One of my does has a small crusty pus filled area on her ear. It goes through to both sides of her ear - right through the middle. Almost like a small puncture. We have taken the crust off, disenfected it with iodine, and applyed antibiotic ointment. Yet, it continues to crust over again both on the inside and outside of the ear's surface. Could this be an absess? It does not look like the absesses in my medical book, but I heard that mites could cause absesses in the ears. Any ideas? Thanks so much!!

-- Tiffani Cappello (cappello@alltel.net), November 28, 2000

Answers

Tiffani, get it cultured. It will not cost much if you can get the culture yourself and take it into the vet's, maybe $15.00 or less. One of my does had what looked like an abcess on her jaw. A culture showed it was only an injury that had gotten a little infected- not CL (contagious abcesses). It was worth the cost because the whole herd was at stake and it gave me a huge sigh of relief to know it will not be spreading. Another thought. I have had does get their heads caught in feeders, and then a more dominant doe gets ticked off that the stuck doe is in the way, so they bite her ears in an attempt to get her to withdraw from the feeder. The stuck goat can't run away, so she just gets chewed on until the bully gets tired of it or I come to help. In one of the does, the bites were so severe, going all the way through in several places, that the whole end of the ear got infected and rotten and fell off, despite lots of cleaning and antibiotic cream. I've never seen mites in my goat's ears.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), November 29, 2000.

This is on her ear flap? No chance of an CL abscess their! If it is conected to her head and ear than yes this could be a draining abscess. Many years ago a friend had a Nubian doe who used to get large round abscesses on her ear flaps. She would just let them go, I thought they were horrid looking. Finally she had the vet cut one of them off and sent it in. It was a cyst with a sticker from and osage orange tree, incapsulated right in the middle of it, the body had just kept walling it off and walling it off, the things never festered or anything. For several more years she would just lance them, squeeze the bejebbers out of them and spary them with iodine to dry them up.

With your doe, I would start thinking about a mite, and perhaps use some of the remedies you have heard about, like toothpaste, gold bond ointment etc. I would inject her with 1cc per 110 pounds of Injectable Ivermectin 1%, again in 21 days and spray the spot with iodine. In fact I have a new salve that is iodine I got for my dog, love this stuff! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), November 29, 2000.

Tiffani, try treating it with peroxide, take off the crust and treat twice a day with peroxide, dust with Wonder Dust (Farnam product available from farm or feed store) after drying it off well. If this doesn't work, it could very well be a cancer, then, you might want a vet to excise it, and biopsy it, if this a doe you care a lot about. Annie in SE OH.

-- Annie Miller (annie@1st.net), November 29, 2000.