When a Cow Gets Dandruff...

Just yesterday Holly (the Jersey heifer) had a couple patches of hair missing on her neck. There was a lot of flaking skin around the areas too. I wasn't too concerned about it until I looked up why a cow would be loosing hair in patches. I found things like, mange, lice, ringworm, photosensitivity etc. Then I got nervous. I tried to rule out ringworm - the enemy of the cattle farmer - because it is very dry here and the fungus thrives in a damp dark environment. I couldn't rule out lice because I hadn't taken a close enough look to see if there were any bugs. Well my worrying was in vain, the vet came out to castrate some other cows on the farm and he took a look at Holly. He said that it was only dry skin, and that she should be brushed an hour everyday. I don't mind the extra chore time I have to put in, its an easy remedy compared to the cost and effort to rid the entire herd of ringworm or lice! (Chances are that if one cow has symptoms, more than just one would be affected). In retrospect it makes sense that Holly's loosing hair. She has a very thick coat for a Jersey - probably because she was kept in a very cold barn before we had her. Now she shedding that winter coat. No doubt mosquito and black fly bites caused her to rub on posts, making the patches of hair come out. Fortunately Holly doesn't mind being brushed, and today she stood still for the majority of the hour, so I could brush her. Im going to look into getting a natural moisturizer for her skin, because its just like a bad case of dandruff, flaking everywhere!