Oral Ivermectin Dosing - Step by Step with pics

[fairysari]

I treated the pigs with Ivermectin today as a precaution. I just adopted a new pig, and I'm paranoid that one of my boars is scratching. So, better safe then sorry. I took pictures as I was doing it, so that I could post them here, and maybe help out some people who have never done it before.

All dosing information, and the page I used for reference, is here: Guinea Lynx :: Ivermectin Oral Treatment. This was the ORAL HORSE PASTE that I used. The brand is PANOMEC, which is avilable in Canada. Because we use metric measurements in Canada, there is a slight difference from the American brands. Read the GL page carefully when you are dosing your pigs!

Now onto the pictures. Thanks to my beautiful new girl Maci for being the model:
The first thing I did was zero my scale. I wanted to make sure that the weights were current and accurate:

Then weigh the pig:

Maci is just tiny! She weighs 840g:

Then I wrote down all the weights, and calculated the dose:

The ivermectin comes in a syringe of 6.42g, which contains 120mg of ivermectin. The entire syringe is intended as a dose for a 600kg horse. There are markers on the plunger every 100kg - so the dose is easily divided into sixths. There is a ring on the plunger, which can be set to easily give only part of the entire 600kg dose. (Remember this is slightly different in the American brands, where a 1250lb dose is divided into 250lb increments) Here is the ring on the plunger set to give me a 100kg dose (sorry this one is blurry):

 

[fairysari]

You need a small jar with a tight fitting lid. I use a small glass jar with a stopper type lid with a rubber seal. Here you can see the lid:

Then squirt the 100kg dose of ivermectin into the jar, up to the ring:

Then add 20 mL plain water. (Remember for American brands this is different, you would add 22 mL water). I use the syringe that I will be giving the meds with to measure the water, so that I know it is exact:

 

[fairysari]

Put the lid on the jar and shake it really well:

The mixture should be very well blended:

 

[fairysari]

Draw up some of the mixture into the syringe. You need a 1cc syringe for this, anything bigger and you will not be able to get and exact measurement.

Draw up a little more than you need into the syringe, then squirt out the extra. This will help get out any air bubbles, and you can move the syringe slowly to get te exact amount you need. If there are air bubbles, the amount will be off.

Refer to your calculations for the amount of mixture you need. Maci is 840g, so she gets 0.168mL of the mixture. You can see how small an amount this is, and why you need the 1cc syringe.

Once you have the coreect amount in you syringe, go ahead and give it to your pigs!

For more information on how to actually administer the medicine, have a look at this page: Guinea Lynx :: Giving Medications. I just make sure the pig is chewing on the syringe before I squirt. It is a very small amount, so you can do it in one quick squirt. With Maci, I just put her on the coffee table in front of me, stuck the syringe near her face, and she grabbed it and tried to get it in her mouth!

 

[fairysari]

I'm going to see if I can get Craig to take pictures, or maybe even video, of me actually giving the meds to the pigs for their next dose next week. I'll add them here if I can get them.

I'm sort of surprised no one had any questions or anything about this thread yet. ptimist:

 

[katiecavyNC]

This is very helpful! Thanks

 

[Jennicat]

I think it's also worthwhile to mention that because it's mixed with water, you can't save the paste after you mix and dose.

 

[CBrewton5]

this is very helpful as I have Ivermectin on the way for my piggies. I'm not sure they have mites but as you say, better safe than sorry. For the dosing can you write out the math you used?

 

[CBrewton5]

Nevermind I got my answer

I did not realize that the Ivermectin didn't come with a syringe.....seems kinda silly to me that it wouldn't since you need it to dose with *sigh*

It says 0.2 ml of this solution will contain 0.2 mg ivermectin but then the dosing is in cc's, does 1cc=1ml?

 

[Percy's Mom]

Actually, the kind of ivermectin Fairysari used doesn't come with a syringe because it wasn't originally intended for guinea pigs. It's a horse paste that would ordinarily have a dose squeezed out based on the weight of the horse and fed to him. No syringe is needed.

Yes, 1cc=1ml.

 

[fairysari]

yes, thanks, it is important to mention that the mixture has to be mixed fresh each time if you are using water.

1cc is one cubic centimetre, which is equal to 1mL which is one millilitre
I guess I take for granted that we learn metric measurements in school here!

I had a 1cc syringe from when one of my pigs was on bactrim. You can probably ask your vet for one, or see if you can get one from a pharmacist. They carry them as diabetic supply, but they have needles which you'll have to remove. Or maybe the pharmacist will remove them? You might want to tell them what its for so they don't think you're going to use them for illegal drugs or anything.

I think next time I am going to mix up less of the horse paste and do the mixing with 5cc water. If I keep going with the 100kg dose I will finish the tube off on this round of dosing, and I'd like to keep it around just in case!

 

[PiggieMom]

Yey Sari! We've needed one of these for a while. I'll add it to my health links.

 

[fairysari]

I guess I should also mention - a one cc syringe can be a little confusing, it is measured out two different ways. Use the side that says CC. It goes from .1 to 1.0. Don't use the side marked M that goes from 2 to 16.

 

[CBrewton5]

1cc is one cubic centimetre, which is equal to 1mL which is one millilitre
I guess I take for granted that we learn metric measurements in school here!

Heh. Dare I tell you how many math courses I had to take before I got the 4 credits in math I needed to graduate? .

Luckily my scale weighs in ounces and grams, so no problem there converting ounces to pounds. The GL site says you need to throw out the excess unless you mix with propylene glycol, which I don't have access to anyway. Does anybody have a preference between mixing with vegetable oil and mixing with water, or is it pretty much six one way half a dozen the other?

 

[CBrewton5]

Ivermectin is for treating mites....look on the first couple pages of this section and you'll see all kinds of posts about it and people asking and answering different questions on it

 

[fairysari]

Okay, well I dosed the pigs again on Tuesday. This time I did the mixing with the smaller amount, which is described on the bottom of the GL page.

So here are the pics of mixing up the smaller dose.

The syringe the ivermectin comes in has little notches along the plunger. There are four between each 100kg dose, so each notch is for 25kg of horse.
Here you can see where I left off last time:

Don't worry that the plunger is not all the way in, it seems to push itself back a little after giving the dose, but the paste goes with it, it's not all the way to the edge either:

So then you twist the stopper to the side:

And move it only one notch away, and twist it back to lock it:

 

[fairysari]

You can see it is a very small amount:

Then you only add 5 cc water. When all mixed up, it looks like this:

Everything else is the same, you just use less of the paste, so there is less waste since you have to throw it away after if you use water.

 

[fourbwabbys]

Thanks so much for this Sari! I just ordered the horse paste to treat my pigs and was worried about doing it wrong.

 

[fairysari]

I am doing the third and last dose either tonight or tomorrow. If anyone has any questions, or would like to see more pics of any particular step, let me know, and I will get some more pictures.