Brown bugs/beetles

weepweeps

weepweeps

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I’ve been seeing a few tiny brown beetle/bugs in the piggy room recently.

They can’t be mites as you can’t see mites with the naked eye or lice as they are clear in colour.

I’ve given everything a good clean with F10 and hoovered. Washed all the bedding in the room too.

I’ll attach photos but they are very small so might not show up.

I’ve thrown away some old hay which I had forgotten about. So hopefully that will be the end of them.

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After Esme moved downstairs and before she went to her new home, we gave the piggy room a deep clean. Hub took all the pictures down to transfer them to the other wall and there were literally hundreds of tiny black / brown bugs on the back of the picture frames 🤢 I checked Esme over and she had nothing in her fur. We hoovered them up with the hoover pipe and they didn’t come back

All we can assume is that whatever they were came in on the hay and then multiplied. We not long before removed all the hay from the room

I’ll be interested to hear other peoples thoughts x
 
I sometimes get various little bugs in the living room, I'm sure they come in the hay. About once a month I do a deep clean of the cages, move the piggies to a pen in the kitchen, hoover the corex and spray everything down with F10. Move the cages and hoover under and behind them.
 
Are they what my Mum calls thunder bugs?
I just asked the internet & it says thunder bugs are thrips. (It also goes on to say they don’t pose any health risks to people and animals.)
 
The world is absolutely full of invertebrates, our homes are tiny little barren patches with very little life in them. This means that when we do get invertebrates they are very noticeable. Only a tiny tiny tiny tiny number of invertebrates are actually harmful to guinea pigs and these would all be found on the guinea pigs themselves.
In fact, most of the invertebrates found in houses have just been brought in from outside and are unlikely to survive long indoors. They certainly won’t be causing infestations. It is quite natural and normal for these creatures to get caught indoors, and most don’t actually want to be there.

Springtails for example are quite commonly found indoors, they often come in through windows or on things that have been outside. They are very small, can be fast moving and they jump around as well as usually being found in groups. This leads to them being misidentified as pests or parasites when in reality they are entirely harmless, in fact they will help to eat any decomposing matter or fungus.

So if you find invertebrates in your house, don’t panic and attempt to sterilise everything. I do understand how stressful it can be if you have had unpleasant experiences with parasites. It is quite unnecessary and is really not going to get you anywhere. If there is an infestation you will see a steady increase in numbers over a period of time, rather than just seeing them once or twice.
 
Around here our Shasta Daisies are full of them. I love to look at them up close and they are what I call them speck bugs because of their size. They are harmless to us and our pets. 🙂
 
These look very similar to the bugs we found back in September, we think it came from some hay box hay, we came home from holiday to find loads of them on the windows, we deep cleaned and it got rid of most but we do find the odd one every now and again.
 
Pantalaimon said:
The world is absolutely full of invertebrates, our homes are tiny little barren patches with very little life in them. This means that when we do get invertebrates they are very noticeable. Only a tiny tiny tiny tiny number of invertebrates are actually harmful to guinea pigs and these would all be found on the guinea pigs themselves.
In fact, most of the invertebrates found in houses have just been brought in from outside and are unlikely to survive long indoors. They certainly won’t be causing infestations. It is quite natural and normal for these creatures to get caught indoors, and most don’t actually want to be there.

Springtails for example are quite commonly found indoors, they often come in through windows or on things that have been outside. They are very small, can be fast moving and they jump around as well as usually being found in groups. This leads to them being misidentified as pests or parasites when in reality they are entirely harmless, in fact they will help to eat any decomposing matter or fungus.

So if you find invertebrates in your house, don’t panic and attempt to sterilise everything. I do understand how stressful it can be if you have had unpleasant experiences with parasites. It is quite unnecessary and is really not going to get you anywhere. If there is an infestation you will see a steady increase in numbers over a period of time, rather than just seeing them once or twice.
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Thank you. That was really helpful.
 
So I went to give the boys some forage this afternoon and a saw about 10 bugs in the tub. So maybe they came in with the forage and mated?
 
It is likely they came in on the forage, but highly unlikely they would have mated. They will have specific breeding conditions and times which your house is unlikely to provide!
 
Oh ok. Thank you. Hopefully they will be gone soon. I’m killing the ones I see and I have washed and cleaned everything else in the room.
 
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