Lice? Small white blobs on guinea pigs bottom

[Poppy + Dandelion]

Hi everyone,

This evening when I got out my 3 year old female guinea pig, I noticed she had a few white things on her bottom? There were quite a few and they were very small (but I could still see them), a few were clumped together then the rest were on there own. I just gave her a bath and I think I managed to brush out most of these white things.

I'll have another proper look in the morning, and see if I can get a picture if they're anywhere else on her fur but I just wanted your advice. Could it be lice or mites?
And if I find any more I'll take her to the vet, but what is the treatment? And is it serious to my piggy?

Otherwise she is acting completely normal and eating, running about on the grass etc.
So if I find anymore I'll take her to the vet but does anyone else have any ideas, treatment, is it serious etc?


Sorry for the ramble haha and all the questions I'm prone to overthinking these things and my piggies like to give me a lot of anxiety so any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Poppy + Dandelion]

Oh and they're not moving (not that I can see anyway)

 

[Piggies&buns]

Please do have your piggy seen by a vet for diagnosis for any potential parasite. Parasites need treating. Best not to give baths until you have seen a vet as you could remove the evidence the vet needs to make a diagnosis
Mites cannot be seen, but you can see their egg casings which usually fix to the back end of a piggy. Lice are pale crawling creatures which are visible.

The guide below further explains piggy parasites

New Guinea Pig Problems: Sexing & Pregnancy; URI, Ringworm & Parasites; Vet Checks & Customer Rights

 

[Poppy + Dandelion]

Okay, I'll call the vets tomorrow morning and try to get their soonest appointment. And should I get a new bag of hay and stop on the current bag or is there no way its come from the hay?
I know it's hard to tell without a diagnosis so should I just keep the current hay until the vets?

Thank you.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Parasites can come in on hay but given we only have a written description and cannot make a diagnosis, we can’t know what you are dealing with. You may wish to err on the side of caution with hygiene though until you know what you are dealing with

 

[Free Ranger]

Don't sweat it... it's a shock at first but so is seeing nits on the kids and it's not so different!

We've had both lice and mites (although not at the same time!) and the treatment has always been the same and pretty simple. Xeno is an ivermectin spot-on lotion which is dobbed onto the bare skin of piggy (so behind ears, in rosettes, lifting hair along back to put it underneath etc). It soaks into the skin, goes into the system and kills the wee beasties that way. It doesn't kill the unhatched eggs so we always have repeat treatments and we do them 2 weeks apart so one treatment, then 2 weeks later another to kill any new hatched eggs, then 2 weeks later again you do a third in case of escapees! Cages are blitzed a day or so after each treatment and all piggies are treated at the same time or lice can be harboured on the companion. The xeno has never bothered any of my piggies and there's no need to bath them although they do look a bit startled for the first day as the fur can be a bit messed up but they sort it out. Xeno is pretty all-singing and dancing as it kills off loads of stuff so whatever creepy crawly you have there it can probably tackle it.
BUT BUT BUT you MUST see the vet ESPECIALLY to get the piggies accurately weighed as the dose is dependent on bodyweight and you can overdose with this. There are two concentrations mini-50 and 450... for a mature chunky pig you'd probably get the 450 but for a smaller girl the vet might decide mini-50 especially if there are other piggy issues that they spot when they do the exam... and sometimes piggy can have an underlying issue which makes her more vulnerable to parasite infection. However, most of the time it's just straightforward mites or lice and just a bit of a faff.

I'm not sure I've ever had anything from the hay that infested my piggies - I did once get some lovely local farm-fresh organic hay that infested my house though so now I just use the prebagged from PaH and I've not had any probs with that. Shame because they fell on the other stuff, but now they get grass every morning instead so they don't complain! Good luck and keep us posted x

 

[Poppy + Dandelion]

Hey! Just an update on Poppy. And thank you for all your response, it really helped!

The vet said that it was mites, she could tell straight away as she had a little bald tummy.
We now have some ivermention cream and I've given Poppy and her cage mate their first dose. I've also thoroughly cleaned their cage, all their houses and toys etc with piggy safe disinfectant. I'll give both piggies more cream again in two weeks and keep monitoring them and Poppy's bald patch

Thank you for your responses and help!

 

[Free Ranger]

Oh well done - I love ivermectin - it's saved us quite a few times!

It's also used to get rid of internal parasites in some animals and there has recently been a spate of people in the US ending up in A&E after overdosing on Horse-wormer which contains ivermectin. Why?! They believed it would protect against Covid. And it doesn't (I'll just repeat that in case this pops up on someone's Google search - IT DOESN'T!) Stop using up all the ivermectin folks - the vets need it for when our piggies are a 'scratchin'!