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Lice - Fleece Care

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kerrie
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Kerrie

Hello,

my son took our four boars to the vets for a routine nail trim and one went for an health check however.... as the nurse was checking Snow she saw lice, I'm going to assume they have come from either the hay we bought last OR the sows we've not long adopted because they've never had them before, but anyway, I use fleece liners for our piggies and was wondering how to treat them because they are only meant to be washed on 40 degrees (So the care leaflet said). Does anyone have any ideas or advice?

The boars have been treated and will be getting some more treatment when they have it in stock. I'll also be taking the sows to be checked and have their claws trimmed as well.

Thanks in advance

Kerrie
 
I would not think that lice would get into the fleece as it is not their natural environment. Any that fall onto it will quickly die.
Fleece can be washed at 60 degrees, though it may shrink slightly. I use Dettol Laundry Cleanser to kill bacteria.
 
Ok that's brilliant thank you, I'll rewash the ones I did before I knew they had lice. Do I just clean them as usual? ie twice a week? (or when needed in the case of our sows lol). I'll add some of that to the shopping list next week, thank you.
 
Have you washed since the lice were found? if not I would do that now and throw away any infected hay if you haven't already.
 
Yeap I washed two of the liners on 40 degrees earlier, they are drying at the mo but I was going to rewash them? We've not had hay in two of the cages, because the last lot I got was rubbish, they've had freeze dry grass, but I'm going to order some hay from off of the net, one cage has the crap hay, the boys haven't even bothered with it lol, my son's just removing it.
 
I would just wash them all once now and then as necessary. Do you dry your liners in the tumble dryer? I hesitate to use it because of the leccy cost. But it took me days to get a liner dry when I washed one a few weeks ago. No problem getting them dry outside in the summer, though.

A lot of folks on here, including me, get hay either from "Hay for Pets" or "Dust Free Hay".
 
No I don't use the dryer on them, I'm worried they'll shrink too much lol, this place I live in is quite warm to the point where we don't really need to use the heating! So things dry nicely over the rail here, I don't hang anything out where I live.......
 
Ooo thanks for that, maybe dust free hay would be better because I have allergies. So when you guys buy from the dust free one, what sort of hay do you get? and do you get it in packs or bails? Sorry about the questions, I don't want to get the guinea pigs the wrong stuff.
 
If they're anything like human lice, a trip through the dryer at high heat will kill them (not sure about shrinkage issues- if you throw them in dry just for the heat it may be less of a problem than if you dry them from wet. It's the heat you need, not the act of drying.) We haven't dealt with guinea pig lice yet, but did fight a few rounds with human head lice in my two daughters this fall, and the high heat setting in the dryer for all the bedding, towels, clothing, etc. was highly recommended to kill any leftover lice.
 
The other way of doing apparently is to freeze items you think have lice in them.
 
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