Skin Problems New Rescue May Have Skin Issues

Calm down! Most parasites on Guinea pigs are species specific. You mentioned lice. Those are very specifically guinea pigs and cannot be transfered to humans or other animals. Mites can be transfered but they dont like other animals and will bite us leaving itchy rashes and stuff but again no harm as they cant reporduce on us. Fleas, ticks and ringworm is another story. Ticks are easy to rule out because they are large... Ringworm is just a fungus and not an actual worm. If you ever had athletes foot or jock itch then youve had a form of the fungus... Aside from the fleas I dont think you have to fumigate anything or sterilize things. Except if you have another guinea pig that has not been exposed...If a few lice, mites fell of the animal somewhere they will die in a few days/weeks without a host. Once the piggy is treated then there will be no viable host and that will be that. I know parasites are scarry but really they arnt that big of a deal (except for fleas... YUCK) Thankfully never had to deal with that. Lice and ringworm is not a big deal. Don't do a skin scrap they are painful and often times dont come back conclusive unless they happen to get the exact place where a mite or louce is. Best bet if there is hair loss or scratching is to do 3 doses of invermectin once a week. If the itching clears up then you are good. That will take care of the fleas, lice, mites in most cases. Plus it doesn't hurt them to treat them. Many places do this just in case anyways... If you do suspect a contagen I would call the shelter and request that they pay for the meds as they were supposed to have the animals vet checked before adoption. You can buy the meds online (in some cases at stores) without a vet visit. I find it best to dose both guinea pigs just incase (unless you have a large herd and you are sure you were careful...). Good luck there is a ton more info on guinealynx.info...