My 1 and a half month old guinea pig has mites and it has been impossible to get rid of them. Any advice?

[elenasimons]

Hello! I recently adopted a 1-and-a-half-month-old guinea pig, she is a beautiful black teddy/texcel mix.

I got her from a farm that put her up for adoption. Once I got her I noticed she had static mites so I took her to the vet and the vet provided oral ivermectin. He said that by the second dosis (7 days apart from the first one) she should be mites free.

But her second dosis was a week ago and she is still full of mites and still has white little mite/lice eggs around her ears and the top of her head. She also has a bald spot on the top of her head where you can clearly see a lot of eggs too (Photos attached) I am not sure if the bald spot is due to the mites or if she is crested piggie. Nothing is going away and I am not sure my vet knows what to do. He is the only exitic vet in my state (I live in South America). Any advice on how to proceed? any information I can show my vet to help him as well?

Since he is the only exotic vet around and he doesn't have a lot of experience with guinea pig we often investigate the issue together or he calls some colleagues to figure it out, but this time it looks like we hit a roadblock.


Note: I notified the farmer who gave her to me so they can be aware and treat their other piggies as well.
Second note: other than the mites and the eggs she seems to be a happy little piggie. She is separated from the other piggies for now due to the mites.

 

[Rinoa]

she is a crested piggie it seems. dont see scabs or anything from the image. I also have 2 crested piggies

6 of my guinea pigs got hay mites also 3 weeks ago. all aged 7 months or older. I first gave them all a shower (Davis miconazole shampoo) tried to comb out a few of them stuck to thier hair using a fine comb while wet, waited several hours for them to dry, then started ivermectin treatment (Durvet Ivermectin Pour On Dewormer 250mL on amazon. because i dont trust the paste and its difficult to measure accurately). 1st week I gave each guinea pig 1 drop behind each ear (1 on left ear and 1 on right ear) so a total of 2 drops. They all weigh around 2 lbs (5 were 900 grams, only 1 guinea pig i have is 1,100 grams). 7 days later i gave them another ivermectin dose ( 2 drops each). now the 3rd week later i gave them last ivermectin dose (2 drops each). It must have worked since i dont see them anymore. I didnt notice the mites dissapearing till middle of 2nd dose or so.

If my guinea pigs still had persistent lice i would shave them (some of thier hair not all) as a last resort to get rid of as many as i can, then give a shower (since its been days since the 3rd week) to get rid of any leftover mites/eggs. but most of them seem gone. I waited 7 days between doses but i read it can take up to 10.

If the guinea pig weighs less than 12 oz (she is baby) then its not good idea to give them ivermectin. They have to weigh a certain amount is what i read long ago.

There is a pour on ivermectin (liquid that you can put one drop on the ear) and also a paste ivermectin (paste like) but i do not use the paste or trust it since i cannot measure it correctly. I did it one time but it was too much work. The pour on was simple 1 drop (using a dropper) on each ear for my guinea pig weight.

 

[Pantalaimon]

This is really interesting as there seem to have been a number of cases of this recently. I wonder whether there are resistant mite strains becoming more and more prevalent.