Mange

I had a squirrel in a feeder this morning that had about 2/3’s of its forward body and much of the head flat out bald. No sore visible but the lack of hair sort o reminded me of mange, so its currently wrapped in newspaper and then in a plastic bag and resting comfortably in the garbage can.

Normally I see these sorts of things when we’ve had a really bad winter and animals can get weather weary, worn out if you will. When I see critters half naked I dispatch the thing. The one this morning was about the worse I have seen for hair loss in many years. If its a topical mange contact with pets isn’t so bad, but viral mange is an absolute bitch if a dog or cat comes in contact with an infected animal, especially if the dog or cat is an indoor pet where kids can the come in contact with the crap.

A month ago I saw one of our urban coyotes that appeared to have viral mange and it was a real mess. Most likely the mange will have killed it by now.

Good job Jimmy putting it out of its misery that sounds terrible. It would have died long ago if we had a normal winter.

Got this trail cam pic back in January, there was another coyote in the same pic.

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Yeesh! We had a fox near our house that was stupid bad last Fall. It either finally got hit by a car or someone shot it. It was not doing well at all. It wasnt afraid of people either.

Coyotes are particularly susceptible to mange because they come in contact with so many critters as a food source. The one I saw earlier was pretty bloody along one flank.

Mange isn’t something we need in urban settings and its hard to control once its been introduced. I see anything that looks like mange, it gets inoculated with lead of some sort or another.

In our area it hasn’t been as big of an issue as years ago it seems, but I’ve seen some tough looking coyotes on occasion. Last Winter I shot one that was bad standing in our driveway and had about 1/3 of it’s hide gone. The fox we’ve seen regularly have not had it though at all.

Nephew picked off these 2 yesterday.
Fox was mangy but not the yote.
That’s like the 3rd fox this year with mange.

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I have this ugly little critter running around my house. My wife said she would shoot me if I shot it. Her Chiwawa had mange when she bought it and 13 years later it doesn’t look much better. A little hair has grown back. Not much. Taking it out of its misery is the right thing to do unless you want to make it your pet and cloth it.

Had a red fox on my driveway yesterday morning the had no fur on its tail. No way to shoot it. That side of house faces town. Wish it was in back nothing that way but the river.

Mange is a mite living in the skin or hair follicle. There’s different types but the one most come in fox/coyotes is a type called sarcoptic and is pretty contagious. If your dog is on an oral flea and tick medication it should be protected. Some wild life hairloss can be due to fleas and the animal is sensitive to them.