to learn.  We thought with the blood tests and certificate of good health, that we had done our due diligence to protect our investment and our herd.  We had no idea that a seemingly innocuous thing like a lice infestation could be so devastating. 

 

The one thing we did right was keep the doe separate from the rest of our herd even though it was for the wrong reason.  In checking our herd after the fact we found almost no lice in any of our other animals. 

 

I am not an expert, so I have deliberately not gone into identification of lice, signs of infestation and cures.  There are numerous articles on the internet.  Some good  sites  are  MSU,  The  Biology  of  the  Goat  and  Suwannee River Youth Livestock Show & Sale

 

Tom Lewis