Parasites What kind of bug/parasite is this?

It sounds like lice. Guinea pig lice are species specific--they wouldn't come in on the dog. It's always a mystery to me how they get them, but I believe some pigs may have them for quite awhile before they become a problem. Long haired pigs seem to be the ones with lice most of the time.

Lice used to be pretty common in guinea pigs. Now I rarely see them. Mostly just mites!

PS--I always have loads of ivermectin here and can treat them for you next time if you want to make a trip down here!

foggycreekcavy said:

It sounds like lice. Guinea pig lice are species specific--they wouldn't come in on the dog. It's always a mystery to me how they get them, but I believe some pigs may have them for quite awhile before they become a problem. Long haired pigs seem to be the ones with lice most of the time.

Lice used to be pretty common in guinea pigs. Now I rarely see them. Mostly just mites!

PS--I always have loads of ivermectin here and can treat them for you next time if you want to make a trip down here!

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I may take you up on that offer if I run into issues. The topical treatment and dosing sound easy, but I won't get to try until tomorrow when I get the package. I'll post my dosing and their weights on here tomorrow to double check. I get paranoid.

So weird that guinea pig lice are species specific. Why wouldn't the lice latch onto other animals? We don't know any other people with guinea pigs and I got my last pair from you all the way back in April. I feel bad that I don't know where this came from!

I know. I just can't figure it out. Although I suppose it's possible for a guinea pig to have lice all that time (since April), I haven't seen any pigs here with lice for years.

You never know, though, which is one reason I treat all newcomers!

I think I wil do some research at GL and see what comes up.

Treated all my pigs today! It was very easy peasy.

I looked at the buggers before I applied and they were more white today. Then a couple hours after I noticed a lot of dander near the bug area, but perhaps those are dead bugs. Gross.

I combed through all the other pigs hair and found nothing. Not even on the infested pig's cagemate.

The fleece got double washed while the pigs hung out in their pen. Then I washed their pen material! Hopefully any buggies on the fabrics will die easily in the wash. I used up an entire jug of vinegar!

Okay, so all of my pigs have had 3 treatments, a treatment every 7 days. Saturday they got their 3rd dose and today I found wriggly lice on another one of my pigs. All four of my piggies were being treated, but the pigs in the other cage just started showing lice.

I've been careful to change my clothes and shower after handling the pigs, double washing their fleece, etc. I can't believe I'm still seeing lice. I never saw the lice on Buttercup and Numa before. They are in a neighboring cage, but still received ivermectin. It's like it getting worse.

So do I continue with ivermectin or is now the time to get a different medicine from a vet? If I should continue with ivermectin, how many treatments max can I dispense to them? I thought typical treatment amount was 3 or 4. How many treatments would be safe to give? I'm confident I'm dispensing the correct amount per pig.

I would try something else. Revolution or Advantage. I don't know if people are using the newer Advantage on pigs yet, but you can get the original stuff, and Revolution, from Pet Shed.com .

I may have some of the original Advantage here. Let me know if you're interested and I'll look for it.

@foggycreekcavy, Can the piggie bedding be treated with a delousing agent and sealed in a bag for a couple of days before washing? (and what could be used?) I know when my human children got lice, that is what I did to their bedding and stuffed animals, and it helped delete the infestation.

Since guinea pig lice isn't the same as human lice, I don't know that a delousing agent would work. I think just a wash in hot water should be fine.

Advantage stays on the skin for a month, so any lice eggs that hatch in that time and get on the pig will die, and any lice hanging out in bedding would also die when they got on the pig.

@soopermum62 Thanks for popping in and asking that! That didn't even cross my mind. =)

I used Revolution when my poor little Sheldon had lice. It worked very quickly and I was able to bath him a few days later to get rid of the nasty dead bodies.

OOOOoo now my hair is itching !!!! Good luck hope you figure out what it is and get them GONE hehe.