Mites, cleaning the cage and panicked pig

[Apples]

Hello!

One of my piggies, Bonkie, was diagnosed with mites this fall. After a 5 week course of oral ivermectin she showed no improvement, so I took her back to the vet on Monday. A skin scraping confirmed she still has mites, so she is now again on a 5 week ivermectin course, but a higher dose, in combination with a stronghold pipette this week and again in a month’s time.

The vet said I didn’t need to take any special measures about cleaning their cage, but since the treatment didn’t work last time around I decided to clean out their whole cage yesterday anyway on my day off: wiped the correx base with a vinegar solution and took out all the liners and wooden hideys,. Those are now “in quarantine” for 3 weeks.

They are now on bath mats that I used before switching to fleece liners earlier this year. A few fleece tunnels could be washed at 60C so I washed them and put those back in the cage so they still have something that they are used to. In addition, I bought some new wooden hideys and a carrot house for them.

Dumpty, my other pig, was a bit apprehensive at first when I put them back in the clean cage with all the new stuff, but he did have a look around and chewed the carrot house a bit. But then had a huge scare about an hour later around midday. I don’t know what happened, but he started running around in a panic, hitting the hideys and walls, and then ended up sitting in one of the hideys. He won’t leave now and won’t eat anything I put in front of the hidey, even if Bonkie is sitting there happily eating all the food. When I later put food in the hidey he did eat it after a while.

I was hoping that after a night it would have improved, but he still was in the hidey this morning, refusing to come out when I gave them their pellets, and when I carefully lifted up the hidey a bit to check on him, he panicked again.

Bonkie meanwhile is a bit jumpy, I think because of Dumpty’s behaviour, but otherwise happily munching hay as we speak.

I am now at a loss, on one hand Dumpty is absolutely terrified, I think because he feels like he is in a totally new place, on the other hand his trusted hideys and liners might carry mites. What do I do now? Should I put all the liners and their own hideys back and hope the mites will go away with the meds alone? Any thoughts?

Thank you for reading all of this.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Do you have any F10 disinfectant? F10 is the vet grade disinfectant recommended for using to clean when piggies have mites. Nothing survives it, not even ringworm! If you can get hold of some of the concentrate, make it up with water and soak the wooden hides in a bucket/bowl etc in the F10 for a few hours, let them dry and then they can have the wooden hides back. Quarantining the hides is a good idea but if he is so upset by not having his normal items then three weeks is a long time!
For now, I would cover part of his cage with a blanket and see if that helps him feel more secure.
You obviously need to be sure he is eating hay.

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

 

[Apples]

I had a look for F10 disinfectant in the pet stores, but couldn't find any. Apparantly it's not allowed to be sold here. I had a look online now and can have it shipped from Germany, so I'll try that.

I tried the blanket and that is working wonders for now! I covered their hay-area with a blanket and slowly moved the hidey with him in it nearer and now he's eating and sitting in the hay. So relieved to see him relaxing a bit! Thanks so much for that tip!

 

[Free Ranger]

I've not heard of a 5 week course of ivermectin before (and we've had a lot of ivermectin over the years!)
I know it sounds a bit fussy but did the vet say what type of mites?

Over here we usually get spot-on pipettes of ivermectin (for pigs around 1.2kilo or heavier we get the xeno-450 pipettes). These are spotted onto all the piggies (not just the one showing symptoms!) on the bare patches of skin you can see - so typically behind the ears, into rosettes, lifting fur along the spine etc. This soaks into the skin and goes around the system, killing mites off as they feed. The cage is blitzed out a day or so later. Then after 2 weeks the whole thing is repeated. Then after another 2 weeks the whole thing is repeated again!

This is because ivermectin does not kill the eggs, only the live critters. The eggs take about 3 weeks from hatching to breeding maturity, so if you repeat dose at 2 weeks you are getting all the hatchlings before they reach laying maturity. The last dose is to catch any stragglers. I once got a vet who got it the wrong way round and prescribed 2 doses 3 weeks apart (instead of 3 doses 2 weeks apart) which didn't work and the mites came back.

But we've recently had a poster whose longer haired piggies had a type of mite that didn't seem to be much affected by the ivermectin. Maybe there was some resistance, I don't know. But their diagnosis was 'static lice' (which are mites, not lice, see link here Guinea Lynx :: Fur Mites) and they had to take a different approach... we are waiting on the outcome!

 

[Princess Dustmop]

Stronghold appears to be the European brand name for what goes by Revolution in the states ... it's technically selamectin rather than ivermectin; both are effective topical-applied treatments against guinea pig mites and lice. We got it for my piggies that had lice, and it was quite effective ... if I remember, it was two doses of Revolution a few weeks apart (it was 6 or 7 years ago, so I'd have to look up my records for more specific than that). I think I remember reading that selamectin has an effect on eggs, as well as adults, which I think is slightly different from ivermectin.

 

[Apples]

I don’t think we have Xeno here, but only oral ivermectin products. The ivermectin was a 0,5ml dose the first time around (containing 0,2mg ivermectin), once per week for a period of 5 weeks.

This time we have upped it to 0,75ml for Bonkie (0,3mg ivermectin) (and I'm giving Dumpty 0,5ml) and again once/week for 5 weeks with a simultaneous stronghold course. Those stronghold pipettes contain 15mg selamectin and the vet applied the first one in her neck, and told me to apply a second pipette (also with 15mg selamectin) a month after the first.

I don’t remember the vet saying anything about the type of mites, but interesting to read about those static lice, do I understand correctly that they cause less itchiness than mange? Despite having the distinctive V-shape on her back, Bonkie isn’t super itchy. I only rarely caught her scratching herself so I was a bit in doubt at first whether it would be mites. She’s very squirmy though so I can’t really see if there is anything in her fur.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I don’t think we have Xeno here, but only oral ivermectin products. The ivermectin was a 0,5ml dose the first time around (containing 0,2mg ivermectin), once per week for a period of 5 weeks.

This time we have upped it to 0,75ml for Bonkie (0,3mg ivermectin) (and I'm giving Dumpty 0,5ml) and again once/week for 5 weeks with a simultaneous stronghold course. Those stronghold pipettes contain 15mg selamectin and the vet applied the first one in her neck, and told me to apply a second pipette (also with 15mg selamectin) a month after the first.

I don’t remember the vet saying anything about the type of mites, but interesting to read about those static lice, do I understand correctly that they cause less itchiness than mange? Despite having the distinctive V-shape on her back, Bonkie isn’t super itchy. I only rarely caught her scratching herself so I was a bit in doubt at first whether it would be mites. She’s very squirmy though so I can’t really see if there is anything in her fur.

The treatment you are using is different to that which we use - as mentioned, here it is a course of three treatments with one treatment given every two weeks to catch the life cycle and kill all mites.
If she has the v shape then it is most likely mange mites. These are more serious than hay mites (static lice) but still easily treated as they burrow into the skin so can be more affected by spot on treatments
You won’t see any mites themselves in her fur.

 

[Free Ranger]

This time we have upped it to 0,75ml for Bonkie (0,3mg ivermectin) (and I'm giving Dumpty 0,5ml) and again once/week for 5 weeks with a simultaneous stronghold course.

It's really interesting to hear about the different treatment options.
I can't get over their names! So guinea-piggy!