Fur Mites - Hay

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Kerrie74

Kerrie74

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Hi,

has anyone had any problems with their guinea's getting fur mites while using the Ings hay from hay for pets?

I'm so fed up at the moment, I asked my son to check Snow obviously because he's white and the fact he had fur mites not too long ago, he's again got black bits down his rump, so have the himi's, can't see them on the dark guinea's. Could it be mites or dust from the hay?

Two of them were only checked by a vet for mites a couple of weeks ago and they were all clear. The are hoovered twice a day every day, fleece changed every 2 to 3 days depending on how dirty they are. We don't stress them out by constantly bothering them, I can't keep washing Snow and Storm because that does stress them out. The mite spot I have had just gone out of date as well (today)! I think today, it was brought on the 18th of March.

I know it's common for guinea's to catch mites from hay, it's just very frustrating because they had it last year, then again when we moved and now the possibly have it again. I hope it's just dust. We're going to try and give Snow a wash in just plain warm water tomorrow and then see if the black dust appears again.
 
Hi, thanks for the link but I already know about these pesky pests, as I said the boars had them last year (we didn't know until they went for an health check) and then we noticed the younger boars had them again (the white one had black dust on his rump) and had it confirmed by a vet, I then cleared them following advice from Wiebke and others. It took about hmm about 4 weeks to properly clear them, when they went to the vets two weeks ago I asked my son to ask the vet to check, he said they were all clear.

I am probably just being paranoid, but when we checked three of the light coloured boars rumps today they had bits on them, however I don't know if they are mites or if it's just dust from the hay, which is why I was asking if anyone had had any problems with the hay for pets hay because that's all I really use hay wise.

Fur mites can come from hay sadly :/ we've been told this by various people.
 
Kerrie74 said:
Hi, thanks for the link but I already know about these pesky pests, as I said the boars had them last year (we didn't know until they went for an health check) and then we noticed the younger boars had them again (the white one had black dust on his rump) and had it confirmed by a vet, I then cleared them following advice from Wiebke and others. It took about hmm about 4 weeks to properly clear them, when they went to the vets two weeks ago I asked my son to ask the vet to check, he said they were all clear.

I am probably just being paranoid, but when we checked three of the light coloured boars rumps today they had bits on them, however I don't know if they are mites or if it's just dust from the hay, which is why I was asking if anyone had had any problems with the hay for pets hay because that's all I really use hay wise.

Fur mites can come from hay sadly :/ we've been told this by various people.
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Oh dear, maybe you need to complain to Ings about this or switch hays. Have you actually checked the hay & noticed the fur mites are in? Possibly you could put it in the freezer for 24 hours. I once had some biting black insects in their dry food that I got rid of by doing this.
 
Are you wanting a clarification of diagnosis Kerrie? Are they scratching a lot? I took my trio to Cavy Corner (Doncaster) when I had problems with mites and they were very helpful.
 
They sound worse than mites! lol. No I've not seen anything on the hay, in saying that, I can't exactly check properly as I'm allergic lol.

I'm not 100% sure it is mites. I'm just asking in case so I know if I need to treat all my guinea's or not, plus we're meant to be adopting a guinea at the weekend to pair with our young boar that fell out with his cage mate.. doh.
 
Kerrie74 said:
They sound worse than mites! lol. No I've not seen anything on the hay, in saying that, I can't exactly check properly as I'm allergic lol.

I'm not 100% sure it is mites. I'm just asking in case so I know if I need to treat all my guinea's or not, plus we're meant to be adopting a guinea at the weekend to pair with our young boar that fell out with his cage mate.. doh.
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Cavy Corner took a sample ( simply by rubbing sellotape in their fur) and looked under a microscope. Apparently, some vets can do this too....
 
Hi @PiggyOwner yeah I'm just trying to find out if anyone else has had any problem recently, like in the last month, in saying that though... they went for a check up two weeks ago and got the all clear, they had the same hay then, so surely it's not mites?

Also the three guinea's that were checked sit in the hay, 2 go through the hay bag and one sits in it because he's in a temp cage at the mo (hopefully getting him neutered to go with the sows).

Like I said, I'm probably being paranoid :/

In regards to scratching, Snow has been, but when the vet checked his skin he said he had dandruff and checked it out, it wasn't mites or fungal, just plain old dandruff. His cage mate didn't have any dandruff.

Yeah it's the tape test :)
 
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